Polar expedition to free the oceans from plastic

POLARQUEST2018 – SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION ON A SAILBOAT IN THE ARCTIC TO SAMPLE MICROPLASTIC, IS READY TO CAST OFF FROM ISAFJORDUR, ICELAND

Six expedition members have now joined Captain Peter Gallinelli in Isafjordur, in North West Iceland and are busy finalizing the preparation Peter's self-sufficient and sustaibnable sailboat Nanuq (polar bear in Inuktitut, as well as all the scientific experiments on board. They will be joined by the rest of the team this Friday to cast off according to plan, Saturday July 21st for a crossing of the Greenland Sea via Jan Mayen, for a quite rough high sea sailing before they reach  Longyearbyen, in the Svalbard Archipelago, the Northernmost “capital” in the world, on August 1.

The rough seas will not prevent Nanuq from starting its scientific programme right away with two of the four experiments:

• PolarquEEEst (Extrem Energy Events) Cosmic Explorer-  is going to be installed these days on board by a dedicated team from Centro FERMI and INFN Bologna, who have been busy testing the detector in iceland since Monday. This is an unprecedented program for the measurement and study of cosmic rays at polar latitudes, with a detector developed at CERN in Geneva by the Enrico Fermi Centre Rome, in collaboration with the INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics), as well as with the participation of school students from Norway, Switzerland and Italy- On bard to take care of the detectr are Alberto Rolandi, young physicists from EPFL Lausanne, and Ombretta Pinazza of INFN Bologna and CERN.

• The Nanuq-MANTANET-Microplastics sampling program under the scientific responsibility of ISMAR-CNR Lerici (IT) is also starting immediatley after departure, in the hands of Safiria Buono, who is currently busy assembling the Mantanet for sampling with calm seas and preparing the bottles for rough seas sampling.

COMMUNICATION - All the scientific activities of Polarquest2018 will be documented and shared - as much as possible - live through social networks and Polarquest2018.org website, live connections with Italian TVRAI-Uno and through the production of a documentary that will be broadcast on various international channels.

Do follow us online throuhg Italian TV, our website and our socials @Polarqest2018 and share, like and RT!!!

 And right before departure, we would like to extend  big thanks to all of our supporters in the Global Giving Network as well as our Institutional Partners and Sponsors, in particular:

GOLDEN PARTNERS.  Elysia Capital and the crowdfunding platform Global Giving, Loterie Romande, Fondation Dudley Wright Geneva.

SCIENCE PARTNERS:  Museo Storico e Centro e Ricerche Enrico Fermi, Rome, INFN, CERN Geneva; CNR-ISMAR; CNR-Presidenza; GREAL Università Europea di Roma; Società Geografica Italiana; CRS4 Cagliari.

TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS: NORBITSubsea, B&G; Survitec, Drone Capture Systems, ALLIANZ, Advanced Tracking, HAMILTON Watches, Drift + Noise Polar Services, Fly-to-Discover, EWOL, Gréments Import, Weather Dock, SPADE.

FOOD ON BOARD : Marramiero Vini D’Abruzzo; BARILLA pasta; Eli prosciutti Parma; Oleificio Andreassi Pescara; RODOLFI – Pomodoro a Parma; Caseificio Battistero Parma.

SPECIAL Thanks to: Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica Leonardo da Vinci of Milan, to the descendants of the airship crew ITALIA and to RAI Uno – La Vita In Diretta Estate  for the precious collaboration.

THE POLARQUEST2018 CREW !

Links:

• Polarquest2018 home
• Our news page
• Here you find our media coverage