FeMO3 Dive Cruise 2008
Report Day 09 -- Tuesday 30 September 2008 -- Jason's Quick Turnaround
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FeMO3 Dive Cruise 2008 |
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The day starts when I get off my shift in the control van. About 2 hours earlier the elevator was released from the bottom 5000 meters below and it has just reached the surface with its load of samples. The crew brings it aboard with a crane and tag lines while several of the scientists take pictures. Mark Kurz and Josh Curtice get their samples off the elevator about 1 AM and then settle in for a night of work.
It’s a beautiful night – warm calm air with a glassy sea and a slight swell from the northwest. Squid dart back and forth under the lights of the aft A-frame. 5000 meters below Jason resumes work up the south rift of Lo’ihi.
When I get up in the morning Jason is back on deck and scientists getting their samplers ready and planning the next dive on the summit. During the day the trade winds pick back up and blow away the still, muggy air.
The ship steams for the summit again and our fourth dive is to return visit some new sites in Pele’s Pit, the site of most current volcanic activity, and then to explore the North Rift. The North Rift has not been explored since the massive 1996 eruption of Lo’ihi in which the summit collapsed into Pele’s Pit. The next year an instrument package was put on Lo’ihi and connected to shore power via a submarine cable from the Big Island. The rough lava surface of the north rift apparently caused the insulation of cable to fail and the instruments went dead. The dead cable must be considered in the dive plan because the cable could entangle Jason and Medea, or the elevator. To avoid entanglement, Jason will be kept to a dive track parallel and to the east of a good portion of the North Rift.
Shawn Doan onboard the R/V Thomas G. Thompson
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