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  TODAY'S WEATHER Partly cloudy 85.1°F (29.5°C) Latitude: 9 deg 36.6 ’N Longitude: 104 deg 17.2’W Wind Direction: W Wind Speed: 12 Knots Sea State 0 Swell(s) Height: 3-5 Foot Sea Temperature: 84°F (28.9°C) Barometric Pressure: 1101 MB Visibility: 10-25 Nautical Miles  Breakfast Cheese Omelets Scrambled eggs Bacon and Sausage Ground Beef on toast Oatmeal Dry Cereal Toast and Bagels Lunch Hot Dogs French Fries Chimichangas Tomato Soup Salad Bar Dinner Chicken Cacciatore Noodles Rice Fresh Bread Salad Bar Home-made Chocolate Brownies with Home-made ice cream Starting the Sonar Surveys - The Path to Discovery The sky early this morning was gray with patches of puffy white clouds that became more peach colored as the sun rose above the horizon. You will remember that yesterday, we had electrical problems with the DSL-120 sonar and in the evening, we had to bring it back on board to repair it. Bob “Yogi“ Elder and Craig Elder of the WHOI Deep Submergence Operations Group spent all night working on it. Trouble-shooting equipment problems at sea requires a combination of experience, making keen observations, and luck! Bob and Craig noticed that a particular component of the sonar’s electronics would shut off after working just 6 minutes. They were able to trace the problem to a small electronic component, called an integrated circuit (IC), that costs just a few dollars. Even though the IC is small and cheap, the DSL-120 sonar cannot ping without it. The problem was fixed by early morning and at about 0800 hours, we again deployed the sonar fish with the MAPRs mounted on the wire. Much to everyone’s relief, we started collecting data just before lunch. Collecting data is a big part of being a scientist, whether you are a biologist working in the rain forest, a chemist working in a laboratory, an astronomer trying to understand the universe, or a marine geologist investigating the role that mid-ocean ridge volcanoes play in causing seafloor spreading. Scientists are trained to develop hypotheses, or ideas about how things work, and then design experiments to collect the data needed to test those ideas. On RV Melville, we are testing the hypothesis that the seismic events recorded by the Autonomous Hydrophone Array (AHA) are indicators of recent volcanic eruptions on the East Pacific Rise axis. Developing
hypotheses may sound easy, but how do scientists get the
money to conduct the experiments? It is a long process! Three
years ago, we (Dan, Maya, Mike, and our shore-based collaborators)
wrote a research proposal to the National Science Foundation
describing our hypothesis and presenting an experiment designed
to test it. Because NSF always tries to fund the best science
with the tax dollars that go towards supporting basic research,
they ask other scientists to review and comment on every
proposal. It took two years before NSF decided to fund the
proposal. It then took another year or so before a research
ship and the WHOI deep submergence vehicles were available
to do the surveys we had planned. After all this preparation,
it is no wonder that we are all anxious to see the mapping
systems working well and collecting data that will test our
hypothesis.
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Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution
