IODP Expedition 330 Louisville Seamount Trail

Location

For me Expedition 330 started in Corvallis (Oregon) on December 10 with 20 hours worth of flights from Portland to Los Angeles to Sydney with a final destination in Auckland, New Zealand. Of course I crossed the date line and so on my way I lost one extra day, arriving late in the afternoon on December 12. I was pretty much exhausted. The weather was fair and already early in the morning of that same day the JOIDES Resolution had arrived in Wynard Wharf at 06:36, officially marking the end of Expedition 329 to the "South Pacific Gyre" and the beginning of Expedition 330 to the "Louisville Seamount Trail".

Together with Toshitsugu Yamazaki (co-chief scientist from Japan) and Joerg Geldmacher (expedition project manager from Texas A/M University) we boarded the ship around 11 the next morning. We found our state rooms on the core deck level, installed ourselves by emptying our (overweight) suitcases, and immediately after that started with the first meetings. We toured the ship and laboratory spaces from top to bottom. We also met up with many people new to us or shook hands with familiar faces from previous IODP expeditions. After a pleasant dinner in Auckland, we slept onboard the JOIDES Resolution for the first time, the very first out of 66 nights that we will spend onboard.

The next day all scientists boarded as well. While they checked in at 11:15 and found their way around on the ship, both co-chiefs left for a special lunch meeting organized by the Auckland Museum, centered around two science talks about Expeditions 329 and 330. Many people from the audience also toured the JR that day and many of them will follow us via an exihibit on the Louisville expedition that is now open in the Auckland Museum. A day later on December 15 I also had the pleasure to give a more detailed science talk for the general public at the Auckland Museum, explaining the objectives of our expedition and what we hope to achieve over the coming two months. On February 13 in the year 2011 I will address the same audience again, but then with "real" results and my experiences from this exciting expedition!

The days in port where all spent on many meetings, regarding the science objectives, safety onboard, fire drills, procedures, lab tours, report writing, and so on. In total we spent 4 full days in port, which provided ample oppurtunity for the participants to get familar with Auckland during the evenings. On December 18 at 08:06 we left Wynard Warf and once the pilot disembarked at 09:12 hr, we were on our way to our first drill Site U1372 or LOUI-1C on the second northernmost seamount of the Louisville seamount trail. The distance ahead of us, 820 nmi!

Greetings Anthony Koppers