by Liane G. Benning
As one of 3 @DeepPurpleERCSy PI’s I can only say that I am extremely glad that the summer 2021 DEEP PURPLE field season has finally started!
In 2020 we had 7-8 people in camp and did some great science. We knew that in 2021 we would hire a whole slew of new ECR’s, who will shape the science focus for the rest of the DEEP PURPLE grant duration. We also hoped that maybe humanity would behave and COVID would not still be with us in the summer of 2021, but hope is a good thing.
Nevertheless, in October 2020 we decided to have a ‘bigger, stronger and more ambitious’ summer 2021 season. Deluded, I know, but we wanted to let a large team of eager scientists loose to test our hypotheses and fulfil the science dreams for which @Alex, @Martyn and I (@Liane) were awarded the @ERC Synergy grant DEEP PURPLE.
Below some of my thoughts of how a bunch of DEEP PURPLE ‘minions’ planned and organised a massive summer field season.
Looking back, I often wondered what made us believe that it would be a good and feasible idea? The answer is actually rather simple! We had no choice!
We hired a fantastic and highly diverse group of ECRs from all over the world and each and every one of them came up with brilliant fieldwork plans to address various aspects of our research questions … so we simply had no choice. We had to do it !!
Figure 1 DEEP PURPLE ‘minion’ PIs: (from left to right) our supreme Welsh primo leader Martyn Tranter, the unashamedly European, yet of German descent puzzle master Liane G Benning, the Brazilian/Swedish superstar Alexandre Anesio and our Danish, sword wielding camp master Lasse Twiggs Degn in the appropriate DEEP PURPLE PI attire
Figure 2 The multinational and diverse DEEP PURPLE ESR and PI team are ready to get going for the 2021 field season in Greenland!!
We started with plan A, changed that to plans B, C, D ….. and after ~ 8 months of discussion and changes we are now at plan Q or so. We all know that once on the ice the conditions will force us into plan Z+++++, but we are all prepared for that (well almost all !).
So how did we manage to pull it off?
Well, we have not yet, but DEEP PURPLE team 1a (of 5 teams) is already in Greenland and team 1b just departed Copenhagen airport. Teams 2, 3, 4 and 5… will follow in 5,10…etc days.
Part of the DEEP PURPLE team 1 did a reconnaissance flight yesterday to establish base camp location and to test field communications.
Figure 3 (a) Reconnaissance flight was used to establish base camp location for DEEP PURPLE 2021, test drone and communications via Garmin and Satellite phone - all worked and we are ready to go (map sent as text via Garmin by @Rey Mourot)
Figure 3 (b) Selfie of the reconnaissance crew (Joe Cook, Martyn Tranter, Eva Doting, Rey Mourot and Pilu (pilot from
https://www.sermeqhelicopters.gl/) at the
DEEP PURPLE 2021 field base camp enjoying the sunshine and assessing conditions for deployment. (photo copyright
@Rey Mourot)
Figure 3 (c) Drone image of
DEEP PURPLE base camp area in S Greenland; note helicopter at bottom left side for scale (photo provided by
@Joe Cook)
So what did it take to make this happen? Here some of my thoughts. I am sure Martyn, Alex, Lasse and the whole team have their own stories.
It all started in our weekly DEEP PURPLE PI discussions. We first agreed on the maximum number of people to have in camp at one time; we started with maximum of 10 people, raised it to 12 … and ended up with maximum 16 people in camp, a total duration of the field season from door to door of 50 days and a total of ~ 570 people days in camp. Let the science rule!!.
With such a big and complex camp, there were many possibilities of how to achieve / manage this, giving everyone enough time to fulfil their science objectives, while remaining within the camp size limits and allowing for changes due to weather etc etc. Planning such a camp needed several puzzles to be solved simultaneously, some of which are briefly shown below. Luckily, having a somewhat anal but organised puzzle-loving German among the PI’s was not a bad thing (the alternative would have been a Welsh or Brazilian ‘organised’ camp!)
So, in early 2021, I started assembling a constantly changing plan and after many, many, many, many, permutations / discussions / changes the current plan foresees 6 consecutive, yet overlapping teams, who will spend a total of ~ 570 people-days in camp.
Figure 4 How to put 27 people in a DEEP PURPLE camp for field work, while not surpassing 16 in camp but giving all the needed on-ice time for the research (Liane G Benning, puzzle no 1 version xx)
To do our work on the ice, we will have 4 lab tents filled with loads of loads of science gear from microscopes to drones and from pumps to pH meters, cryp-shippers etc. etc. (~ 90 boxes and cases worth of it). All this will be powered by a big solar array and two wind turbines. We also thought hard about the fact that our ~570 days on ice also equates to ~ 570 ‘crap’ days on the ice, so our Teams WikiCrapia channel had some – to say the least – interesting suggestions/discussions on this subject.
Figure 5 To allow all our DEEP PURPLE samples to be preserved well we came up with a rotating cryo-shipper schedule (Liane G Benning, puzzle no 2 version xx)
Finally, in camp, each team member will sleep in their individual tent, but we will all cook and eat together in a large mess tent in which we will consume ~1000 kg of food. To make the camp run smoothly, besides tent relocations, day-to-day logistics and keeping power going etc., we also have a camp ‘chores’ rota with daily-designated duties for everyone from preparing breakfast or dinner, washing dishes, fetching water and all the way to the dreaded ‘crap’ job! Ignoring or not doing ones scheduled chores results in automatic assignment of additional ‘toilet-cleaning’ duties! Thus I am sure everyone will do their duties 😉.
Figure 6 DEEP PURPLE summer 2021 camp chores schedule (Liane G Benning, puzzle no 3 version xx)
Only fair play and teamwork will make our camp plans possible, but with this excellent team of people we, the PIs, will be able to just sit back, relax and enjoy camp life in the sun with a nice whiskey or gin and tonic while the camp runs itself like a dream and the science happens 😀
Many more details about how we managed to get here and how we pulled it off once on the ice will come via further blog posts on the DEEP PURPLE website (see already the brilliant RISO ECR preparation blog). Thus, stay tuned and follow us on Twitter.
