Marine

  • Sampling Zooplankton

    15th December 2010 by

    Plankton consists both of plant and animal organisms, ranging in size from a few micrometers (thousands of a millimetre (mm)) to a few centimetres or larger. Generally speaking, the plant plankton (phytoplankton) are smallest, and zooplankton tends to be bigger, although they still span a wide range of sizes, which may appear small to us as...

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  • Bongo nets

    14th December 2010 by

    Bongo nets (one with 68 and the other with 200 micron mesh) being deployed on a pristine, sunny winter day in Loch Ewe (13/12/10). (Photo: P. Maclachlan) It sure looks pretty out there, but we’re told temperatures were -0.8 degrees Cecius (13/12/10). We hope there was plenty of hot tea to hand for the samplers! 

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  • Marine Scotland Interactive on Twitter

    9th December 2010 by

    Now you can follow this blog and new data products from Marine Scotland Interactive (MSI) via twitter. Tweets will be automatically issued when there is a new blog post, and we will also notify followers when we make changes to the MSI web pages. Our twitter feed can be located at http://twitter.com/MSS_Interactive.

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  • Calanus poster

    9th December 2010 by

    One of the Marine Scotland Science posters that was to be presented at the MASTS conference in November 2010 (which was cancelled due to weather) describes some of the data collected at the coastal monitoring sites. It describes patterns in the abundance of Calanoid copepods which are important in marine ecosystems, particularly as food for...

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  • MASTS

    23rd November 2010 by

    The MASTS (Marine Alliance for Science & Technology Scotland) Annual Science Conference takes place in Oban at the end of this month. Included amidst a wide programme, presentations will be made on monitoring results from Stonehaven and Loch Ewe. More details will follow shortly…

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  • Collection of water samples at known depths

    16th November 2010 by

    A Van Dorn Bottle (see photo) is used to collect water samples from discrete depths. The water samples collected using this apparatus are analysed for silicate and the nutrients; ammonia, nitrate and phosphate.

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  • Tail-end of Hurricane Tomas

    12th November 2010 by

    The high winds that have hit the UK this week are likely to be related to the tail-end of Hurricane Tomas which has been reeking havoc in Ireland. It is Friday today, the winds have dropped and the sea state has improved, however, due to technical problems at Stonehaven harbour, Temora is trapped in the inner harbour...

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  • Gales

    8th November 2010 by

    SE winds of over 30 mph are forecast today and later in the week. A close eye will be kept on the weather (see photo of conditions today) this week in an effort to spot a window in which the sampling can be undertaken.

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  • Snow on the mountains in the hinterlands of Loch Ewe

    1st November 2010 by

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  • et al.

    26th October 2010 by

    Definition: et al. = and others. Similar to an ice berg, there is a lot more beneath the surface of the coastal monitoring! The coastal monitoring of the plankton biologists (see previous post) is mutually supported by teams of technicians, oceanographers and chemists.

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