What's Happening Today - Nov. 15

How are we doing? Terrific! The sonar system is giving us great views of the seafloor. We're seeing acoustic images of wonderful mounds and ridges of pillow lava lumped on the seafloor, and great tongues of lava that one can imagine whooshed rivers of lava out from the axial trough out onto the flanks of the ridge crest. This is what gets us marine geologists and geophysists excited.

As I type, all sorts of activities are bearing fruit. ABE is back together, charged and ready to go thanks to Rod Catanach, Al Duester and Andy Billings. It has been put through its paces by Dana Yoerger and Al Bradley using a battery of simulations and electrical proddings and testing. We plan to send ABE on its test dive tomorrow morning after we recover the DSL-120A sonar on completion of Line 6 early Friday.

Also, during the past 10 days, we've been anxiously awaiting word from the WHOI Alvin Group about a new viewport for Alvin. A viewport is the window that each pilot and observer look out of. It is made from acrylic plastic and there are 3 of them; one for each person in the sub. Thanks to some creative legwork by WHOI's Deep Submergence Group on shore and the WHOI Marine Operations Dept. they're planning on sending the viewport out to us using an airplane that will take off from a small town just south of Acapulco, Mexico. The plane should get to us on Saturday afternoon. The plan is to drop the viewport in a well-cushioned package attached to a parachute. We'll be waiting with the small boat to pick it up, and with cameras ready to capture what will be a first for getting needed parts out to the ship.

It's all coming together, and we're excited about launching into the next phase of our expedition - ABE dives and Alvin diving - so we can go down to the seafloor and test our ideas and models for how young volcanic crust is created at the ridge axis. Speaking of excited..., Kate Buckman has been a valued member of my last two research cruises. Here are her thoughts about being at sea.

Best Regards

Dan Fornari

As I participate in my second science cruise in three months, in my mind the most consistent and wonderful part of this experience is the passion for knowledge and discovery onboard, and the number of opportunities to learn that can be found in one spot. Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised, isn't that passion what science is about? Yet I am always pleased to find how willing everyone, science party and crew alike, is to tell me what they know and to help me grasp concepts I don't understand. Having no formal background in geology (I am a biologist) there are often many things I don't understand that some may take for granted aboard this ship. Yet I haven't met a single person who isn't excited to tell me about what they know and do. From nightly science talks, to listening to the ABE crew describe how they found and fixed problems, to chatting with my fellow watch standers, to talking with crew members over meals, to monitoring the sonar record, and to just standing on deck watching the water flow by, I am always discovering something new or finding new things to think about.

Just a few examples of what I've learned: I've learned how to interpret sonar records, how magnetics can contribute to understanding lava flows, how to clean a squid, why Alvin sinks and floats, how to build my own flashlight, what other words for milkshake exist, how to sleep for two hours and wake up feeling refreshed, what the ocean floor looks like, and where to find the extra toilet paper onboard. A lengthy list I know, but that's not even a quarter of it.

Most importantly, I've learned that I want to stay a part of a community like this. I cannot think of anywhere else where so many people passionate about science have surrounded me, and where I have learned and enjoyed myself doing it so much.

Fair Winds,
Kate Buckman

A map of a line of pillow mounds near !0°N just west of the East Pacific Rise axis (outlined in red). This area is where we started rock coring the other night. We're using the sonar imagery to map the pillow mounds (red outlines) and areas of sheet lava (greet outlines). The small yellow numbers are the targets we've selected for sampling. The yellow lines are the tracks of the sonar fish. The faint blue line is where the two sonar records have been stitched together. The ridge axis runs just east of this blue line. The gray lines are bathymetric contours in meters based on multibeam sonar data. The shallowest point on the map is the small cone at top center which is at 2564 meters depth.

Tony Tarantino, an Alvin Pilot-in-Training (PIT) and electrical tech with the group, and Christina Courcier, one of the SSSG techs., reviewing Alvin video tapes in the duplication rack in the Computer Lab.

Jenni Morgan plotting the DSL-120A sonar fish position on a bathymetric map of the East Pacific Rise crest this morning in the Computer Lab.

Carl Wood, the Steward, busy making us one of his delicious meals in the Galley.

Jerry Graham, one of the Able Seamen, chipping rust from underneath the starboard aft crane. The equipment is constantly subjected to salt spray so has to be continually maintained by the deck crew.

After he finished chipping rust and priming the metal surfaces, Jerry paints the metal surfaces to keep the rust away... at least for a while.

Tomoko Kurokawa processing sonar data in the Computer Lab.

Gavin Eppard putting the finishing touches on Alvin's basket. The gray disk in the middle is a viewport cover. It protects the window when the sub. is on deck. This viewport is the one that the Alvin pilot looks out of when he is driving the sub. The two compartments on either side of the basket (made using milk crates) will hold rock samples. The blue cooler in the middle will be used to collect both rocks and any animals we encounter. Kate Buckman is primarily responsible for cataloging, describing and preserving the biological samples on this cruise. The white tube that goes across the basket is protecting the magnetometer. This device records the detailed intensity and direction of the Earth's magnetic field as recorded in the seafloor lava flows that Alvin traverses over. The data from the magnetometer will be used by Maurice Tivey and Hans Schouten to test their models for construction of the upper ocean crust at the ridge axis.

Akel Sterling practicing for his ping-pong match.

Andy Billings and Gavin Eppard (taking a break) made a small pool in front of Alvin to test out one of the digital cameras that we hope to use on the sub. during our diving program.

Our resident collection of booby birds, roosting on the forward mast that rises from the bow of R/V Atlantis.

Bruce Strickrott, one of the Alvin pilots, shows us the damaged viewport that we are expecting a replacement for on Saturday. The geometric shape is called a frustum, it is a truncated cone that has two parallel sides. The smaller diameter surface of the frustum faces inside the sub. The larger face of the frustum is the outside of the viewport.