Teacher Logbook:
Saturday, July 15, 2000 1800 hrs.

I think most of the scientists on board have been out here way too long because they are starting to act rather.....well .....unscientific. It might be the constant motion, maybe the lack of vegetation or .....Yes. I've got it! The lack of caffeine.

I caught one rebellious group making happy faces on the 4 remaining extensometers being deployed tonight. Isn't that defacing government property? Another group thought it would be fun to send a laundry bag full of colorful Styrofoam manikin heads to the seafloor on the mooring elevator. These people call themselves scientists? Actually the Styrofoam heads are an annual "experiment" to test pressure with increasing depth in the water.

At sea level you are subjected to one atmosphere of pressure (basically the weight of the atmosphere directly above you). One atmosphere, at sea level, is equal to about 14.6 pounds of pressure per square inch of your surface. Since pressure increases about one atmosphere for every 10 meters of water depth (weight of water above you + weight of atmosphere above you) you would experience about 2,200 pounds per square inch pressure at the depths ROPOS has been working at (about 1500 meters). Now, how do the heads come in to play? The idea is to shrink the heads. The 2,200 pounds per square inch they experience at the bottom will shrink the them dramatically. Styrofoam is used because there's a noticeable difference in the size of the head before and after the dive. It is recommended with this experiment not to use real people's heads. It doesn't work quite as well. We wil get the results from the experiment tomorrow morning when the elevator surfaces.

Other headlines from the events that transpired on one of the few remaining days of NeMO 2000:

• Much to the relief of everyone Imagenex work is now complete (while mapping the ROV flies too high above the bottom to "see", not very popular). Poor Bill Chadwick now has to go through all the data and produce his colorful maps.
• Geologist John Chadwick scored today. ROPOS brought up a huge glassy lobate basalt chunk from a geological traverse dive (photo above). This rock is only 2 years old and part of the 1998 eruption.
• Tonight we'll pick up the larval traps Anna Metaxas left at ASHES and Marker 33 almost two weeks ago. The little guys will arrive in style in Anna's "larval limo," a small milk crate contraption, specially designed for their riding pleasure.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more on shrinking heads and caffeine deprived scientists.

Jeff

Styrofoam heads are decorated before riding ROPOS down to the bottom.

John Chadwick keeps his head while examining a glassy, lobate lava brought up during the geological traverse.