03/04 | 03/05 | 03/06 | 03/07 | 03/08 | 03/09 | 03/10 | 03/11 | 03/12 | 03/13 | 03/14 | 03/15 | 03/16 | 03/17 | 03/18 | 03/19 | 03/20 | 03/21 | 03/22 | 03/23 | 03/24 | 03/25 | 03/26 | 03/27 | 03/28 | 03/29 | 03/30 | 03/31 | 04/01 | 04/02 | 04/03 | 04/04 | 04/05 | 04/06 | 04/07 | 04/08 | 04/09 | 04/10 | 04/11
Today was a day to get oriented to the ship. We started the day with a talk by Bob Wilsson, who is the resident tech about safety. He explained to us what to do in the event of a person going overboard or a fire on board the ship.He also explained to us that we would have a lifeboat drill later and what was involved in that. Most of the rest of the day was spent learning were everything is on the boat, and taking pictures that can be put on the website. I am getting to know everyone on the ship and what they do.Ê Bob is the person on the ship that acts as a go between for the crew and the scientific team. He is a good person to know, because he can help with any problem you may have.Ê Another important person that I met today is Marc Silver who is the computer tech. He is going to set us up so that we can send, and receive email. He also helps the scientific team with any computer related problems. I have also met the chief engineer, the captain of the ship, other members of the scientific team and many other important people. It has been a very exciting day! Rick, Homer and I are thinking about a plan of what we want to accomplish and when we want to do it. There are so many options that we are just trying to get organized, and come up with a plan of attack. We also got our watch schedules, and I have been assigned the 8 to 12 shift. That means that I will work 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and then again 8:00 pm to midnight.This schedule will change each week, but we will always work two four-hour shifts.I am not sure exactly what I am going to be doing, but I have been told that it will all be explained to me on my first shift. One of the most important things done today is that they launched the HMR-1. This machine is towed behind the boat and it is mapping the ocean floor beneath us. This information will help the chief scientist decide where we are going to sample the ocean floor with the dredge on the second part of the trip.I canât wait to see what happens tomorrow!
Today started at 8:00 am with me standing watch in the science lab.Ê Standing watch on this part of the trip means you are watching the computer that is creating the image of the ocean floor from the HMR-1. We have to check the computers every 15 min. and write down how deep the HMR-1 is, how fast we are going, and where exactly we are.The HMR-1 is a very expensive machine, and it cost several thousands of dollars to run. As soon as we notice a problem, we have to tell the people that are in charge of the machine, so that they can fix it quickly. Any time that the machine is not working is money lost. After morning watch duty, we had a lifeboat drill. We had to come down to the science lab with our life vest, long pants, long sleeved shirt, and closed toe shoes. You want to be covered so that as little of you as possible is being exposed to the sun. There are lifeboats on the port side of the ship (left) and on the starboard side (right) of the ship. We were told which side of the ship we were to go to get on to our lifeboat and then they told us how launch them. These lifeboats are not already inflated, but are made to inflate when they hit the water. Inside each lifeboat, there is water, some food, fishing lines, and seasick pills. The thought is that you will have enough to get by while you wait to be rescued. I hope that that will never happen. The boat is constantly rocking, and some people are having a hard time with that. There is plenty of sea sick medicine on board, but the medicine makes you sleepy, and your mouth very dry, so that is not a great option either. I think it will take us a few days to get our sea legs and we will be just fine.
Another day at sea, and as I write this journal we are at 14.09 north latitude and 144.35 east longitude. We are travelling at 9.4 knots. 1.1 miles per hour is equal to one knot. Can you find me on the map? It seems that everyone is starting to find his or her sea legs! People are feeling better and spending more time outside their room, which is very nice.The seas have also been calm today, so that has helped those people that were not feeling so great. The most exciting thing that happened today is that we came within 5 miles of an island called Rota. It was the first land we have seen since we left Guam. Everyone went on deck to see if there were any dolphins or any other kind of sea life in the water, but we had no such luck. All we saw was just more blue, blue water. I think you would be impressed by how blue the water is, and how intense the sun is. I was only on deck for about 20 minutes without sunscreen and I got sun burned! I am not sure if I could even describe the color of the water and do it any justice at all. It is like a dark royal blue, and simply beautiful. Life on the ship for most people consists of doing their watch duty, eating and sleeping. Of course, I have the added responsibility to create something to bring back to my kids in Garland, so I get less sleep time. There are no phones for you to talk on and there is no T.V to watch. It is amazing how much time you have when you can't do either one of those things! For fun and to kill time during your watch people play board games. For the last two days there has been a serious Trivia Pursuit game going on. We do have a T.V with a DVD player, but we have not watched any movies yet. The food on the ship is excellent, so we spend quite a bit of time eating. The kitchen is open all the time so that you can go in and get cookies, ice cream, candy bars or cokes whenever you want. I am trying to control my self and not eat so much junk, but it is hard to do. Now I am off to my watch duty.
I have realized that I have gotten used to the movement of the boat. I have even learned how to walk through narrow hallways and down steep stairs while the boat is rocking. As far as the science goes we are still using the HMR-1 to map the ocean floor. We have gone over some interesting features like volcanos that are producing lava. We went over one volcano that came about 300 meters from the surface. That made everyone very nervous, because that is getting very close to the depth that could damage the HMR-1. We were all watching very carefully. The machine cost several hundred thousands of dollars, so that would be very bad if we crashed it! Right now we are just trying to find some interesting places on the ocean floor to put the dredge down. On the second half of the trip we will go back to the interesting places that we found, and put the dredge down, and bring up some rocks. Hopefully this will help the scientist find out what kinds of things these volcanos are producing. Life on the ship is becoming very routine. All the scientist on board are so excited that there are students keeping up with what we are doing. They ask me about my students all the time and they can't wait to hear from them. They want to answer questions!
Something that I have thought about today is how different marine geology is from regular field geology on land. When a geologist wants to study a particular geologic feature that is on dry land he can travel to that place and physically see it, touch it, and take samples of it. In order for a marine geologist to study a feature that is on the ocean floor it is much more difficult. First you have to get on a boat that has expensive machines that help you make images of the ocean floor, and you have to have equipment that can sample material that could be several kilometers below the surface of the ocean. Even then you are not seeing the features like you would if you were actually there. The next best thing is if you could be in a submersible like the Alvin, but that would be very expensive. Most scientists do not get to do that. I think you have to really love what you are doing to go through all of this. It is actually pretty exciting. As I was on watch today I was looking at the different formations that were appearing on the screen from the HMR-1, and something that looked almost like a snake winding its way across the ocean floor appeared. Dr. Stern got very excited about this and told me that it was a river channel. We discussed if it was possible that this area was once above water and it formed in the way any other river would form or did it form underwater. Regardless it is a feature that no one else has ever seen. At that point I realized it is a little like being a pioneer. We are seeing things for the very first time. No human has ever seen these features before. I think that is pretty cool, and I think that must be what makes marine geologist go through what they have to go through to do their science.
Today was a pretty exciting day. We came very close to another island called Tinian, and we all went up on deck to take a look. We are continuing to make our way north and we should be coming close to an island called Siapan soon. Unfortunately we are not able to stop and see these islands. We must continue on our quest to map the ocean floor. Some things that you may be interested in are the little quirks that you have to get used to when you live on this ship. First of all you have only one glass that is issued to you at the beginning of the trip. It has your bunk number on it so that you can always identify it. They also give you one cup numbered the same way. You are responsible for keeping up with these items and washing them. What happens if you lose your glass? I am not sure and I am afraid to ask. I just make sure I always know where mine is! Also, you have to make sure that you dispose of your trash in the correct container. There are two. One of these is for plastic and the other is for everything else. They get upset with you if you put something in the wrong container. Candy wrappers and juice boxes go in the plastics container because they have some amount of plastic on them. I always look very carefully before I put anything in the trash. That made me wonder what they do with the trash. Everything that is not plastic is ground up and dumped overboard once they are 30 miles out to sea. This is actually legal to do and very conservative. They do not legal have to go out as far as they do to dump. All of this material is biodegradable. Plastics cannot be thrown overboard, because they are not biodegradable. These items are burned daily in an incinerator on board the ship. This is why is so important to make sure you put the trash in the right container. When you think about it the ship is like a little floating city.
The seas are pretty rough tonight. Rougher then we have seen since we started out on this voyage. It is funny that just when you think you have got this being at sea business whooped you hit rough water and it reminds you just how vulnerable you are. I am not feeling seasick, but it is annoying being thrown around the ship. You have to hang on to something bolted onto the ship in order to stay in one place, and walking is a real challenge. I am sure that I will get used to this. One thing that has been fun for me is learning how the HMR-1 works. It takes two kinds of images. One type is called bathymetry, which shows you the depth and shape of the ocean floor. The other is echo sounding. This is more like a photograph. It shows you what the formations that you are passing over look like, but not how tall or short they are. When you put bathymetry together with echo sounding you have a three dimensional picture of the ocean floor. The way that they create these images is by sending out a ping (sound wave) from the HMR-1 and time how long it takes for the wave to go and come back. Since we know how fast sound travels in water we can calculate the distance the sound wave travel and then we know the depth of the floor in that spot. One little problem is that sound travels faster in cold water then in water that is warmer so they have to account for that. They send down an instrument that measures water temperature at the different depths as it goes down, and they discover where the thermocline is. The thermocline is the area in the water column where the water starts to become cold very quickly. Sound waves can be refracted in this spot so the HMR-1 wants to be below this area.
For echo sounding they are doing the same thing, but they are looking at how strong or loud the signal comes back. If it hits something hard like lava or a cliff face it comes back very loud, and appears dark on the image. If it hits something soft like mud it come it will appear light on the image. Anyway, another lesson learned, and I think I am going to try and get some shut eye.
Today was my Birthday, and at dinner tonight they had a birthday cake for me. It was very nice. They sang and made me blow the candles out. Of course I have had to live through lots of birthday jokes today. The seas were really bad today. We had waves that were 12 to 15 feet high. That may not sound like much, but it really throws you around on the boat. When the seas are this rough I like to stay off the deck. It gets very slick out there from the waves crashing up on deck. The boat is also moving from side to side, so I could see myself sliding right off the deck! That would not be a good thing considering the boat is moving at about 10 knots. If no one saw me go over they could be far away from me before they noticed I was missing. I will stay inside where it is nice and safe! Inside if you are sitting in a chair, and you are not holding on you may slide across the floor. When you are walking it is very hard to walk a straight line. You have a tendency to run into things!
Eating in the galley is a challenge also. You go through the line and get your plate and put it down on your table. If you have to leave to go get your drink when you come back your plate may not be there anymore. It could have slid right off the table. When the waves are this big you have to hang on to your plate and drink while you are eating. That can be difficult. Another thing that can be difficult when the waves are this high is sleeping. I have almost fell out of my bunk several times. You can just roll right off. When the waves are not that high it actually helps you sleep, because it is just a gentle rocking. It is like someone is rocking you to sleep! Even with all the hardships it is an experience that I would never trade!
Well today is much smoother sailing. The seas have calmed down just a bit and everyone is so much happier. I may not roll out of bed tonight! Today once again we cruised by the island of Saipan. I thought briefly about jumping off and swimming to the island. It looks very interesting, but I thought better of the idea! We are zig zaging our way north, so that we can map the most area that we can. Because of this we are seeing a different side of the island. We are much closer to it also. On this approach we were able to see the terraces on the island. These look like stair steps going up the side of the island. They formed from the wave action cutting, and eroding away that part of the island. These terraces are called Banzai Cliffs. During World War II Americans over took the island, and Japanese soldier instead of surrendering jumped off these cliffs to their death. I had heard that story before I came on this trip, but it was a little strange seeing the place in real life.Ê There is lots of WWII history in this area. There are lots of sunken navy ships both U.S and Japanese, because this area saw so much fighting. Many of these islands played important roles in the war. Today we cruised over a military explosives dumping ground. I thought that was a little strange. Other then that the day was pretty non-eventful. Hopefully there will be some excitement tomorrow!
Today has been a very busy day. The volcanoes that we have been seeing are coming closer and closer to the surface as we travel north. This makes the people who run the HMR-1 very nervous. They do not want to crash their million-dollar machine into the side of a volcano. The big discussion today is the fact that tonight we were going to be going over an area that looked very shallow, but there was no good reliable information of exactly how deep it was.
What they decided to do was to slow the ship down from about 10 knots to 7 knots and to pull the tow fish in a little. Then they will watch the depth on the computer very carefully. If it starts to get too shallow then they will have the captain step on the gas and speed the ship up. That does not sound like a wise thing to do, but what it actually does is make the tow fish more buoyant and it will come up to the surface some. After all of that worry it actually did not get very shallow at all, but I guess it is better to be safe then sorry.
Some of these volcanos are breaking the surface and making small, uninhabited volcanic islands. We passed by one today called Anatahan. The volcano has not erupted in a long time, but it has a huge crater that has active fumroles. If we were close we could see the little puffs of smoke in the crater. An interesting little bit of history happened on Anatahan and it goes something like this· During the overtaking of Saipan during WWII in 1944 the Japanese would use these uninhabited volcanic island to get supplies to Saipan. The U.S Navy caught one of these ships on Anatahan and sunk it. There were 30 survivors: one woman and 29 men. They were not rescued off this deserted island until 1951. A real life Survivor! The strange part about the story is that when they were found there were only 15 men left and the one woman. The men killed each other over the one woman. I think there is a moral to be learned in that story! I think it is time to retire to my bunk. I think I should have no problems sleeping, because the seas are like glass. We hardly feel any movement at all.
Tonight I went out to
the bow of the boat so that I could get a good look at the stars. There are
no lights on the bow so you have a great view of the night sky. The numbers
of stars that you can see are overwhelming. I could easily pick out Orion, Cassiopeia
and the Big Dipper. The little Dipper and Polaris were not visible because of
a very large cloud. In the city you are lucky to see one or two stars, but because
we are so far away from any city lights we can see tons. It was really spectacular.
The other incredible thing that I noticed was in the wake of the boat.
Tiny planktonic organisms were glowing in the water. They looked like little fireflies in the water, and they were flashing
a green color. As I looked out into the ocean, patches of water would just light
up with these creatures. These plankton have a physical characteristic called
bioluminescence, which was causing them to glow. Plankton are the plants and
animals in the ocean that make up the base of the food web in the ocean. Some
plankton can only be seen with a microscope and some are large enough to be
seen with the naked eye. Some still can be seen because they produce this luminescence
and actually glow in the dark! Some plankton, called meroplankton, are just
larval stages of marine invertebrates and these will eventually "grow up"
and not be plankton any more; but there are other types that will be plankton
all their lives. These are called holoplankton. The animal plankton are referred
to as zooplankton and the plants are referred to as phytoplankton.
One thing about these bioluminescent plankton is they create and interesting
food web. Because they glow they attract other critters like shrimp that actually
feed on the plankton. You would think that this is a bad thing for the plankton,
but it actually works in their favor. The shrimp are attracted by the glow,
and other larger predators are attracted by the shrimp. The larger predators
eat the shrimp and the majority of the plankton are left alone. Where there
is bioluminescent plankton, there actually is more plankton then when the plankton
are not bioluminescent. Because these creatures are so low on the food chain
they are critically important. Without them, the food web in the ocean would
fall apart, and that would be catastrophic.
One of the exciting things
that we were going to do on this leg of the trip involved Patty Fryer who is
a scientist from the University of Hawaii. She has been on another research
ship where she has been drilling core samples on some of the serpentine volcanoes
in the area. We were going to meet her ship in the middle of the ocean, and
transfer her onto our ship via a small boat called a Zodiac. There was lots
of speculation this week on whether or not this was going to work. The captain
was very nervous about doing this, because the seas were high, which might make
a transfer too dangerous in such a small boat. As it turned out that was not
the deciding factor. The drilling she is doing is going very slow and she is
not going to be done in time to come aboard. She was concerned that if she left
and came to our ship they would give up on trying to drill for her, and move
on. She felt she needed to stay and encourage them to keep on trying.
What she was going to do on our ship was to survey some of the area using
the HMR1. She feels that her graduate student that is on board will be able
to handle that job, so she is not really missing collecting any data. Her grad
student is excited, because he gets promoted to Chief Scientist for a while.
Patty's work is doing very interesting work involving serpentine volcanoes.
These structures, which are very close to the trench, are volcanoes that are
not erupting hot lava, but mud that is about the temperature of the surrounding
ocean water. What Patty is mainly concerned with is what kinds of rocks make
up these volcanoes. Because these volcanoes are so close to the trench what
is coming out of them is coming from the plate that is being subducted. This
gives scientist a good idea of what is happening to the plate as it is being
subducted. Patty is one of very few scientists studying these volcanoes. These
mud volcanoes also have very active communities that live around them, and receive
nutrients from what the volcanoes are erupting. This is similar to the communities
of organisms that live around hydrothermal vents. Although we are very disappointed
that Patty is not going to be joining us, the science will go on!
Wow! What an interesting
group of people I am working with. Some of them have accomplished amazing things
in their life. As a science teacher it is so exciting to see people that are
so passionate about science, and are actually making a difference in the way
we view the world around us. Dr. Stern is so excited about the volcanoes we
are seeing and anticipating what we are going to find when we dredge them. His
excitement for the project is infectious. Things that we discover on this trip
will help the whole scientific community better understand the process of subduction
in the Pacific. There are also very accomplished women involved in this endeavor.
This has made me think how much things have changed for women in scientific
fields and how much there still is to accomplish. Last night Dr. Stern and I
were looking at a book entitled Scripps Institution of Oceanography Probing
the Oceans 1936 to 1976. One passage in the book reflects how having women aboard
research vessels was viewed in 1949:
ã...Obviously, certain inconveniences arise when women passengers are aboard
for overnight trips on a small vessel. These are usually greatly exaggerated
however. On the other hand, our ships are not yachts; they are essentially fishing
vessels. Hence the men aboard are liable to be dirty, smelly, profane and possibly
even offensive to any women who thinks Queen Victoria's Albert was the ideal
husband. In attempting to be clean, odorless, refined and inoffensive, our crew
members, marine technicians, and scientist might possibly lose efficiency, and
the scientific work might suffer. Thus it is necessary to consider each situation
on its merits and to think up reasons whenever possible to discourage women
from participating in the work at sea.ä
The director does go on to talk about the fact that he is not for a formal ban, because that might encourage women more to want to come aboard. He was for an unwritten policy that did not prohibit, but strongly discourages women from participating. We have come a long way. Women are now very common sites aboard research vessels and many are extremely accomplished scientist. One woman that is part of the research we are doing right now is Margo Edwards. She is the director for the Hawaii Mapping Research Group, and is in charge of the HMR1. She has done incredible things in her life. She just recently returned from the Arctic where she was aboard a Navy submarine. She was mapping the ocean floor and the ice above them. She found some very interesting things that when her paper is published could change the models that we use to predict climate change. Allowing her to be on the sub was a major accomplishment. She is only one of, I think, two women ever allowed on a Navy sub. She is also one of only two women admitted into the Explorers Club in New York, because of the work she did in the Arctic. She is a pioneer in her profession and a whole model for all women trying to succeed in a male dominated profession. We will soon have an interview with her on the web site, so be on the look out.
St. Patty's day on the boat, and it passed with hardly a mention. We did have the opportunity to have a green beer at dinner tonight, but I passed. We started new watch schedules today, and I am working the four to twelve shift. That means I am working those hours in the am and pm. I suspect that waking up at four in the morning is not going to be much fun for me. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not much of a morning person. We rotate shifts every week so now I will have worked every shift. I started with the eight to twelve shift and last week I was twelve to four. Staying up until four in the morning was not easy for me either.
The big "controversy" today involved Nathan the grad student who took over as chief scientist for Dr. Fryer who could not be here. His first duty was to decide what to do with watch schedules. Would he keep the same rotating system Dr. Stern had set up, or would he make us stay on the same shift the rest of this leg? The mess hall was a buzz this morning at breakfast speculating on what we thought he would do. I personal wanted to rotate. I did not want to be stuck on the twelve to four shift. Those of course that had good watch schedules wanted to stay with them. What should a young chief scientist do? In the end he opted to stick with Dr. Stern's schedule and rotate shifts. The problems those in charge must deal with. How he copes I am not sure. I think he is going to make a great chief scientist. Today we crossed the Mariana trench for the first time. This feature in the Pacific Ocean is the deepest trench in the whole world. The southern part of the trench is where the Challenger Deep is, which is the very deepest part of the ocean. It gets no deeper anywhere else in the world. During my watch I saw it go as deep as nine kilometers. If I dropped something off the ship into the water it would take hours to hit the bottom. That is deep! The crew caught some fish today called Mahi Mahi. I am sure the cook is going to be grilling it soon. They have caught some before and it was very tasty. Some of the crew tried to talk me into letting them teach me how to gut a fish. I passed on that one. I don't think I would be able to eat fish again if I saw that. I really don't want to see what my fish goes through in order to get to my plate. I will let others deal with that.
Today started bright and early for me. I was up
at four to do my watch duty with Dr. Stern. Waking up that early was not too
fun, but once I was up it was really pretty nice. The science lab is very quiet,
and you can drink your coffee and enjoy the spectacular sunrise. One thing about
being in the tropics is that the sun rises and sets very quickly. There is hardly
any twilight. The closer you are to the equator the shorter the twilight time.
This morning as soon as we saw it getting just barely light we grabbed our coffee
and went outside. Watching the sun come up over what seems to be never ending
water is truly beautiful. There are lots of reds and oranges like the sky is
on fire. That is a pretty good way to start your day. We are continuing our
journey over the Mariana Trench, and as I look over the edge of the boat I wonder
what it must be like at the bottom. Pitch black, cold and pressure that could
crush you to bits does not sound too hospitable. Other then the spectacular
sunset the rest of the day was remarkably boring until dinner. During the afternoon
I went down to the science lab to try and find people to socialize with, but
everyone was doing there own boring thing, and no one wanted to play. The problem
with the ship is that we spend long hours being bored out of our minds, or working,
but then there are those moments that are unforgettable. As dinnertime approached
it started to become a little more exciting. Today is Sunday, which is steak-grilling
night. Everyone goes out to the fantail of the ship and the Chief Engineer grills
steaks. This is the time everyone gets together and chit chats. We are also
allowed to have one glass of wine on Sunday, so that also gets everyone relaxed.
When we came back from dinner we turned the music on in the science lab and
everyone was in a very festive mood. I had to work 4pm to 8pm, but that was
not bad. There were lots of people in the lab to talk to and everyone was having
a good time. I must go now and hit the "rack" as the old salty dogs
would say. I do have to be up by 4am!
I think I have realized that waking up at 4am
is not something I can do very easily. I do hope I can get used to this schedule.
I am not a farmer, so there is something very unnatural about getting up that
early. I did manage to roll out of my bunk and half asleep feel my way to the
science lab. It is a good thing that I have such a short commute. The stairs
to the science lab are right outside my door. Otherwise I would never make it
on time! The first thing that must be done is to make a fresh pot of coffee.
I need at least one cup before I can actually put words together in a sentence
that makes any kind of sense. We did have some excitement around 5am. The captain
called from the bridge and told us that we were going to have to change course
because if we did not we were going to run into a fishing boat. This is somewhat
of a big deal, because the chief scientist has chosen this route to map very
carefully for specific scientific reasons. Can you believe the audacity of this
little fishing boat getting in the way of our scientific endeavors! Anyway,
he was way far away and we had time to decide on a new course. We had to swing
way around him because of the things that we are towing behind our boat. We
did not want to get them tangled up in his fishing nets and end up dragging
him along with us like a piece of toilet paper you do not realize is on your
shoe. When I went up to the bridge to give the captain our new way points I
took a look at this boat. He was just a small dot of light on a huge ocean.
It is really strange that we are in the middle of the ocean far away from any
land and we see someone else out here. Up on the bridge they keep it very dark.
The captain, or whoever is on watch, lets their eyes adjust to the dark. That
gives them some amount of night vision. Just like your eyes adjust after awhile
when you are out on a dark night. If there were lights on the bridge the captain
could not see what was in the water. The worst thing you could do when you go
up to the bridge at night, or before sunrise is to turn on the lights when you
get up there. That has a tendency to get them a little upset. It takes their
eyes about 30 minutes to readjust to the dark. The good thing about changing
course is that we went over some parts of the trench that were deeper then we
had seen before. We are still processing that data to discover how deep it really
was. Who knows we could have found a place even deeper then the Challenger Deep.
We are almost finished with all the mapping and soon we will be pulling up the
HMR1, and saying good-bye to the folks from Hawaii. We will miss them.
Everyone
is getting excited about the rock dredging. Apparently that is when the real
fun starts, and the real work. We will be dredging 24 hours a day until we come
back. On Mondays we always have a fire drill and an abandon ship drill. Both
of those are different alarms. Usually we do the fire drill first and you are
supposed to meet in the science lab where the resident technician tells you
what to do. Then we do an abandon boat drill, and you are to go to your lifeboat
station. Today day they tried to trick us and they did the drill in the opposite
order. We could not be fooled! We were prepared. After the drill the crew practiced
turning on the water pumps and working with the hoses so that they will be ready
if there is ever a real fire. Hopefully that will never happen. I don't think
I ever want to have the experience of getting in a lifeboat. That was about
all of the excitement we could deal with for one day. We have to save some for
the rest of the trip! I ended my day with a sunset, but it was cloudy and not
very spectacular. I was disappointed, and came to the realization that I might
be a little spoiled.
Right now I am finishing up my 4pm watch duty
with the sounds of the musical "South Pacific" filling the
science lab. Dr. Stern is a big fan of Rogers and Hammerstein. It is amazing
how much you learn about people when you spend 24 hours a day for three weeks
with them. I feel like I have known the people on this ship forever.
Our
little group from UTD consist of Dr. Stern, Adam, Jill, Trey, Homer, and of
course Rick and me. We also have adopted Theo who is a doctorate student from
University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He came to the ship by himself, so we quickly
made him one of us. At this point of the cruise there is not much for people
do, so everyone has things that keep them entertained. Trey is a doctorate student
of Dr. Stern's and he is busy putting together a poster on the computer that
everyone can take home as a keepsake from the trip. He is a huge movie buff,
so the poster looks like a James Bond movie poster entitled "You Only
Dredge Twice" it is really very funny. Adam and Jill are both undergraduate
students at UTD in the geoscience dept. Both of them are graduating this semester
and both want to go to graduate school. They are working on a special project
for Dr. Stern on this trip. They both are also taking classes this semester,
so they spend lots of their time doing homework. It is not easy doing your schoolwork
when you can't go to class and ask questions. All they can do is read their
textbook. Jill is taking TWO advanced physics classes, so it is really difficult
for her. She has to figure out how to work all the problems without having much
help. Homer runs around making sure that Rick and I are taking pictures of everything
and editing all of our video, and Dr. Stern makes sure that all of the data
is being collected, and of course makes sure that we are all behaving ourselves.
Tomorrow
we pull up the HMR1 at 8:00 am. I will be just getting off watch so I will be
able to go out and check it out. It is a little sad seeing this part of the
adventure end, but everyone is excited about the next phase, and ready to move
on.
Throughout this cruise we have seen very little
life. From what I have been told life in this area is sparse, but as we are
getting closer to land the one thing that we are seeing are birds. Bob Wilson
who is our Resident Technician saw a flock of one hundred Bonin Petrels. These
birds are native to the Bonin Islands, which is just north of us. I have seen
a few birds, but they were too far away for me to make an identification. Bob
Wilson says that there are scientists that come out on these research vessels
just to study birds. You have to be very patient and dedicated, because most
of the time you are just sitting on deck waiting to see something. I was out
on the bow of the boat watching some birds in the distance wondering how far
they had to fly to get where they are, and thinking about how we are not far
from land but it is still not close enough that we could see it. Out of the
corner of my eye I saw something flying close to the water, but was quickly
out of site. I did notice that it has small and had red wings. I was thinking
that it was some sort of bird. It took me a while, but I did finally realize
that what I saw was not a bird at all, but a flying fish! In my defense I did
see it only out of the corner of my eye, and just for a minute. I did not know
that they could fly for that long out of water. I did an interview the other
day with the captain, and he was telling me about all of the places that he
has been, and all of the sea life he has seen. He has seen lots of whales, dolphins
and sea loins etc. I don't think that we will have much luck on this trip of
seeing anything like that, but one never knows. I will be keeping on the look
out.
What a day today. I woke up for my 4am duty and
immediately had things to do. The entire mapping is done, so we were busy printing
hard copies of the maps and putting them in books for the chief scientist. At
8:00 am the long process started of pulling in the HMR1. I think that there
was about 500 meters of cable that had to be pulled in on a wench. Each layer
of cable had to be oiled down, because the salt water causes deterioration of
the cable. The oil helps prevent that from happening. We were all standing on
the fantail of the boat next to the A-frame, which held the cradle for the HMR1,
and finally it happened. We could start to see the HMR1 come to the surface.
The Hawaii Mapping Group was busy getting things tied down and the cradle prepared,
so the HMR1 just trailed behind us. Finally the cradle went into the water and
the HMR1 was pulled up into it and brought back onto the boat. It was all quite
dramatic, and the HMRG people were thrilled that it all went so smoothly. The
sea conditions could not have been any better for the recovery. The seas were
extremely calm, and you could hardly see a ripple. If the seas had been high
recovery would have been much more difficult.
After
that was done there was still work to be done on deck. A half a kilometer of
rope that helped the HMR1 stays in place had to brought in, and put away. Theo
and Jill were on watch at the time so they got the pleasure of doing that. The
deck was very warm and there was not a cloud in the sky, so it was very hot
work. Because of all the work being done the ship slowed down quite a bit and
Homer was able to put out the net and do a plankton tow. When we brought the
bottle back in we knew that we had lots of plankton, because the water was very
cloudy. When we looked at it with a watch glass we could see tiny plankton swimming
around. We will do several more tows latter. The rest of the day was spent getting
last minute things done before we get to port. The day was topped off by a wonderful
turkey and dressing dinner prepared by our cooks. It was delicious! Tomorrow
the Group from Hawaii will be leaving and we will miss their crazy sense of
humor, but a new group of people will be joining us. I am not sure they know
what their getting into!
I woke up this morning to the lights of Apra harbor
in Guam. It was still pitch black, but it was nice to see the lights of civilization.
The HMR1 people had to pack up all of their equipment so that they could ship
it back to Hawaii. That was a huge job and took them way into the afternoon
to complete. We then said our good-byes to them and to Homer who was also leaving.
The new chief scientist who came aboard today is Sherm Bloomer, and he has decided
that we are going to stay the night in Guam. Everyone is very excited because
that means everyone is free to do their own thing until tomorrow morning at
7:00 am.
A
new group of people got on board who are students of Dr. Bloomer's. Another
professor from UTD Dr. Leybourne has also come aboard, and there are a few scientist
from Japan that will also be joining us. I decided to spend my afternoon with
some of the crew from the ship snorkeling at Gap Gap beach, which is here on
the Navy base. Contrary to its name it really is not a beach. It is basically
a bunch of boulders with steps into the water, and you have to swim about 70
yards out to the reef. The coral reef was really spectacular. It was very much
alive with very little sign of bleaching or any other kind of damage. The corals
were full of color along with beautiful fish to look at. Once I got acclimated
to the water and to breathing out the snorkel it was a completely relaxing experience
enjoying my beautiful surroundings. The water here is crystal clear, and you
can see probably about 60 to 70 feet. We followed the contour of the reef and
as we swam we would swim into shallow areas that were warm and deeper areas
that were pretty cold. As we looked out to the deeper water you could actually
see this thermal layer. We got back just in time for a delicious meal of fresh
Mahi Mahi. We had a wonderful time socializing after dinner and playing pool.
It might interest you to know that the Texas team dominated. We can not be defeated!
Tomorrow the tough work begins, so we all took full advantage of the free time,
and enjoyed our selves.
Today was the first day of dredging. The day started
with a talk from the chief scientist about what we are going to be doing for
the next three weeks. They have picked out several dredge sites from the surveying
we did last leg. Sherm also set up new watch schedules for us. Because there
are so many more people and there is so much more to do we were divided into
two groups for two different shifts. There is going to be a noon to midnight
shift, which I am on, and a midnight to noon shift. I am happy that I am going
to be working during the day. We also got a new Resident Technician named Tammy,
and she is replacing Bob Wilson. Today she has been teaching us how to put the
dredge out and how to bring it in. It is an ordeal to do both of those things
and lots of physical labor involved. It can also be a little dangerous if you
do not know what you are doing.
We
are also doing some wax cores to sample the ocean floor. The difference between
a dredge and a wax core is that in a dredge you have to put the dredge down
to the ocean floor and the boat drags it along the floor until we feel that
we have gotten a good sample of rocks. We can tell in the lab when there is
tension on the wire indicating that the dredge is getting hung up on some rocks.
This then tells us we are getting a good sample. Once we get a few "bites"
on the wire we will bring the dredge back up. This process can take several
hours to complete. When you do a wax core you send down a device that is covered
in a very sticky wax and drop it on the ocean floor and bring it right back
up. The idea is that you should have some smaller rocks that stick to the wax
and get brought back up. This is much quicker then dredging, but you get a smaller
sample. Right now we are doing a combination of both.
Tonight
we did two dredges and two wax cores, and we have gotten good samples from them
all. After each dredge or coring There is paper work to be done, rocks to saw,
identify and describe, and wax to mix for the wax cores that we are doing. I
am trying to just get everything figured out and I think I will eventually have
more that I can talk about. I am a little overwhelmed right now trying to learn
everything. The hardest part is writing the descriptions of the rocks that we
are bring up because I do not have much experience with that, and I have to
ask lots of questions.
Today is slightly less successful then yesterday.
We have not put any dredges down and the three wax cores that we tried came
up with very little sample. Because of the depth of the water, which is between
3,500 to 4000 meters, it takes about two hours for a wax core to go down and
come back up. When you think about how much the ship cost per day and divide
that by the number of times we were unsuccessful it makes the scientist wince
in pain a little. Since the wax cores have been so unsuccessful in this area
we have decided to go back to focusing on dredging. To put a dredge down in
this depth takes about four hours to complete the whole process. The dredge
has to be prepared, put in the water, sent to the bottom, dragged across the
bottom for a while, and then brought back up. You have a better chance of getting
a good sample, but it takes longer then wax coring. There are lots of things
to consider when trying to decide what technique you are going to use.
Brilliant
people, many of who are experts in their fields, surround me. This makes for
very interesting conversations and an incredible learning experience. Identifying
rocks is not one of my strong points, but I am definitely getting a crash course
by experts. The one thing about the rocks that we are bringing up in the dredge
is that they are very unusual. They are not the usual things that you would
see in a rocks and mineral course. They come from very deep water and in an
area that has not been studied very extensively.
Other
things I have learned are how to operate the rock saw, and the J-frame that
we use to deploy the wax core. I feel like I am learning something every day.
I think that I am going to come away from this experience with a wealth of knowledge
about the geology of the Western Pacific and I am excited about learning even
more when I am done with this trip.
Today started off with Chris one of the Oregon
State students catching a 19 pound Mahi Mahi. He was quite excited. Unfortunately
he did not know about the contest that was going on for the person who caught
the largest fish. He could of had a good chance of winning with a fish that
big. He was still very happy about his catch, and he even cleaned it himself.
The dredges seem to me to be a little disappointing. When I first learned about
the technique of dredging the ocean floor to get a sample it seemed fairly straightforward
and easy. It really is much more complicated then you might think, and much
more an art form. Because of the water depth all kinds of things can happen
to the dredge as it is going down and once it is on the ocean floor. It is more
difficult then just sending it down and picking up rocks. Today the first dredge
that we brought up on our shift had tipped over on its way down and gotten all
tangled up, and because of this it did not get any rocks. The other dredges
that we did today were more successful, but even then they do not bring up as
many rocks as you would think it would.
Most
of the day for me was spent learning about the rocks that we are bringing up
and how they formed. There are so many terms that I have never heard that it
is like learning a foreign language. It has been very difficult working my way
through all of these new things. What I have learned today is about peridotite.
This is a type of rock that makes up the mantel of the earth, and we have picked
up several of these rocks in our dredge. Peridotite is made up of several types
of minerals, which are olivine, orthopyroxene, and clinopyroxene. These rocks
are exciting, because when you get one it is like holding a piece of the mantle.
No one has ever been able to sample the mantel, because there is no way to dig
that deep. These rocks are the next best things. Of course these rocks have
been altered because they have had water running through them so that changes
them some. The other type of rock that is very common in our dredge bucket is
basalt. These rocks are different then peridotite, because they were once melted
and then cooled. Peridotite was never liquid. You can tell the difference between
the two by looking at their crystal structure. Basalt's have erupted and cooled
quickly so they have very small crystals. Peridotite is a plutonic rock meaning
it formed underground, so it has large coarse crystals. Anyway, that is how
I understand these things, but then again I am just learning. There are many
other things that I have learned, but I will save them for another day, and
keep you in suspense!
When we left Guam just this last time we stranded
a little sparrow on our ship. We named him Ruport. Ruport just flies around
the deck and checks everyone out. Since we do not have any worms we have been
feeding him waffles. He seems to like that. According to the Captain it is a
fairly common occurrence to inadvertently pick animals up when you are in port.
This happens especially it seems with birds, or at least the Captain had lots
of stories about birds stowing away. There have been egrets that have come aboard
and gotten them tangled up in cable, and then almost took the eye out of the
person who went to help it. They apparently have powerful beaks. There have
also been birds of prey on board that have learned to hunt sea birds out of
necessity. All of these birds as soon as land is sited have made a run for it,
and I am sure that little Ruport will do the same. I think I am going to be
sad to see him go.
Sometimes
this can be a big problem. Animals can get on board a ship when it is docked
in port and then the ship sails to some other port far away where the animal
gets off again. This is how non-native species sometimes get introduced into
an environment. If there are no natural predators for this animal its population
can grow unchecked and cause all kinds of problems to the other animals in the
environment. If the native species have no defense they can use against the
new animal the new animal can totally wipe out the native species. It is very
important that animals co-evolve together. When animals evolve together predators
develop mechanisms that help them kill prey and the prey develop ways to defend
them against the predator. This way there is a healthy predator and prey relationship.
The predator does not completely wipe out the prey species, and the number of
prey animals there are helps keep the predators population in check. There are
examples of disastrous species introductions in places all over the globe. I
am not sure how often it happens in the way that I have described, but I am
sure it does occur.
Sometimes
people bring non-native animals into an environment on purpose in the hopes
of solving some environmental problem only to create another. The mongoose is
an example of this. It was brought on to the island of Hawaii to help control
the snake population, which I am sure it did. The problem was that it not only
killed snakes, but also it almost wiped out a native bird species called the
Nene. They are still endangered on the island today, and are very rare to see.
I
don't think that little Ruport is going to cause any problems. I think that
the next land we are going to be coming close to is Saipan, and I am fairly
certain that there are sparrows there also. He may just have to Learn to chirp
in a different dialect!
Today we woke up to the previous watches huge
collection of rocks that they had brought up over night. They were feeling quite
full of themselves, because they had brought up so much more then our watch.
We felt like the gauntlet had been thrown down and the contest was on. We put
the dredge in the water and we were hoping for big success, but the sea gods
were not on our side. The dredge came up empty. We really could not believe
it, because when we were in the lab watching the tension on the line we thought
that it looked like we were picking up some big rocks. We were discouraged,
but we were not going to give up. The next dredge came up and it was empty,
but we still had hope. When the last dredge of the night came up and it was
empty also we were feeling defeated, and ready to go to bed. We were not in
the mood to hear any talk from the other watch, and I think they could tell.
Everyone was very quiet. As it turned out we just happened to have some very
bad dredge sites. We thought from the images that we got last leg that this
should be an area of fairly resent volcanic activity, but most likely they were
extinct volcanoes.
Although
the day was disappointing in terms of dredging it still was a very nice day.
The cook blackened the Mahi that Chris caught the other day along with some
others and we had that for dinner. After dinner we went out and enjoyed the
sunset with some of the crew. The crew on this ship is very friendly and they
have great sea stories. Most of the crew enjoys the fact that they see so many
incredible places. The people on my shift are great. Claire and Chris are both
students at Oregon State, and Amy works for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute,
and there are three Japanese scientists that are on our watch. Most of the evening
we spent thinking of ways to make things difficult for the next watch. We figured
that they felt just a little bit to full of themselves and needed to be taken
down a notch. I am continuing my education, and now I am working on how to identify
the types of crystals that are present in the rocks that we have seen. The most
important thing used to identify these minerals is the shape of the crystals.
These are sometimes difficult to tell, but I am continuing to truck along using
my rocks and minerals book, and of course Claire is a very good teacher. Tomorrow
the big haul is going to happen for us. I am feeling confident!
Today was a much better day of dredging. As someone
on our watch said we might have not gotten quantity rocks but we did get quality
rocks. We feel that we have saved our reputation somewhat. We are all working
very hard, and there is so much to do.
When
you bring a dredge in the first thing that you have to do is get all of the
rocks out and bring them to the lab. Then you have to cut the net bag out of
the dredge and wash everything down. Then you have to tie the bag back into
the dredge, check all of the bolts on the dredge, and make sure they are all
tight. Then you have to assess your rock sample. You have to decide how many
different types of rocks you have and then measure them, weigh them, and describe
them on the rock description sheet. Then you have to decide who is going to
get what samples and cut the rocks with a rock saw so that everyone who wants
a piece can have one. Then we put all the samples in bags and put them away.
After all of that then you have to type everything that you wrote down into
the computer so that there is a permanent record of everything that you got
and who took what.
This
way if the scientist gets back to their respective labs and discover something
interesting in one of the samples they got they can look on the log and see
who else got some of that sample and possibly get more from them. By the time
you do all of this it is usually time to put another dredge in the water and
the process starts all over again! It has been difficult to get anything else
done. This leaves little time for personal things, and we are all pretty tired.
One thing I have enjoyed is watching the scientist when they cannot agree what
something is. Dr. Stern has taught me how to disagree without being disagreeable.
I am not only learning about rocks and how to operate all kinds of equipment,
but also how to be diplomatic. I think I am going to take a great education
away from this experience.
Today we woke up to find out that Dr. Bloomer
lost a dredge and the pinger that was attached. The way that a dredge works
is that it is attached to wire that is 9/16 of an inch thick, and is wrapped
around a winch. When we lower a dredge down we have a person that is operating
the winch who lets out wire and lowers the dredge into the water. When he has
let out about 150 meters of wire he stops and we put a pinger on the wire. The
pinger sends out a sound wave that hits the bottom of the ocean and comes back.
We can then measure where the pinger is in relation to the ocean floor. Since
we know that the pinger is 150 meters above the dredge we can also figure out
when the dredge is on the bottom. Once the dredge is on the bottom then we drag
it along the ocean floor. Sometimes the dredge gets hung up on things like rocks
and there is tension on the wire. Eventually it will break off whatever it is
hung up on and continue to drag along. If it gets stuck on something really
strong there are weak links built into the dredge that will break leaving the
dredge behind. That is the way it is supposed to work.
Last
night the dredge got stuck and in the process of trying to get it unstuck huge
tension on the wire was created and instead of the dredge breaking off the wire
parted at a point above the pinger, and dredge and pinger fell to the ocean
floor. This was not good, because the pinger is a fairly expensive piece of
equipment. The other scary thing is that the wire broke under so much pressure
that it came up and whipped around the fantail and hit the deck so hard that
it shook the boat. The resident technician always tells us to stay off the fantail
when a dredge is on the bottom, and she always makes sure that she puts up signs.
Now we know why. If anyone had been on the fantail when the wire parted they
could have easily been killed or at least injured seriously. Luckily no one
was hurt and all we lost was equipment that can be replaced. We have been giving
Dr. Bloomer such a hard time about loosing the dredge and pinger. Apparently
it does not happen that often, and I am afraid it will be a long time before
he lives it down.
Not
only are we bringing up some rocks we are also bringing up some critters in
our dredge. So far we have brought up a sea cucumber, and the skin of a sea
urchin, and brittle stars. It has been fun looking at all the cool stuff that
comes up in the dredge. The scientist is not at all interested in the critters.
They only care about the rocks, so that has left me able to look at them and
keep what I want to keep. Right before the end of shift we were sitting around
in the science lab And we heard a huge noise and then a big vibration shook
the ship. We were all wondering what the heck it was when the bridge called
down and said that we had lost our port side thruster. We have three thrusters
in All. One on the port side, one on the starboard side, and one on the bow.
These help us move through the water. It is not a big deal that we lost one
of these, but hopefully we will not lose any more. We can continue on with only
two thrusters, but if we lost another we would have to go in. When the trip
is over the boat will have to go to dry dock and be fixed. We are thinking that
bad things usually happen in three, so we are wondering what the other bad thing
is going to be. We are hoping that whatever it is we will be able to handle
it!
We experienced the third bad thing today. In the
middle of the afternoon while we were about to steam to another dredge site
we lost all power. We were dead in the water for probably about an hour until
the engineers and electricians were able to get things back up again. We have
still not heard what the problem was exactly, but everything seems to be running
fine now. Luckily the seas were very calm, so it really just meant we took a
break for a while. If seas were rough it could have been dangerous because you
basically can't steer. That was the main excitement for the day, and our poor
engineer and electricians have been very busy.
The
other thing that happened today was that we had the regular weekly fire and
boat drill except this time he chief mate made it a little more interesting
for the crew. He staged a fake fire in my stateroom, so the crew that is responsible
for fire fighting had to suit ups and goes it searches of the fire. We set up
a camera in my room so that we could film them coming in and I followed them
around with a hand held camera. It was really very interesting. Once a month
or so they will do drills similar to this one so that the crew is prepared for
anything that may happen. Fire on the boat is a very scary thing and something
that the crew is very diligent about trying to prevent. A common place for fires
to start is in the galley. Over the stove there is a hood that is not only a
vent, but if the temperature gets above a certain level releases a substance
that will put out the fire. There are little safe guards like that throughout
the ship to hopefully prevent a disaster.
We
are continuing to bring up interesting rocks, but we have yet to bring up a
huge hall like the other watch has. We brought up a large haul today but it
was mainly coral, which no one on this cruise is interested in. We are mainly
looking for volcanic rocks that can give us a better idea of the composition
of the earth's mantel. Our group is starting to settle into niches. We all have
things that we are good at, so that when a dredge comes in we all have particular
things to do. It is becoming like an assembly line and we are getting very efficient.
Today was April Foolâs day, and of course there
were jokes to be played. Lava Larry our beloved mascot was kidnapped and held
for ransom. Thankfully he was returned to us relatively unharmed. He does have
a few extra holes, but nothing that duck tape can't fix. He should be back in
tip top shape soon. Today is Sunday so we had the weekly steak and wine, but
the cooks decided to play a joke on us. According to the menu we were supposed
to have Australian lobster, which everyone was looking forward to. When we it
came time for dinner there was no lobster to be found. I did not think that
was very funny. April fools jokes are supposed to be funny! Luckily I got through
the day with no serious prank pulled on me.
Today
was lots of fun for me, because I got to run a dredge. Basically the routine
is that a dredge site is picked by one of the scientist, and the waypoints to
that particular site are given to the bridge. Once we get to the site we lower
the dredge into the water which is attached to 9/16 inch cable spooled around
a winch. The winch operator lets out wire until the dredge hits the bottom and
them the ship drags the dredge until we feel we have gotten a good sample. The
person who runs the dredge is in the lab. That person tells the winch operator
when to start letting out wire and when to stop. Also you have to tell them
how fast to put the wire out. When the dredge is being pulled in you have to
be patient and go slow, because there is a danger of the dredge getting hung
up on something. The person running the dredge is also responsible for communicating
with the bridge and telling them what is going on and when to move the boat
and when to stop the boat. Also you have to tell them where you want them to
go. You also have to monitor the tension on the wire very carefully, because
if the tension gets to high it can break the dredge off. The worse thing that
could happen in that situation is that the wire could part and come back and
hit the deck. That is dangerous for the person out there operating the winch.
It sounds very easy, but it is really more complicated then it sounds. You have
to decide how much wire to send out, and you do not want to put out too much
because it takes forever to haul the dredge back in. You also don't want to
send out to little, because then of course you would not hit bottom. You also
have to have a good instinct on when you have dragged long enough, and it is
time to bring the dredge up. You do not want to get to greedy, because the longer
the dredge is down the bigger the chance is something bad could happen, but
you also do not want to come up empty handed after all that work.
Unfortunately
my dredge only brought up coral and manganese. Neither of which was of any interest
to the scientist. I thought the coral was pretty cool. It had lots of tiny shell
attached to it, and I am planning on bringing it home and figuring out what
they are. You can only do some much with the dredge. If the scientist did not
pick a good spot it does not matter how well you did the dredge you are not
going to get a good sample. The area we were dredging was a caldera of a volcano,
but the scientist now think that it has not been active in a very long time
so we are moving on.
Today we woke up and Anatahan was right to our
port side. It was only about two miles away. It is an uninhabited volcanic island.
I went up to the bridge to get a better look, and you could actually see into
the caldera of the volcano. The volcano has not been active in a very long time,
but when I looked at the island
I could see the different volcanic flows. The
island also looked like it had some good reefs, and we could also see some caves.
It would have been very cool to explore, but time is money and we must focus
on the dredging.
This
morning Adam, one of the undergraduate at UTD, was running the dredge and he
got it hung up on something. It took about twenty five minutes to get it unstuck,
and when we did we heard a huge pop. We were not sure if he had lost the dredge
or just broke off one of the weak links. The dredge has three weak links strategically
placed on the dredge that are made to break at a certain pressure. This is a
safety precaution and it keeps the dredge from breaking the wire which can be
very dangerous. When we brought the dredge up it was still attached to the wire,
but it was in bad shape. It was also filled to the brim with rocks. The dredge
came up upside down, and hanging by one link. It was amazing that the rocks
stayed in. Some of the metal links in the dredge were broken and had to be fixed,
and there were big holes in the net bag that had to be fixed. It took quite
a long time on the steaming hot deck to get all of that fixed.
We
had some very successful dredges today. One sample we brought up had some rocks
in them called gabbro. These are plutonic rocks, which means they formed in
the earth and cooled very slowly. They have very large crystals in them and
are beautiful rocks. The scientists were very excited about this because they
felt like they had found a place with rocks from deep within the volcano. It
is funny how superstitions start. We decided early on when we were not getting
very good samples that there must be a dredge goddess, and we decided that chocolate
might make her happy. Every dredge since then we have made sure that we put
chocolate in the dredge. We also make sure that we all take a bite before we
put it in. So far the ritual has worked, so we have continued.
I finally saw it. All of the crew on the boat
has been talking about this phenomenon called a green flash. The green flash
can be observed under certain conditions at sunset. What I was told was that
just as the very last piece of the sun disappears passed the horizon you should
see a green color. The conditions have to be right in order for you to see this,
and that means that you must have a very clear crisp horizon. This is why you
see the green flash mostly when you are watching the sun set over and ocean.
You also cannot see it through clouds. Going out to see the sunset is a ritual
that we all participate in, and lots of people have said they had seen this
green flash. I never could and I was beginning to think that they were all pulling
my leg. Finally it was explained to me that it is really not a flash, but that
the edge of the sun turns green right before it goes down, and that it is easiest
to see if you look at the sunset through binoculars.
Last
night I was on the bridge at sunset, and I borrowed the chief mate's binoculars,
and sure enough I saw it. Just before the sun completely set the edge of the
sun turned green and then the whole slice of sun still visible turned green.
It was really very neat. I used one of the captain's books called The American
Practical Navigator to investigate what causes this phenomenon, and this
is what it said...ÊÊÊ
ãAs
light passes through the atmosphere, it is refracted. Since the amount of bending
is slightly different for each color, separate images of the sun are formed
in each color of the spectrum. However the difference is so slight that the
effect is not usually noticeable. At the horizon refraction is the greatest,
and the red end of the visual spectrum where refraction is bending it the least
is the first color to set and last to rise. The shorter wave length blue and
violet are bent the most and are scattered in the atmosphere, giving it its
characteristic blue color. As the sun sets the green image may be the last image
to be seen as the sun drops out of view, and the sun appears green.ä
I
am so glad that I got to see this before I had to go home. I would have been
very disappointed if I had missed it.
Today there were whales
off our starboard bow. Of course I missed it. I have been waiting the whole
trip to see any kind of sea life in the water and I missed it. From what people
told me they were pretty far away and you could barely see them. Oh well, better
luck next time for me. I will be scuba diving when I get back to Guam, so I
feel confident that I will see lots of marine life.
Our scientific adventure is starting to come to an end. The crew is already
talking about packing up and what they are going to do in Guam. I am feeling
a little ambivalent about leaving. I have been looking forward to this trip
for a long time and working hard to get things together. On the other hand I
am ready to be home, and back to my normal life. It is amazing to me how fast
time can fly. I have been thinking about all of the things that I learned while
aboard this ship, and I believe that I am going to be taking home with me a
wealth of knowledge that I can share with my students back home. I have learned
about ocean floor subduction and factors that influence it. The products of
this process, like volcanoes, back arc spreading and the rocks associated with
them. I have also learned about imaging the sea floor and how to interrupt the
images. There are also countless things that I have learned about how a ship
runs to how to collect and document data. Plus I have lots of sea stories to
tell my students. There are the ones that I have experienced first hand, ones
that I have heard about from the captain and other crew members, and of course
the ones that I will make up.
Being out here with scientists who are working on solving current problems has been very exciting. It has made me think about how much we have learned about plate tectonics in the last forty years and how much we still do not know. Theories have come and gone and have been perfected, so only time will tell how well our answers to the questions we are trying to answer on this ship will hold up. It should be very interesting. I have also been thinking about how exciting being a geologist is. You get to go to fun places like the western pacific, the Caribbean, or hike in the mountains or desert. These are the places that you collect your data and figure out how this planet of ours works. You spend a good amount of time in the field experiencing nature. I for one would pick that over any office job any day!
I thought that I would write my journal today
about a question that was asked through our web site
by Alan. The question asked why on the position reports do they
mention the types of clouds that they are seeing. This sent me on a little investigation
to answer this question. I talked to Murray who is the first mate, and he told
me that the clouds can be used to predict weather and that the national weather
service uses the information to create a database. They have information coming
from many different sources, and they can use this information to study weather
patterns. The information about the different types of clouds and what they
indicate was gotten out of a book that they keep on the bridge called The
American Navigator.
There
are 3 main families of clouds. They are high, medium and low clouds, and within
these groups there are about ten different types. These clouds indicate processes
going on in the atmosphere and can be used to predict weather. Cirrus clouds
are high clouds that are generally associated with fare weather unless they
thicken and lower. That could indicate a storm coming in. Altocumulus
are middle clouds that consist of large ball like masses that tend to merge
together. If they thicken and lower they can produce thundery weather and showers,
but not prolonged bad weather. Altostratus are also middle clouds and
if these thicken and lower continuous rain or snow could be expected. There
are three low cloud that may be of interest to you. First there is the stratocumulus,
which are soft, gray, roll shaped masses, and are usually followed by clear
skies at night. Stratus clouds are in uniform layers and gives the sky
a hazy appearance. Nimbostratus is a low dark shapeless cloud layer,
and is usually very uniform. These are typical rain clouds and perception that
falls is steady or intermittent, but not showery. Cumulus clouds are
dense with vertical development. It has a horizontal base and a dome shaped
upper surface. These appear in small patches and never cover the shy completely.
When vertical development is not too high it appears like tuffs of white cotton.
They are called fair weather cumulus because they usually accompany good weather.
They can merge with altocumulus clouds before a thunderstorm. The last type
is cumulonimbus, which are massive clouds with great vertical development. The
upper part consist of ice crystals. It is often spread out in the shape of an
anvil. These types of clouds produce showers of rain, snow or hail, and are
frequently accompanied by lightning and thunder. They are sometimes called thunder
clouds because of this.
One
of the most important things that the bridge has to keep up with is the weather.
Anyone who has seen "A Perfect Storm" should understand why.
Not only do they keep an eye on the clouds, but they also get weather faxes
that lets them know about the weather in the area. The person who is on watch
on the bridge also frequently logs weather information like, barometric pressure,
wind speed and wave height. Hopefully all of this information will help them
stay out of bad weather if at all possible.
Today we are doing some very deep dredges. We
are dredging an area in the spreading center that is 4,500 meters deep. When
you convert that to feet that is 14,763 feet. It is a little difficult to imagine
how deep that really is. I live in Dallas and the tallest building in downtown
is about 900 feet. That would be 15 of those buildings stacked on top of each
other. You could also use the reference of a football field which is about 300
feet. That depth would be about 45 football fields. This is why the pressure
is so intense. All of the water that is on top of you is pushing on you in all
directions.
Animals
that live at these depths have special adaptations that allow them to survive.
Most of these animals are very jellyish so that they can be easily compressed.
There is also not much use for sight because there is no light at that depth.
If we bring one of these animals up in our dredge they would not with stand
the change in pressure and most likely would not survive.
With
this in mind we decided to do a little experiment. We took Styrofoam cups and
decorated them and took a digital picture of them. Then we sent them down with
the dredge in a burlap sack. When they came back up they were tiny. They were
probably a quarter of their original size. For every foot of water there are
.433 pounds of pressure exerted on each square inch. This means that the cup
had 6,400 pounds of pressure pushing on every square inch of it. The cups were
so cute that we started a trend. Everyone had to send a cup down to keep as
a souvenir. It was fun to look at everyone's artistic expression, because they
all had to decorate them. It was even more fun to see the tiny versions when
they came up on the dredge.
We did two plankton tows today: one in the afternoon and one at night. I think that it will be interesting to see if there are any differences in the types and amounts of plankton that we caught. We have attached our plankton net to a 15-meter line with a weight that allows the net to sink to about 10 meters. While the ship is at station and we are waiting for the dredge to come on deck we lower the plankton tow into the water. We send the tow down as far as we can and then we bring it back to the water line. We do this for as many times as our arms will allow. With the weight attached the tow is actually quite heavy and you get a good upper body workout doing this. The more you can lower the tow and bring it up again the more water you are sampling and hopefully the more plankton you are catching. The water has been very clear which is a bad sign for catching plankton. Plankton in the water makes the water appear cloudy, so I am afraid that we may not have gotten as much as hoped for. We will know for sure once we can look at the sample under the microscope. Tammy the research Êtechnician (res-tech) has been helping me, which is very nice of her. She has a degree in marine biology so plankton sampling is not new to her. She is going to do a large plankton tow tomorrow for a graduate student at Scripps. The net that she is using for this is a huge one. It is about 100 times the size of mine, and can catch much more plankton. For what I am doing my net is just fine, so I am not concerned. The ship that I am on is run by the people at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, so if you are a graduate student or a scientist there, and you know that one of the ships is going to be in an area that you are studying you can ask people to collect some data for you. That way you can collect more information then you could if you had to actually go out on the ship yourself. This is what this particular student is doing. Sometimes there are scientists that want to survey a particular area of the ocean floor and they know that one of the ships is going to be close, so they will ask the Captain if he would mind turning on the imaging equipment while they are going over that area. Scientist have to be resourceful! I am hoping that I will be able to do several more plankton tows from the ship and then I am planning on doing some sampling from the beach in Guam. I am even thinking about attaching the tow to my dive gear when I go diving on Friday. I could trail it behind me as I swim around. I am not sure if I can actually go through with that one. I may feel a little too silly. I guess it will depend on how dedicated to science I feel that day!
I am going to miss the
characters that I have been working with for the past three weeks. I think that
I need to share a little bit about them. Our watch is made up of Rick and me,
Amy, Claire, Chris, Matt, Tammy, Yasuo, Teruaki, and the co-chief scientist
Bob Stern. Our little group seems to have bonded pretty well we all have our
own quirks that make our watch a very interesting one, and one that I am sure
people from the other watch are jealous that they are not apart of.
First there is Claire, who is a graduate student at Oregon
State University. She should be finished with her Masters of Science with and
interest in volcanology in the summer. She is thinking about teaching when she
is finished with school. She is originally from Columbus, Ohio and she got her
undergraduate degree from
Miami University in Oxford,
Ohio. She also spent a summer working as a park ranger at Crater Lake National
Park in Oregon. She has the funniest laugh. Absolutely no noise comes out of
her gapping mouth. She says that sometimes she hyperventilates. She is quite
a funny character and we laugh a bunch. I am just waiting for her to pass out
one of these days. Then there is Amy from Boston. She just finished
her Masters in marine geophysics at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute at MIT.
She got her undergraduate degree in geology at Colgate University in New York.
She is somewhat of a world traveler. When she gets home from this trip she will
be home only for a few weeks and then she is going to Asia. She also just came
back from South America where she went hiking in Southern Chili. She, like me,
enjoys SCUBA diving. Before she got on the ship she spent a few days in Rota
doing some diving. Chris is one of the guys on our watch. He is
a fifth year senior from Oregon State majoring in geology, but he grew up in
Homer, Alaska. He wants to go to graduate school and study structural geology
and tectonics. In his spare time he works in a bike shop, and loves to cross
country ski, and play on his Play Station. He brought one aboard and plays Grand
Turismo. Every time Chris and Claire play games he wins, and he kicks everyone's
bottom in Trivial Pursuit. Matt is a professor at UTD and is the
king of the bad puns. He comes up with them completely out of the blue and makes
everyone laugh. Yasuo and Teruaki are the two Japanese
scientist and they like to take pictures of everything. Teruaki has a wicked
sense of humor. He has bombarded us with rotten tomatoes from the trash, and
he defaced Lava Larry making it look like it was the students from OSU. Yasuo
on the other hand is very quiet and seems to just go along with what ever Teruaki
is doing. Bob Stern is our leader. He likes to listen to the Grateful
Dead, Talking Heads and Frank
Senatra. He has very
interesting taste in music. He is also quite the practical jokester... especially
to his friend and chief scientist Sherm Bloomer. Poor Sherm has had quite a
few jokes played on him. Tammy is our Resident Technician and
she runs the show. She is in charge of the dredging and making sure everyone
is doing what they are supposed to do. She is the Cribbage champ on board and
has an incredibly sarcastic sense of humor. She is also very happy that she
is on our watch, and not with those other people. Last, but not least there
is Rick and me, which by now I think you know.
That is our happy little group. I think we are going to go and spend some
quality time together and watch a DVD. I think it is going to be The Hurricane.
What else is there to do when you are waiting on a dredge?
I spent some time today after dredging on the bow of the ship appreciating the incredible scenery. I am going to miss being on the ocean. I have known all my life that I love being near the sea, but being out here has really reinforced that in my mind. To me there is nothing so peaceful and awe-inspiring. Being on this huge ocean has a way of putting things in perspective for you. It makes you realize how small and insignificant you and your problems are. I can easily see how people could become addicted to this lifestyle. If you would like to work on a research vessel like the one that I am on there are many different options.
This entry addresses a question asked by Dawn S. Cain, Garland I.S.D., Garland, TX: ãWhat specific careers are utilized?ä
If
you enjoy the ocean you could become a sea-going scientist. You could be a marine
geologist or marine biologist. Another member of the science team on a research
vessel is the resident technician. That is the person that helps the scientist
collect all their data. They know how to run all of the machines, and how to
deploy the different types of equipment that a scientist may need. They also
act as a liaison between the science team and the crew. If you are interested
in this you need a degree a in a science field and some sea going experience.
The crew on the boat is divided into three groups. First there is the deck department.
The Captain would be at the top of this group, followed by a chief mate also
known as a first mate. The chief mate takes his turn standing watch on the bridge
sailing the boat. He is also responsible for the seamen that work on his watch.
He is also responsible for making sure that everyone knows what to do in an
emergency and that everything on the boat is working properly. It is a very
busy job. There is also a 2nd and 3rd mate that take turns standing watch on
the bridge sailing the boat and supervising seamen on their watch. These jobs
require a degree or else you spend a long time working your way up. Most of
the mates on this ship and the Captain went to a maritime academy in San Francisco.
When you finish school you graduate with a Bachelors in a field of your choice
and a license to be a mate on a ship. The chief mate Murray Stein went to Texas
A&M in Galveston which he highly recommends. The others that make up the
deck department are the ordinary seaman and the able seamen. The ordinary seamen
can become able seamen by taking a test. They are responsible for the up keep
of the boat. They sand and paint the deck and keep it clean. They also keep
the working areas in the boat clean. It is amazing how much painting must be
done to keep the boat from rusting. They paint everyday almost. Then there is
the engineering department, who keep the boat running. They make sure that the
engines are running and that any electrical problems are taken care of. There
is a chief engineer and a 1st, 2nd and 3rd engineer much like the Captain and
the mates. In the engineering department there are also wipers and oilers that
assist the engineers. The last department on the ship, is one of the most important
and that is the stewards. These are the cooks and they have a very important
job. When you cannot get off the ship and there is not much entertainment you
really look forward to meals. The Captain has told me the trick to keeping everyone
happy is to make sure the food is good and there is plenty of it. We have two
cooks on this ship and they do a great job. There is always lots of great things
to eat in the kitchen 24 hours a day.Ê
Most of these jobs keep you on a ship for 3 months or so and then off for a month or more. Most people who work at sea could not imagine doing anything else. It takes a special kind of person who does not mind being away from home and family as often as you are. You are also cut off from society for long periods of time. This is not all bad. It has been nice not to be watching the news and hearing about all the horrible things in the world and the horrible things people do to one another. It is like a little break from reality. I have not heard any news in 6wks and I really do not miss it. I am sure it is going to be a bit of a shock to my system when I get back home, but I think I am ready for it!
I thought that you might
be interested to hear another point of view. With that in mind I have convinced
another cruise participant to write about her experiences and how she became
interested in science. Who knows maybe there is someone out there that might
be inspired by all the things she has experienced, and decide to at least consider
a career in science. See Amyâs Crew Entry!
Well, it is finally here. The end of the trip that I have been planning and looking forward to for 6 months. It has gone by so fast, and I enjoyed myself completely. This is an experience I would highly recommend, and I know I will treasure the memories for a long time. Not only have all the scientists been great but the crew on the ship has been wonderful also.
Mark the computer technician has put up with me every day twice a day asking him if the e-mail is in yet. He never has been cross with me even though I am probably the 10th person who has asked him. The Captain has been incredibly nice also. The first day I met him he told me to call him Rip, because that is what all his friends call him. He is a big surfer and the name has something to do with that. He also let me know that I was always welcome on the bridge. Murray the chief mate has also been a source of endless entertainment. He, like me enjoys diving and we have had many discussions about that. He has also let me in on what it is like to work at sea and why he loves it so much. Paul and Sean have made some of the slower watch times go by so much faster by playing risk with us and sharing sea stories. Roger, Erik, Dan and Manny and Larry and Joel and David have entertained us also with stories and songs and many, many laughs. They have been great and we are going to miss them all.
We are waiting for the last dredge of our watch to come up. There is only one more dredge after that for this trip and that is going to be on the next watch. Then we are done collecting rocks. All that is left after that is to take the rocks home and do a detailed analysis. Hopefully Bob and Sherm will find some really interesting stuff that warrants another look, and they can come out here again. Bob has been studying this area for twenty five years and there is still new information being discovered. The rest of the evening is going to be spent packing and cleaning up. It is amazing how after six weeks things that belong to you get spread all over the place. I have lots of hunting and gathering to do. The story does not end here. We still have a few days in Guam to experience, and I have some diving to do there. I will write when I get home to tell you all about that exciting stuff!