Frazil Ice Windrows

Bucket Brigade--Sampling Slush from Frazil Ice Windrows

The sea was lined with rows of slush. “Windrows” Andrew explained to me, 

“occur when the wind blows in the same direction as the current.” 

The surface of the sea has slushy “Frazil Ice” and it aggregates 

(or clumps together) to form the rows (you can look up “Langmuir Circulation”

 to learn more). Winds were 25-40 knots all day and the windrows were abundant. 

“Let’s collect the slush!” Rob Dunbar shouted out. “Agreed! We can look at 

particle aggregation/consolidation and see if windrows contribute to vertical 

flux events!” shouted another scientist. It was a spur of the moment decision. 

People scattered to find bottles. “How do we collect it?!” someone else asked?

 “We can cut the top off a jug and just fish for it!” suggested Rob. 

“This has never been done before, but we can improvise!” remarked Jamee.

 Within minutes a team assembled and the “Bucket Brigade” took action. 

At first, Tom Purcell (ASC staff) attempted “fishing” for slush

 using the ole pail method: 

But as you can see, the bucket just flopped on the surface and collected nothing.

Eventually a contraption was made and slush-water, as well as clear-water,

 was successfully captured. 

I created a 3 minute video capturing the mayhem of the Bucket Brigade 

(this is only my second video ever created and I am no Stevette Spielberg, 

so forgive the choppy slap-job). 

[Insert Video Here when back in internet land..wahhh cannot find 

video in my saved files at this moment]

This collection method is bizarre, yet effective.