We're here on the Amundsen to study one of Canada's newest Marine Protected Areas:
Tuvaijuittuq Marine Protected Area is a marine protected area located off the northwest coast of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. The goal of the marine protected area is to protect the rich biodiversity and dynamism of the High Arctic sea ice ecosystem. Covering an area of 319,411 square kilometres (123,325 sq mi), Tuvaijuittuq is the largest protected area in Canada and among the largest protected areas in the world. It is part of a large oceanic region referred to as the Last Ice Area, located adjacent to the coasts of northern Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, which contain and accumulate the oldest remaining sea ice in the Arctic.
what's your favorite Arctic microbe? lots to choose from! we've assembled the complete genomes of dozens of microbes from the 60 billion basepairs of DNA that we've collected so far aboard the ship using Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencers. We'll use them to map the distribution of microbial biodiversity in real time!
there's probably less than 100 people on Earth at a higher latitude than we are tonight! we'll go a bit further tomorrow when we break into the ice edge, but they will be the peak. ice station tomorrow!
