How the rumbleometer was rescued
photo of rumbleometer floating free of lava flow The rumbleometer after it was freed from the lava flow. It is floating above the bottom, but still attached to an anchor line. Once the anchor line was cut, it floated up to the surface and was recovered.
In reality, the instrument was first located on the bottom in August 1998, the summer following the eruption. ROPOS could not even budge the instrument with its manipulator arm, which can exert ~500 pounds of force. Next, a line was attached and the instrument was pulled upward with ~2000 pounds of force, but even this was not enough to free the instrument. The following summer ROPOS returned to Axial Volcano with a specially designed harness that could deliver ~10,000 pounds of force.
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