What's Happening Today - Nov. 26

The pace is fast and furious out here. ABE is being cycled as quickly as battery charging and human endurance permit. Camera Tows and rock coring taking place when ABE is not being launched or recovered. Sonar data are being final-processed and imaged in wonderous ways by Margo Edwards and Paul Johnson. The students are still on their watch schedule helping with all facets of the data acquisition.

Sleep is a distant memory and we grab it when we can. Speaking of which, I've got to get up in a few hours to do more camera tows so I'll sign off for today and keep this short. More news and glorious maps tomorrow.

Big News: Dana had a large Mahi on the hook while fly-fishing last night... unfortunately it managed to get the better of him. Dana's gearing up for the rematch tonight!

Best Regards,  

Dan Fornari

ABE being launched this evening for Dive #59. As you can see the weather is beautiful, glassy seas and tropical sunsets - the Pacific Ocean at its best.

Kate Buckman preparing the rock corer for another trip to the seafloor to sample the glassy lava flows.

Jim Schubert, the 2nd Engineer, doing maintenence on the hydro-winch we've been using to rock core and tow the camera.

Deploying Mighty Mo the rock corer. Foreground to background: Maurice Tivey, Brooke Stembridge, Kate Buckman and Christina Courcier, the SSSG tech., who is directing the operations.

Ed 'Catfish' Popowitz, Jim McGill, Jerry Graham, and Pat Hennesy deploying the rescue boat during the drill this afternoon. Steve Eykelhoff, one of the SSSG techs., is on the next deck above observing.

Sallye Davis, the 3rd Mate, and Phil Treadwell, the 3rd Engineer, during the rescue boat drill this afternoon. They rescued a Gumby survival suit that had been tossed overboard to simulate a 'man overboard' drill.

Using long poles with hooks on the ends of them, Brook Stembridge and Andy Billings grapple for the Towed Camera THING as it is raised from the ocean after a tow.

Like a visitor from another planet..., the THING is brought on board.

Fish prints by Kate Buckman. Ex-flying fish courtesy of Dave Sims, one of the SSSG techs.

Entrail-like lobate lava flows on the seafloor imaged during Camera Tow#3. Depth was about 2600 meters, altitude approximately 5 meters and the field of view is 6.4 m wide by 4.8 m tall.

Collapse hole (lower right corner) in a lobate flow imaged during Camera Tow #3. Details same as photo above.

Another collapse feature (lower left corner) in a lobate flow imaged by Camera Tow #4. In this case the flow surface has some sediment cover and if you look closely you can see small brittle stars lying in the sediment. The collapse is interesting because even though the surface of many lobate flows makes it seem like the rock inside is solid, in fact, we know that large volumes of lobate seafloor lava flows are water filled. This has important implications for how porous the upper ocean crust is and provides pathways for fluid movement through the crust and environments where microorganisms can live in the crust. Depth was about 2620 meters, altitude approximately 5 meters and the field of view is 6.4 m wide by 4.8 m tall.

A fissure in a hackly lava flow imaged during Camera Tow #4. Details same as previous photo.