A pink dawn rose over Cerro Azul volcano today- the beginning of another day's work at sea, but with the knowledge that so much has changed back home. All of us are stunned at the devastating news of yesterday and our hearts and prayers go out to those affected.

Our work in the Galápagos continues, and we hope to provide diversion and stimulation for students, as well as contact with the families and friends of all those on board Revelle who are so far away.

We have reached a milestone in the cruise. Our sonar mapping program is complete and we are producing final maps of the MR1 sidescan sonar and multibeam bathymetry that guide our dredge sampling program. On this cruise we have mapped over 24,000 square kilometers of seafloor- about the size of the state of New Hampshire.

Our maps show us where young volcanic seafloor is present on the flanks of Fernandina and Isabela. They also show us where large lava flows, some nearly half as large as Fernandina Island, are present in the deep seafloor surrounding the islands. One of the key discoveries on this cruise is the broad, scalloped terraces present mostly between Isabela and Floreana Islands - evidence of the early stages of submarine volcanism that have built the islands. We also see evidence of erosion. Smooth areas in the MR1 data, which show light-dark streaking, suggest large landslides have also been active in modifying the slopes of these volcanoes.

“A dream of every marine geologist is to ‘pull-the-plug’ on the ocean, so we can see all the seafloor features and make sense of them,” Dan Fornari says. With these maps, we can see that dream for the ocean floor around the western Galápagos.

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