Our first station is located in the "Little Belt" near the Danish coast. On Friday evening, the first core came on deck. Since then we have been very busy processing more than 70 meters of sediment core. Working on the smelly (hydrogen sulfide), gassy (methane bubbles), greenish-brown mud is a pleasure!
Although the sediment cores that we took so far are not sampled in detail (there is no time for that now), we do drill small holes in the core liner to extract the porewater. Also, a small part of the sediment from each core end is studied visually by sedimentologists and micropaleontologists. Combined with results of geophysical measurements, we already have an idea of the environment of deposition of the sediment.
With the rest of the "nightshift" team, I'm gradually getting used to working from midnight to noon. There is not much time to do more than work, eat and sleep. Because we're all on different schedules, hot meals are served every 6 hours. So you can eat hot curry or pizza for breakfast!