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Daily Updates: January
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View Today's Slideshow!

brokenclouds weather

TODAY'S WEATHER
Broken Clouds
79°F (26.1°C)
Latitude: 9 deg 36’N
Longitude: 104 deg 15’W
Wind Direction: NE
Wind Speed: 14 Knots
Sea State: 3
Swell(s) Height: 2 Feet
Sea Temperature: 82°F (27.8°C)
Barometric Pressure: 1013.1 MB
Visibility: 15 Nautical Miles


what's to eat today?
Breakfast

French toast
Eggs
Omelets
Potato and onions
Oatmeal
Fresh fruit
Cranberry muffins

Lunch
Cheese burgers
Vegetarian burgers
French fries
Potato and onion soup
Salad bar
Seafood macaroni

Dinner
Cajun style shrimp, scallops, and oysters
Cajun rice
Zucchini
Salad bar
Key lime pie

Deeper Discovery

slideshow

Click here for examples of digital photographs taken by the Towed Camera Sled.




video

1.) Alvin recovery
2.) Swimmers dive off Alvin


Daily Update: Dive 3525
January 31, 2000
By Dr. Dan Fornari

The wind died down a bit last night and the morning dawned with a slight overcast. The towed camera sled was hoisted onboard at 0630 hours after another successful tow. In the meantime, the Alvin crew was getting the sub ready for the second dive. Bruce Strickrott, Hans Schouten and Dana Yoerger were going to pick up where the last dive left off and continue running East - West survey lines spaced only 150 meters apart across the East Pacific Rise crest.

Activities on board included serious chipping and painting to get rid of rusty spots on the ship’s decks and equipment. Rust is the enemy of everyone who makes a living on the ocean. Salt water loves to eat metal, so the job of maintaining a steel-hulled ship on the ocean is never ending. Good preventive maintenance always pays off. Having the crew chip and grind away rust, prime the steel and then paint it will keep Atlantis in good shape for many years to come.

The ping pong matches have started in earnest. We are still only into the first few rounds but folks are lining up to play practice matches and the daily bouts between Captain Silva and Marcel Viera are always fun to watch and listen to.

Margo, Greg, Jenny and Del have officially turned into night-owls! They finally went to bed around 0700 after the camera was washed off, and woke up just after lunch to start preparing the Sled for tonight’s traverse of the seafloor. They are archiving and backing-up the digital photographs and as they do that they keep ooing and ahhing about how great the pictures look and the interesting lava features they are seeing. It’s great to see students excited about their research, and Margo, who is Greg and Jenny’s advisor, is very pleased about how well they are doing in collecting these data so far.

The pool was the place to be this afternoon. The wind died down even more and the sun was very strong so quite a few people cooled off and relaxed in the salt water.

During the recovery of Alvin this afternoon, Danielle Fino was able to go out in the Avon to film and take pictures of the operations. She took some great video that you can see in the movie clips. She loved the experience and didn’t get too wet!

The normal post-dive meeting on the fantail to greet the pilot and observers was special today because it was Hans’ first Alvin dive. Pat Hickey did the honors and hosed him down as he stepped across the fantail.

Dive Summary
On Bottom: 0943 hours
Off Bottom: 1420 hours
Maximum Depth: 2541 meters

Today’s dive started out with some minor technical problems with the gravimeter that got resolved after a few discussions on the UQC - the underwater telephone that Alvin uses to communicate with the Top Lab. After only a short delay, and realizing that a switch had mistakenly been turned the wrong way, Alvin started running the survey lines. They drove over 7 kilometers and the data again look very good. They also collected another lava sample, this time a glassy piece of a lobate flow, at the beginning of the dive. After the sub was secured in the hanger, the Alvin crew made some minor changes to the basket so that when they dive tomorrow to the hydrothermal vents at 9° 50’N they won’t damage any of the acoustic and magnetic sensors while they are working around the hot, black smoker chimneys.