Heading Home

Monday, October 3, 2005

Dave Randle, Carol Dundorf, Deb Glickson, and Ben Larson

Daily Report

Clean up operations took place overnight to recover the transponders that Jason and ABE use to navigate on the seafloor. The transponders are placed in known locations. The vehicles send sounds that ask the transponders to respond to them. The time it takes for a sound to be sent back is used to calculate the position. The best “fixes” come when the ROV or AUV has four transponders talking to it at once. Eight transponders were put down at the beginning of this cruise. It took all night to send acoustical release signals to each of them and pluck them from the water when they surfaced.

At 0700 (7 am) this morning we left our research station. We steamed north and then plotted a course along a line towards Vancouver Island on one last data-gathering mission. The ship’s EM300 sonar was used to map the seafloor along the proposed NEPTUNE Canada cable route. Once the map was made Ginger Armbrust ran a quick CTD down to 150m to collect more water for the flow cytometer and we headed for home.

The Thompson’s library was the hub for social activity today. This afternoon REVEL teachers Carol Dundorf and Jo Dodds presented the results of their cruise research projects. Carol used data from the seismometer array, which Will Wilcock and Andrew Barclay generously shared, to track whale behavior. Jo demonstrated her skill using Geographic Information System (GIS) software to plot points for an entire Jason dive. After dinner Theresa Pinilla showed her photo mosaic of a new sulfide chimney that was discovered during this expedition and Mary Goff presented the results of interviews she conducted with the scientists on board. She looked at how the scientific process she observed on this trip differed from traditional classroom practices.

After a short break the library filled once again for Bosun’s Poetry Night. Poems by Robert Frost, Robert Service, Pablo Neruda, Julia Alvarez and Michael Collier (among others) were featured. Cruise inspired works by Dara Scott and Jonathon Howland were especially notable as was a beautiful piece sent to us by New York City 6th grader, Dessaure Davis.

As this is being written we are just entering the Straights of Juan de Fuca. Home is near.

Impressions

Lessons Learned
Carol Dundorf, Deb Glickson, Ben Larson, and Dave Randle

We’re on our way home. Lights on Vancouver Island and Washington’s Olympic Peninsula are visible outside as we enter the Straight of Juan de Fuca. This is a time for us to reflect on our days and nights at sea. Some of us have experienced open ocean research for the first time and are changed in ways we will not understand for some time to come. Some of us return to land hoping that the data we have collected will give us answers to our questions and enough to work on until we can return to sea next year. But all of us come away with lessons we have learned about how things work on an Oceanographic research vessel.

With apologies to David Letterman and those of you who might not get some of the slightly inside jokes, here are the top ten things you should not do during the Visions 05 cruise.

10. Do not hoard the m&m’s. Your shipmates will hate you.

9. Do not forget to bring a pillow for the “brief” Science Meetings.

8. Do not play your recorder near the berthing rooms. Someone is sleeping on the ship at all times.

7. Do not assume the ship’s fuel is diesel. It actually runs on coffee.

6. Do not try to cross the Canadian border without clearing your record first.

5. Do not breath too deeply in the bio lab.

4. Do not forget the watch routine: Hurry, hurry, wait, transit, wait, hurry.

3. Do not rely on the ship’s Public Address System to remind you when you are supposed to be on watch.

2. Do not drink the alcohol. It is strictly for preserving biological specimens.

And the number one thing you should not do during the Visions05 cruise . . .

1. Do not burst into your room singing the disco version of “I Love the Night Life”. Not only will you wake your roommate, she will laugh at you.

Daily Question

  • Roy Deremer, Warwick School District, Lititz, PA


    Hi to Dave and all the REVELers (from fellow REVELer 1998). I see that you are going back to the cut-off structures that we collected in 98.
    I could pick up some of the pictures of the structures ... It looks like some changes have taken place . Has there been recent earthquakes to topple any or do you see new signs where magma has come to surface nearby?
    Are you sending cups down to see them crush? I still wish I could have finished my experiment in ? to see if they crush slowly or all a once. Has anyone given that any thought or watched as they descended?
    Also for the REVELer from Hershey. I live between Hershey and Harrisburg and teach in Lititz, and my wife is a Research Analysist for Hershey Foods.
    I am very glad to see another Pennsylvania REVELer onboard, and one from the neighborhood at that! Will you be presenting at PSTA in Hersey this year?

    Oh one last question. Can you bring me back a pillow lava for my classroom? Just kidding (thought Véronique and Dave would like that question)

    Best wishes. I wish I was there with you. Take care, Roy

    Answer

    Hi Roy,
    It’s great to hear from you.

    There have been some changes in Mothra, but no signs of new magma that’s come to the surface. In 2003 a sensitive array of seismometers was put in place around the vent fields of the Endeavour segment. When the data was collected and analyzed last summer it was discovered that almost 13,000 small earthquakes occurred in the region. Most of these earthquakes were due to cracking rocks and shifting magma under the seafloor. As far as we know, none of them caused the sulfide chimneys at Mothra to topple. A big change that we spent some time looking at with the High Definition camera was the evolution of Finn. When we collected its top in 1998 it was a black smoker that didn’t have a lot of macrofauna on it. Since then it has grown 6 to 9 meters and now has lush communities of tubeworms growing on it. We have been sending cups down. Lots of them. We haven’t been able to watch them crush, but there has been a lot of discussion about it and everyone is amazed when I bring up your discovery that Styrofoam can crush and then spring back to its original size if it isn’t pressurized enough.

    Carol is looking forward to connecting with you, although she won’t be presenting at PSTA. The deadline for presentations was last spring and she didn’t know she was going to be involved with REVEL at that point.

    And . . . I almost hate to mention this, but Jason pilot Jim Varnum tossed a big piece of pillow basalt into the basket on a recent Jason dive. It’s “for the teachers”. It’s in the main lab now, and we haven’t figured out how we’re going to split it up into pieces yet. A hammer will spoil the beautiful obsidian that encrusts itt so stay tuned. Maybe Carol will show it to you.