What an Oceanographer Looks Like

Thank you to those who wrote in with what you envision as an “oceanographer”!

I’m pleased to report that not everyone believes we’re crusty visages of Gorton’s Fishermen, although a number of you do…

“An Oceanographer wears a bright yellow rain suit at all times because the seas are always angry and covered with rain storms.” – my brother*

Other popular ideas were:

windblown hair

leathery skin

salty

Jacques Cousteau

The good news is: you’re all right!

The bad news is: you’re all wrong!

Oceanographers looks so many different ways, it’s impossible to have 1 description. So here are some of us at work fitting (and not fitting) your visions. Many thanks to Brett Longworth (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute), Bettina Sohst (Old Dominion University), and Katlin Bowman (Wright State) for letting me use some of their photographs!

[Clockwise from 11:00] Cheryl Zurbrick (me! UC Santa Cruz) rigging lanyards on the carousel “Carlson”; Brian Peters (Stanford) getting ready to recover Rosie the rosette at night; Susan Becker (Ocean Data Facility/ Scripps) sampling seawater from Rosie; Marty Fleisher (Columbia / LDEO) recovering a “core” of seafloor sediment; Patrick (marine tech) and Rob Sherrell (Rutgers) deploying Carlson; Melissa Miller (ODF/Scripps) and others deploying Rosie; Greg Cutter (Old Dominion University) driving the winch in a squal; Brett Longworth (WHOI) taking care of his helium samples; and Saeed Roshan (RSMAS/U Miami) carrying a GoFlo bottle.

 

[left to right] Leo Pena and Marty Fleisher (both Columbia / LDEO) sampling water; Sara Rauschenberg (Bigelow) collecting oxygen-sensitive samples in a syringe; and Claire Parker [foreground] and Cheryl Zurbrick (me! both from UC Santa Cruz) collecting seawater.

 

[Clockwise from 12:00] Sara Rauschenberg (Bigelow) preparing plankton samples for viewing; Joe Resing (U Washington/NOAA PMEL) analyzing aluminum and manganese in the seawater; Brian Peters (Stanford) getting ready to take oxygen samples from the water; Rob Sherrell (Rutgers) photographs his plankton samples while Sarah Nicholas (U Minnesota) looks on; Gretchen Swarr (WHOI) analyzes mercury in the water and air; Maria Nielsdöttir (Old Dominion University) analyzes iodide and iodate; Cliff Buck (Skidaway) gets ready to leach aerosol samples; and Jim Happell (RSMAS/U Miami) analyzing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and inorganic carbon.

[left to right] Chris German (WHOI, Co-Chief Scientist) waiting to log data from Rosie’s seawater samples; Dan Ohnemus (WHOI/Bigelow), Erin Black (WHOI), and Chris German (WHOI) recording data from the CTD and deciding what depths to sample at; and Jim Happell (RSMAS/U Miami) and Melissa Miller (ODF/Scripps) enjoying the sunshine while waiting for their deck op to begin.

* My brother wins the prize for description that made me laugh the most – full text as follows:

An Oceanographer wears a bright yellow rain suit at all times because the seas are always angry and covered with rain storms. They speak normally, but the "r" in all words is drawn-out slightly. An homage to Blackbeard most likely. When not collecting samples of never before seen microbes and crabs that somehow live in the middle of the ocean, they film episodes of deadliest catch. The same crabs have been used in the last 3 seasons of the show because the oceanographers have trained them to go into their cages when the theme song to Mary Poppins plays and to come out when winked at. It is also a little known fact that the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World commercials are filmed during oceanography expeditions. No, not trips, not voyages...expeditions.