michaelpenston
Written 25 posts
Cetaceans
3rd August 2011
In a glassy sea with a long unpleasant swell below leaden skies, we were treated to the sight of a medium sized Minke whale, and some common dolphins. That coupled with the large flocks of seabirds (mainly fulmars and gannets) sitting on the surface made the job in hand, i.e. sampling, all the more interesting. Some…
Stonehaven publication
28th July 2011
A study undertaken to assess whether there is in an inshore to offshore gradient in the biological, chemical and physical parameters near Stonehaven on the north east coast of Scotland has recently been published (click here).
Local Wildlife
19th July 2011
I recently blogged of swarms of jellyfish occurring in the waters east of Stonehaven during summertime. Well, not only can masses of jellies shut down a power station (e.g. Torness Power Station at the end of last month), but they can also cause ships to have downtime too. Whilst out monitoring today the crew and…
Stonehaven Sampling 27th June 2011
27th June 2011
The seascape was monochromatically grey today. The only relief from the shades of grey were the distant green fields on the land and the occasional pink patches in the sea caused by dense aggregations of jellyfish.
Jellyfish
16th June 2011
Occasional jellyfish were spotted during sampling this week reminding us that they will be getting more and more abundant as the water warms over the summer (see photo of lots of jellyfish in the sea near Stonehaven last year). Some reports suggest a global increase in the abundance of jellyfish. The EU funded project EcoJel…
The Big Bang
18th March 2011
Possibly not ‘The’ Big Bang, but that is what the event was called! Marine Scotland Science’s John Dunn recently went to London to the Excel centre in London’s Docklands as mentor for the lab’s Nuffield student of last year (Katie Forbes) at The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair (UK’s biggest single celebration of science…
Not Just Inshore…
11th March 2011
As well as providing data on the inshore environment, the ecosystem monitoring programme also collects data in the offshore environment. A poster, entitled ‘Variability of physical and biological properties in the Faroe Shetland Channel between 2000-2009: results from a long-term monitoring programme and model data’ will be presented at the Decadal Symposium in Santander, Spain…
ICES/NAFO Decadal Symposium Update…
1st March 2011
Five Marine Scotland Science abstracts, using data gathered at the east and west coast ecosystem monitoring stations, have been accepted for the ICES/NAFO Decadal Symposium, May 2011. Below are the accepted titles and the associated author lists. Spain here we come! (abstracts listed in no particular order) 1) Emerging patterns from time series of plankton sampling off the…
Pseudocalanus
23rd February 2011
Pseudocalanus was the most abundant copepod in the plankton sample collected at Stonehaven 8th February 2011. Although I dare say there is nothing common about this particular individual once you appreciate the rainbow corona at its anterior (front) end -likely an artefact of the photography 🙂
Kinetically Stormy, Biologically Calm
21st February 2011
A frothy Stonehaven shoreline (Photo: J. Dunn 21/02/11) On the surface the sea may look stormy, but biologically speaking, this is the period of calm before the storm! At this time of the year, there is very little phytoplankton or zooplankton in the water. Just around the temporal corner, the primary and secondary productivity of the…