Trace metal water column samples collected on the SIPEX II voyage of the Aurora Australis

Brief description

This dataset will be comprised of measurements taken from trace metal water column samples collected during the SIPEX II Antarctic marine science voyage in 2012. In its current form no sample analysis has been performed. The dataset simply contains the log sheets for the Trace Metals Rosette (TMR) deployments as well as the output files from the TMR software (General Oceanics). Water samples for dissolved trace metal measurements were collected from the surface (15m) down to the 1000m using an autonomous intelligent rosette system (General Oceanics, USA) specially adapted for trace metal work and deployed on a Dyneema rope. The rosette was equipped with 12x10-L Niskin-1010X bottles specially modified for trace metal water sampling. This system has been successfully deployed on the RSV Aurora Australis during voyages au0703 and au0806. Care was taken to avoid any contamination from the ship and the operating personnel. Water samplers were processed aboard under an ISO class 5 trace-metal-clean laminar flow bench in to a trace-metal-clean laboratory container on the ship's trawl deck. All transfer tubes, filtering devices and sample containers were rinsed liberally with sample before final collection. Samples were then drawn through C-Flex tubing (Cole Parmer) and filtered in-line through 0.2 micron pore-size acid-washed capsules (Pall Supor membrane, Acropak 200). Filtered and unfiltered samples were collected in acid-cleaned 125ml Nalgene LDPE bottles for analysis of dissolved trace metals. Samples were also collected for the determination of stable isotopes of nitrogen and carbon. As well, filtered samples were taken for macro-nutrient analysis in the lab (2 small vials per Niskin, frozen). Regular sampling depths were as follows: 1000m, 750m, 500m, 300m, 200m, 150m, 125m, 100m, 75m, 50m, 30m, 15m. At a subset of the SIPEX II ice stations, filtered samples were also collected for Iron(II) analysis aboard the ship by Christina Schallenberg (in the trace-metal-clean laboratory container), and unfiltered samples were collected for analysis of mercury and methyl-mercury by Caitlin Gionfriddo (caitlingio@gmail.com).