People of the Bubble

The people of the bubble are an interesting bunch. Despite their outward friendly appearances they are masters of their domains and rule with an iron fist once contained within a trace metal environment.

KristenTyler

Randi- Sporting "super safety gear"

Trace metal chemistry can be a nightmare at sea. Trace metal oceanographers look at very small amounts of metals and their associated ligands, biological components etc. These amounts are often in the nano to pico molar range of concentration. Considering the ship is a big tub of Iron sometimes this is very difficult. To combat these things trace metal peeps, often construct what is known as a "bubble". Bubbles are basically plastic enclosures that house the trace metal people and their machinery they use to detect the metals in the water fractions they sample. Bubbles are built on wooden frames suspended from the unistrut frames in the lab and have positive air flow with special filters to keep any metal dust from coming in. On our ship there is also a bubble constructed within a "van". A van is basically a big shipping container that serves as a mobile lab that can be placed on deck. We have two vans on board. One for trace metal work which Tyler lives in (the trace metal van) and the other for radioactive isotope labeling (the rad-van) of primary productivity samples.

The entrance way to the TM van. Strip off anything metal which is possibly a contaminant and deck shoes here.Walk across a sticky mat which gets the "debris" off your feet and put on some plastic shoes.

Laminar flow hoods provide the protection for the sensitive bench instruments. This is the Randi and Tyler TM van and they say who is good to visit and who is too rusty to come in.

The large bubble Kristen likes to live in within the main lab.

Inside the bubble.
More inside the bubble. If there is metal in the bubble it is specially coated or composed so nothing becomes airborne.
Artwork on the outside of the bubble becomes more prominent after late night sampling. Compliments of the bag of sharpies now taped to it.

Trace metal samples are sometimes taken from special bottles called "go-flo" bottles. They are free of any metals that might leech into the water and have teflon coated metal where it is unavoidable. In addition they are lowered on a special spool of metal free rope. Using a steel cable like that used for the CTD can result in a spike Iron of two orders of magnitude greater in seawater. GF bottles are neat in that they are pressure sensitive and will not open until the bottle has reached a depth of generally 5 meters. This minimizes contamination from on deck operations or the air. When a desired depth is reached a teflon device called the messenger is dropped down the special line suspending the bottle. When it contacts the switch on the bottle the bottle fires and is closed, sampling the water depth desired. From here the bottle can be brought to the surface and stowed in a wooden mount box where aliquots can be decanted off. Samples are then taken to the proper clean room for processing.

The Go flo is prepped.
Kristen manning the line to keep it spooling correctly and keep it from contacting metal on the ship.
Attaching and sending the messenger down to trigger the go-flo bottle.
The go-flo arrives on the surface with the messenger closed.