2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting

Helen Smith

2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting

2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
I would like to thank the Challenger Society for a travel award enabling me to attend the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.

This conference was massive, an incredible gathering of minds circulating ideas, results and discussing the next steps in ocean science. The amount of information available was overwhelming, 3500 posters and 1500 talks all in one week, sifting through and picking the most relevant to my work was a difficult task. I generally focused on the topics of particle flux and phytoplankton. There was a particle flux workshop, which concluded that we still don’t know much about the mesopelagic processes but progress is being made. I attended a great plenary session on cephalopod work by Dr. Roger Hanlon from Woods Hole, which was not related to my work in any way but the videos of charismatic mega-fauna demonstrating 3D camouflage were fascinating.

My talk about coccolithophore and diatom distribution in the Great Calcite Belt, in the session ‘Small Bugs Big Impact’, was on the final day of the conference. It seemed to go well and I did get a couple of useful hints and tips afterwards.

I also managed to meet up with friends and collaborators from the Great Calcite Belt cruises. Alongside the social aspect it was great to talk to them face to face about the progression of work and discuss potential papers.

I enjoyed the meeting and its vast scope of science, thanks again to the Challenger Society for the travel award.

Helen Smith, NOC