What's Happening Today - Nov. 21

We recovered ABE last night after it had completed a nearly 23 hr. dive (#56). It's been truly fantastic seeing the detailed surveys that it accomplishes while we are off doing other work. The efficiency of doing deep submergence science this way (having multiple vehicles collecting data at the same time), plus the incredibly accurate and stunning portrayals of the seafloor topography that ABE and the DSL-120A sonar produce, represent the wave of the future in oceanography. As I type the ABE data are being reduced and the batteries charged so it is ready to go back to work on the seafloor tomorrow evening. Right now we have the sonar fish back in the water and collecting more data to expand our coverage.

Big News Today - The deep sea digital camera worked GREAT!

Thanks to the many folks on board who helped make this possible Al Duester who figured out the tricky wiring to get the camera to trigger the deep sea strobes, Tony Tarrantino who helped with the wiring and junction box, and Andy Billings who took the tripod frame I had used in the past for time-lapse deep sea photography and turned it into fly-able deep sea camera.

After several frustrating hours solving different problems related to the camera and the hydro winch, we finally put the camera system over the side around 3:30am this morning. It took pictures every 15 seconds as we towed it at about 1/3 knot speed at an altitude of only 5 meters above the seafloor.

It came back on board after about 3 1/2 hours as the storage capacity on the camera is only 500 MB, but even so, we hoped to get about 400 photos of the seafloor lavas. Bleary-eyed I washed the camera down, vented the batteries and then held my breath as I accessed the camera's computer hard drive from my laptop computer. The first good indication was the 'No Memory' warning on the camera's drive - that meant it took pictures. Then it took nearly an hour to access the drive because of the more than 700 files on it and another hour to download them all to my lap top's hard drive. Finally, I held my breath as I clicked on an image - there in beautiful clarity was a mound of lobate and pillow lavas. The image was spectacular.

I must mention the significant shore-side support we've gotten to help get this camera to function autonomously and using strobes for lighting. The camera belongs to and was developed by Dr. Ian Macdonald of Texas A&M University, and much of the engineering was done by Mr. Mark Roberts of Engage Technology in Gig Harbor, WA. Thanks guys for the terrific support and timely responses to all our questions.

OK, on to the photos.

Best Regards,

Dan Fornari

Ken Sims (left), Maurice Tivey (center) and Hans Schouten in the Main Lab.

Rod Catanach and Andy Billings (behind the frame) setting up the deep sea digital camera that we put together out of spare parts in the past few days.

The camera system being lifted off the deck early this morning as it was deployed from the starboard side of R/V Atlantis.

The camera going up and over the rail. Dave Sims, the SSSG tech directed the operation (he's behind the camera fram with his hand up giving signals to the winch operator). Akel Sterling is helping to steady the frame.

Michelle Cooper during the camera launch. Hard hats and work vests are the correct attire for deck operations on R/V Atlantis.

The camera system as it looked on recovery this morning after the tow. The orange boxes are the deep sea batteries. The strobe heads are on the ends of the horizontal bar that goes across the frame. A 12 kHz pinger mounted to the right of the batteries sends a sound pulse that gets reflected off the seafloor and allows us to monitor the altitude of the camera. The digital camera itself is mounted vertically, directly below the battery boxes.

Recovering the camera system this morning. Dave Sims (center) is directing the recovery. Gary Austin is at left and Dan Fornari is at right holding the tag lines. In this photo, you can see the digital camera head below the batteries, just to the right of Dave Sims' left shoulder.

Sunrise this morning.

This photo and the next two are examples of the photographs taken by the digital deep sea camera this morning on the east flank of the East Pacific Rise crest near 9° 50'N, about 1 km from the axial trough. The altitude of this photo is about 9 meters. The collapse pit seen at upper right appears in each of the next 2 photos but from a lower altitude. Note the deep sea anemone in the upper right corner of the photo.

Deep sea photo from 7 meters altitude, same area as the previous photo. The morphology of these flows are called 'lobate' lava.

Same area as previous photo but from 5 meters altitude.

Smooth surfaced lobate lava flow at a depth of ~2550 meters photographed this morning. There is a dusting of sediment on the flow surface which is located about 1 kilometer from the axial trough. Many of the bright white spots are sparkles of strobe light reflected off the glassy lava surfaces