Latitude 45° 52.0' North, Longitude 130° 00' West Teacher
at Sea: |
ROPOS comes up for a breather! Yesterday afternoon, A/B Seaman Frank Spetla called over the ship's speakers that he had spotted marine life off the port bow. The crew here have been great about announcing marine life so that we can all enjoy it. It wasn't long before the scientists and crew were on deck with binoculars and cameras handy. I quickly climbed up three decks for a better view and wasn't disappointed. Frank even helped me identify these sleek, black and gray creatures, which I had never seen before. Cruising past us was a mixed species pod with at least 100 Pacific White Sided Dolphins and Northern Right Whale Dolphins. These two curious and playful species are often found swimming together around the bows of ships. How lucky we were that they chose this spot for their playground! This morning, our dolphin friends were nowhere to be seen, but we had other sights to keep us busy. After over 39 hours on the bottom, it was time for ROPOS to come up for a breather. During that time, it made repeated pressure measurements at four stations inside the caldera and one outside the caldera. These measurements are repeated each year to try to see if the seafloor inside the caldera is uplifting (inflating) due to magma intrusion. Along the way, we were able to recover some instruments and samplers for various scientists on the ship. Finally, it was time to bring ROPOS to the surface. This meant that for some scientists and crew it was finally time to go to sleep and for others, it was time to really get busy working on samples.
Once ROPOS was secured to the ship, we steamed to a vent field called "ASHES". And that was before breakfast! The starboard and aft decks were really busy this morning and every job had to be perfectly orchestrated so that each one could be completed in the most efficient fashion. Here's what our day's science activity plan looked like: *12:00-5:00
AM ROPOS Dive R661 You might be thinking, "Wow! They only have 11 items on their To Do List." But remember, each of these items require many preparations by both scientists and crew. In addition to preparing their own experiments for deployment, each scientist on the ship must fulfill their duty requirements so that everyone's work can be accomplished and we can all fully enjoy our one minute of sleep. |
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Student's
Question of the Day:
K. D., Age 13, Rocky Point, New York, asks: Who is the boss on the ship? The Captain
of the ship has the final word on all matters. (See image
above) Among the researchers, however, the Chief Scientist is the person
who coordinates the |
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