Eric Schall Gathers Plankton in the Gulf of Mexico

Eric Schall, a graduate student in the Department of Oceanography and sophomore biology major Chris Ordeneaux boarded the Nancy Foster Research ship last October for ten days of research and learning.

“It was a joint mission with NOAA and the National Marine Sanctuary,” Schall said. “It was really exciting for my first time around. There were lots of drills and training on the first day.”

Schall’s goal was to use living plankton to learn about their fossilized ancestors, all in order to gather details about the conditions of the climate of the last twenty thousand years.

“We use the plankton to try to get an idea about the climate, but since all of the plankton from that time-period are fossilized, the only way we could tell what species they were is from their physical attributes,” Schall said, “I looked at some of the living plankton that are related to the fossilized ones to try and identify them.”

In order to gather the plankton, Schall had to be trained on how to operate the crane that pulled the Bongo net, which was towed behind the boat.

“All of the scientists from the different organizations were there for their own research, just like us. So they told us we should learn to run the equipment, too,” Schall said.

The two other agencies represented on the ship: the National Marine Sanctuary and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were attempting to assess the coral reef and map the area, respectively.

“Several of the scientists from the different agencies were graduates of Texas A&M and Texas A&M Galveston,” Schall said, “And one of the lieutenants had been a member of the Corps.”

The ship itself, the Nancy Foster, had been a torpedo test ship at one time.

“It was my first time really out on a ship. It wasn’t huge, but it was like 60 meters. It was really cool the way it was converted from a torpedo ship to a research ship. What used to be the torpedo bay is now a lounge,” he laughed. “The whole thing was a pretty good experience, I got to work with a lot of people from different agencies, and that really made it exciting.”