February 2, 2004
After
the high excitement of the Patriots winning the Super Bowl last night
(congratulations to Ryan Perfit, Mike Perfit and Patrick Hennessy for
winning the ship's score-pool), the sea state also kicked up a bit as
we traveled further south and encountered currents running against us
instead of with us, as they had been down the Baja coastline. This means
that our speed has decreased from 13 knots down to about 10.5 knots but
we are still scheduled to arrive on site around 1am Tuesday morning -
tomorrow. The temperatures are also heating up; today the air temperature
is 79†F (~26†C) and humidity is 78%. This has made things more comfortable
in the main lab where the highly efficient air conditioner had been blasting
out subzero air that required a sweater and a pair of jeans.
Able-bodied
Seaman, Ken Kenerson, and Second Mate, Peter 'PJ' Leonard, on the Bridge.
Ken and PJ work the 12-4 watch.
Preparations
for our arrival at the first dive site continue in earnest. The Alvin
Group is busy doing pre-dive checks and making sure the basket at the
front of Alvin will be set up correctly for all the equipment that will
be deployed on the first dive.
Tony
Tarantino, an Alvin Pilot in front of Alvin
Apparently they are having trouble with one of the mechanical arms and Alvin pilot Pat Hickey suggested tying a grad student to it as a replacement!
After an intense afternoon of five consecutive meetings, the track lines
for the first five camera tows and three Alvin dives have been set. The
first camera tow will be at 9†53.5N where we plan to “fly”
over the rift axis and then head into an area of off-axis pillow lava
mounds. Samples of glass recovered by wax-covered balls that drop from
the towed camera will provide chemical information about lava geochemistry
and volcanic relationships.
Side
Scan sonar from a previous cruise showing the camera traverse to be done
on the first tow.
On the side scan we can see that the rift axis is made up of many closely spaced faults and fissures, surrounded by relatively smooth looking lava flows. The pillow mounds away from the axis are of particular interest to Mike Perfit. Mike knows from previous data that were collected in this region that some samples away from the ridge axis are much younger than the lava surrounding them and younger than expected based on the rate the crust spreads. This means that they were not erupted at the axis, instead magma may have forced its way up through a fissure and built these pillow mounds away from the main axial magma chamber. If we retrieve some good glass samples from the wax balls on this tow Mike will be able to understand more about the source of this magma and how they have cooled and evolved. If they are chemically evolved it could mean they were erupted after the magma chamber had already been spewing out lava for a while or that they came from a cooler part of the chamber.
Vicki
Ferrini practices yoga at her computer in the Main Lab.
Tonight Mike will be entertaining us with his seminar titled “Lava
Rock and Roll”. Then the watches will begin for the scientists and
a few of us will have the pleasure of staying up all night to run the
camera tow.
Another Missed Birthday wish from Javier Escartin to his mother.