Tracy Gregg, Port Observer (Transcript); Phil Forte, Pilot in Training; D. Foster, Pilot

Time Depth Heading Observations
0914.56 Maurice Dance started
0924 Maurice Dance stopped
1000 Getting close to the bottom. We have 3 pictures on the port side and 292 on the stbd side as we go down. So I'll start on stbd side with a 15-second rep rate, unless we're sampling, in which case I'll reduce it to 60. And then I'll flip over to the port side.
1030 2729 336 Starting to see the bottom. From here it looks like sedimented pillows. Still can't quite make out a Macdonald age; I'm guessing around 2 because I can still make out individual pillows sticking out above the sediment.
1033 2738 x-1438, y-5083. Age 2 lobes. There's an orange shrimp out my window. I see some glass on these lobes, poking up through the sediment. The vertical relief here is about 50-80 cm. The lobes are distinct and somewhat bulbous, each about 0.5-1m across and about 2m long.
1037 2737 x-1441, y-5073. We have the bottom. We got a range and bearing of approximately 1477 and 084 to target 2. We're not going to go directly to target 1, we don't need to; we're just going to go to target 2. We are in this age 2 glassy, sedimented lobates. I've asked Phil to grab a piece of it before we head on to target 2.
1051 2739 x-1436, y-5086. Just picked up sample 1 of this sediment cover age 2, very bulbous lobate flows. Put it in basket 5A, a piece about 15 x 10 cm.
1053 2738 084 We are heading to way point 2 because we don't really need to land directly on 1. It says we're about 1.5 km from way point 2. So we'll be going up this slope, looking for the contact for the young lava flow.
1055 2735 086 We've just come up onto a constructional pillow slope. Very bulbous, but small pillows, intermingled with lobes. There was definitely some sort of morphological contact; whether or not it was a lava flow contact I'm not sure. The pillows are on the order of <1 m in every dimension, more like 30-40cm across and around 80-120cm long. A lot of them are lobes, not pillows. So we have an intermingling of small pillows and lobes--mostly lobes, I guess, as we're coming up this constructional slope.
1057 2731 085 Still flying over this constructional pillow mound. The ground is sloping away from me, away from the port side, fairly steeply. I can see the bottom of this mound, and it doesn't look like a contact at all, it looks like it just grades into the same lobate stuff that we landed on. Glassy, age 1.5-2. Everything has a cover of sediment on it but there are no sediment pockets that are connected. This looks a lot like some of the Animal Farm stuff. In the distance, some of it looks very glassy.
1059 2729 085 We're climbing up this pillow slope. There are local patches of orange hydrothermal staining in this pillow slope [note added in transcription: these orange patches may be bacterial mats]. Very bright orange, but also quite localized: patches about the size of a quarter sticking in and out of some of these pockets. There's white hydrothermal staining on some of the exposed crusts of these bulbous pillows and lobes. Again, these individual pillows and lobes are not very large for the most part. They are on the order of a meter or less, and the vertical relief within this mound that we're climbing up (Phil estimates about a 45°slope) the microscale relief is on the order of a meter. It would really be a pain in the neck to have to walk over this stuff.
1100 2724 084 x-1353, y-5049. Some of these pillows and lobes are massively decorated--just buds popping out of every pore. Some of the buds are large, tens of cm across and tens of cm long. It's a very steep constructional slope.
1101 Flying up this slope and I just asked Phil to turn the sub sideways for a couple minutes so we can get a good reading with the mesotech so we can get an estimate of what this slope really is.
1103 Just turned the submarine sideways to get a measurement of the slope, and it's a nice slope. There's glassy lava, there's orange hydrothermal staining along the surfaces and in the pockets of some of these pillows. There does seem to be a faint Mn coating. Now that we're getting closer to these things, I would give them a sediment age of 1.5
1109 2720 x-1342, y-5091. I asked Phil to take a sample of this glassy pillow/lobate flow, cuz this might very well be the flow we're looking for.
1117 2716 086 Just collected sample #2 from this age 1.5, glassy, lobate/pillow slope. The slope is probably on the order of about 30°, maybe even a little steeper. This may be the young flow we're looking for. It is still quite glassy. There is a light Mn coating as we're coming up slope locally some of the lobes are getting larger. In some areas they are up to almost a meter tall and a couple of meters wide. They really look like they want to be pillows in many cases but they just don't have the striations on them.
1119 2709 085 The ground is sloping away from me, toward the direction of about 8:00 as the sub flies. It's a pretty steep slope. The pillows are all elongate downslope. Definitely constructional. Not so steep that the pillows and lobes are falling apart, though--they're able to maintain coherency down this construct. It looks like I can see the base of the slope. It has pillows and lobes spilling out onto it.
1121 2701 084 Climbing up the edge of this pillow flow. The ground is sloping downward away from me, and Phil says its sloping upward to his right, so we're climbing up on the shoulder of this construct.
1123 2686 084 x-1246, y-5086. Flying over mostly pillows now with occasional lobes, and local patches of white and bright orange hydrothermal staining. There's still glass, with a Macdonald age of 1.5. Not very many sessile organisms, I just realized. I've seen 2, maybe 3 stalked crinoids and that's it. There are no sponges, there aren't any anemones. Has anybody seen anything alive out here?
1125 2679 085 Still climbing up this slope. I just saw snail, 2 white shrimp and a dandelion; Phil says he saw a shrimp and a feather-duster thing. I think this stuff is pretty young. The shrimp and the dandelion suggest that there might be some stuff going on not too terribly far away. The pillows and lobes are heavily decorated. The individual buds aren't quite as large, but every construct has some buds on it. There's a little tiny, very small, stalked crinoid.
1127 2668 085 There are some more sessile organisms here--I just passed over a couple of stalked crinoids. None of them were very large, though. Still this glassy, decorated pillows and lobes. The vertical relief in-between pillows and lobes is approaching a meter. I can still easily make out individual lobes and buds--this is not heavily sedimented, although there is a fine dusting of sediment over everything. There's still the patches of white and orange hydrothermal staining. Occasionally I see broken pillows and lobes, and they're full--I haven't seen any hollow or collapsed pillows or lobes as we continue to climb up the west flank of the axis.
1129 2654 085 x-1132 y-5078. We are still climbing up; Phil says the slope seems to be pretty equal on both sides as we climb up these age 1.5 pillows and lobes with some sessile fauna on them: the occasional stalked crinoid, but they aren't very large. I haven't seen any anemones yet. [Phil: We just went over one.] There's still pockets of orange and white hydrothermal staining and a light dusting of the pelagic ooze over everything.
1130 2651 086 x-1113, y-5067. We just crossed onto a field of broad lobes. They're still lightly decorated, it's still part of the same flow--there's no contact, but the morphology has changed from all those decorated small pillows and lobes to an area of broad lobes. It looks like it's just a shoulder on the rise because we're coming back into the smaller pillows and lobes. The broad lobes, we're coming out of them now already, had a vertical relief <30cm between the lobes, and the lobes were on the order of 2m across.
1133 2646 085 It seems to me that for a while, basically since we crossed that broad shoulder of lobes we haven't been climbing quite so fast. We are still climbing up but the slope doesn't seem to be as steep. I'll use this little plumb-line thing that Dudley gave me...
1134 2643 085 Phil, slow down, I'm gonna want a piece of this. x-1042, y-5076. Phil and I were just talking about how the slope seems to have flattened out some, and I looked down to fiddle with the little slope thing, and I look back up and we are over much glassier lava. I think this is it, I think this is the young flow. It is age 1. It has a light dusting of sediment. It's fairly black and fresh and glassy. There might be some interfingering of the older material here, but it's mostly this younger stuff. So somewhere in the last 10 m we just passed over a contact, and I've asked Phil to set down and get a piece of it.
1146 2644 x-1036 y-5081. I think we just passed over the contact of the young lava. I asked Phil to take a sample # 3, which he did: a small piece of a lobate bud. So we're still about a km from the axis out here, so this stuff flowed quite a ways.
1150 2644 x-1036 y-5042. Just picking up from the ground after collecting a sample of this young stuff. I've asked Phil to turn around to head back so I can see the contact, and then we might try to follow the contact northward. So we're going to turn around and find this contact, and try to follow the contact northward for 100m or so before moving on to way point 2.
1152 2643 275 We're going back to see if I can find the contact between these different lavas.
1154 2648 285 x-1066 y-5075. We were heading 285 or so to pick up the contact and I think we already picked it up--we're back in this older stuff here. I initially thought that we would try to follow the contact northward but its very irregular--I don't think we'd have much luck trying to follow it. So we're turning back around and we're going to head to way point 2.
1156 2646 085 This is the contact here: x-1069, y-5023. The newer lava here is smaller buds, more decorated, glassier lava.
1158 2640 086 Heading to way point 2 over this young lava with a Macdonald age of 1 or less. It is composed of pillows and lobes. The pillows and lobes are small, <1m long for the most part and on the order of 60cm or so wide. Heavily decorated, very glassy buds and there's a dusting of sediment. Orange and white hydrothermal staining, an orange shrimp flying by.
1200 2634 087 Flying over the younger lava. The pillows and lobes are elongate pointing to about 8:00 as the sub goes. I just asked everybody what the ground was doing, and it sortof might be vaguely sloping up to the stbd side--Dudley says it goes up to a little depression and then continues on up. We're still over pillows and lobes. Here the pillows are starting to get larger. I see a few out my window that are approaching 1m in diameter. Vertical relief over this surface is over 1m in places. There are lots of swells and dips as there are local piles of pillows and lobes. Getting more bulbous and fatter, both the pillows and the lobes. Still patches of white and orange hydrothermal staining.
1201 Just passed over my first anemone on this stuff, and it was one of the big fat orange ones.
1202 2623 083 We're just coming up a shoulder in the slope, and the lobes are much larger here. There are fewer pillows and mostly lobes; they're very broad, approaching 2-3 m across. Vertical relief between lobes is closer to 20-30 cm, although there are still pillows. Everything's decorated--lots of glassy buds everywhere.
1203 There's this huge pillow tube out my window. It's about 6m long and about 1.5 m in diameter flowing downslope. Now I'm mostly over glassy lobes, lobes about 1.5-2 m across, occasional pillows.
1205 2614 085 I see an orange shrimp out my window. We're now over a field of broad lobates. The slope has shallowed out. Do you see a collapse pit? Phil sees a small collapse, okay, beautiful. So we've transitioned into these broad lobes, on the order of 6 or more meters across. Phil saw a small collapse pit, and now we're traveling over a wrinkled sheet flow in the midst of these flows. It looks like it's a channeled lobe, and I saw a drained out portion in that channeled flow just like you see in the channels in Hawaii where a little bit of the lava had drained out and the roof had just sortof tipped in a little bit. More collapse pits. So we're getting collapses in the lobes. They're collapses on the scale of individual lobes, on the order of probably about a sub length long and 1-2 m wide. There's a pillow haystack out my window. So we have intermingled sheet flows and lobes, but I think they're all from the same flow, and pillows, all in one place.
1208 2611 088 Just passed into a field of jumbled sheet flow. I think we've found one of these channels. I can see pillows spilling over the edges of it, and now it's jumbled as far as I can see. I'm flying over jumbled sheet flows, Dudley sees lobes out his side, and so that was one of these channels. Phil, could you please tweak the submarine to my side a bit so I can keep these sheet flows in my field of view, and we'll just follow edge of them up the axis. So I have busted up, chaotically folded sheet flows out my window, and we're going to try to follow this up to the axis. I didn't expect to see these this far out.
1210 067 And turning. I asked Phil to tweak the sub to follow up that jumbled sheet flow, but I saw where it came out of collapses in the lobes, and that was where it started. So it started off-axis from within these broad lobates. Now, as he turned, we're heading over more lobes and pillows. So that was a local little distribution system of jumbled sheet flow which I believe started this far off axis.
1211 2604 090 Coming up into broader lobates and locally folded and jumbled regions within the lobate flow. Broad lobates and in the margins I see decorated pillows. And it seems to me we're climbing up a steeper slope.
1212 2600 089 Still in broad lobes but I'm seeing local collapses on the scale of individual lobes, collapses on the order of 50cm deep, 2-3m across, passing over a collapse on the scale of an individual lobe. So we're getting small collapses here but nothing very huge.
1214 2596 089 Passing over jumbled sheet flow within these lobate flows.
There's a nice lineated channel. Okay, right out my window there's lobes, and about 2m away there's jumbled sheets, and then there's about 3 m of jumbled sheets and then there's a nice lineated channel coming down a slope. Phil, could you please tweak the sub my way just a little bit? I want to try to follow this channel if I can. Great, thanks. The lava channel is banking up onto the lobes. I see a lot of white hydrothermal staining. Going upslope. A lot of broken up stuff here, autobrecciated. The lava must've just ripped down here. This is all fragmented, really broken up.
1217 I just asked Phil to turn the sub so we could fly across it and get a measurement of it's dimensions.
Coming up over the levee. Flat sheets in the middle, lineated sheets on either side surrounded by jumbled levees. Altimeter still says 5 m...Hm. Well, I know it was deeper than that. Thank you, Phil, you can turn back the direction we're supposed to be going now.
1219 We're about 600m off axis, and we're getting these wonderful channels and jumbled sheet flows.
1221 We're about 600m from way point 2, so that puts us at about 0.5 km or so off-axis. We're in the middle of these jumbled, really broken up, busted up sheet flows. Some of them are folded but some of them are just totally autobrecciated. It's just complete garbage, all mixed up and wrapped up, and it's pretty clear that this stuff was flowing very rapidly. I've asked Phil to grab a piece of it here and then we'll continue on.
1227 2588 x-542, y-5072. Phil just picked up a big chunk of this jumbled sheet flow out here and put it in basket 1A, this is sample #4 and we'll be continuing on to the axis.
Now that we're rising up off the place where Phil collected the sample I can get a better idea of the regional context. Oh, there's a big octopod out my window. And the fragment that he took looks like a fragment of a levee of a small channel. The channel has a small skylight in it that's about 1m across, at least 0.5m deep. The levee is about 2-3m high over a channel that's about 3-4m wide. That octopus is bookin'; it's taking a walk over this broken up jumbled sheet flow. How can they do that without getting cut to shreds?
1231 2587 136 x-535, y-5080. Flying over jumbled sheet flows and lobes. Again, it looks like there's a series of anastamosing channels in that jumbled mess. Directly beneath me now are pillows and lobes. Oh, and we're turning. We're mostly over broad lobes an pillows, decorated pillows. Lobes are flat, but still thick, about 80 cm thick or so. I see the jumbled flow in the distance. Yup, another channel. We're close enough now that this is probably one of the channel systems we can pick up on the sonar, and they just appear to come out from either beneath these lobes, or within these lobes. There's one of those big-headed ugly fish, and I saw a rat-tail earlier.
1233 2583 083 Flying over pillows and lobes, and there are--there's a polychaete worm, swimming in the water! There are local small patches of white and orange hydrothermal staining, mostly in the cracks. Small sediment pockets. Pillows and lobes mostly uncollapsed, although I can see an occasional hole. Locally there are folds on top of the smooth lobes. Lobes are fairly broad and very long. They are 6-8 m long, 1-3 m across at their widest parts, and they tend to end in these very fine buds and fingers.
1234 2589 083 Dropped over a shallow collapse, about 0.5 m deep, and now over curtain-folded sheet flow that's also slightly broken up. In the distance I think I can make out another small lava channel.
1235 Dudley says there's a collapse out his side that's almost the size of the submarine and almost a meter deep. I'm seeing more hydrothermal staining. Yeah, there's definitely a large channel out my window, and it looks morphologically like the same one we saw before. Oh, this is great! Here it's about 8m across, pretty shallow here, we're flying over the levee an the levee is sheared--yup, I can see lava roses--sheared sheet flow, sheared curtain-folded flow. There's lineated flow right next to the margin, and the enter of the flow is flat sheet flow. And now I can't see the other side of it; I think this is one of those big channels on the sidescan.
1236 The channel just took a little bend, heading 081 and I asked Phil to go ahead and try to follow this channel up to the axis. Coming up to a lava canoe that's been pushed up; I can see the channel splitting on either side of it. We're following up one side, and away from me on the other side is the other arm of the channel. Very broken up, jumbled, broken up folds. Phil says he just lost the freeway but it's merging into another channel, looks like out my window. Again, I see broken up folds. There's an orange shrimp. We're climbing up. There's a small ridge here that got pushed up in the middle of this channel somehow. No, we're just coming up a little rise and not going down the other side. We're coming into curtain-folded flows that have been broken up.
1238 2577 093 Still kindof following this channel but we're getting into more collapses that are closer together and are larger. They're still fairly shallow. Oo, and when I can peek inside I can see that underneath are lineated sheet flows inside some of these collapses. Swimming crinoid, megalope. There's a large drop-off off my side, it's probably another channel margin. Yeah, it's floored with curtain-folded flows, lineated sheet flows. Another shrimp. It's a pretty severe drop-off though: it looks like it's pretty straight and it's about 8 m deep.
1239 2575 107 Still sortof paralleling this channel. It's quite broad here. The levees are these broken up curtain folds, grading into these lineated sheet flows, the lineations that are a braided sheet flow, and local regions of flat sheet flow. We're sortof flying up the southern levee of it.
2576 121 As Phil puts it, back on a sheet flow, back on the freeway. The large channel is, I think what we're flying over right now feeds that large channel.
1241 2574 120 x-293, y-5106. Following that lineated sheet flow. What is that? It looks artificial.
1242 2571 166 The channel just took a bend, and so did Phil to stay with it. Still lineated to flat sheet flows bordered by broken up folded flows for the levees. Locally the levees are onlapped by lobate flows.
1243 2573 151 Still staying with this lineated sheet flow. I can now see the far margin, this would be the eastern margin, NE margin of this channel, and the margin is lineated, and there are little tiny little lava coils about 5-10 cm across. Large collapse, and curtain folds marking the margin of the channel.
1244 2572 128 Still on this sheet flow. Out my side now it's suddenly become curtain-folded, and it is bounded by a large collapse feature, lined with bathtub rings, about 3m deep. I don't see any pillars in the collapse. Top crust is lobate crust, and then there's a 1-3m gap, depending on where you are, and then there's the surface of this sheet flow. Locally, lobate and folded flows have flowed over this collapse. Underneath the collapses is more sedimented and less glassy than the stuff that's on top of the collapses. Okay, now we're getting into lots of collapse.
1246 2572 123 We're in the middle of a lava channel that's pretty much smooth sheet flows. The margin of it out my window is a good 10m away and it's marked by collapse.
1248 2569 171 Following this channel still. The channel split; Phil followed one of the splits. This channel doesn't look to me like it's quite as large. There are lobates on the side, smaller collapses marking the boundary, but there are still good lineations marking the sheet flow. So even though we're sortof heading south, we are getting closer to the axis so we'll just keep on it.
1249 2566 141 Just lost the sheet flow. It just turned into a bunch of lobate flows with collapse. So I've told Phil to turn to the heading we need to get to way point 2, and I have a gut feeling we'll probably pick up another one of these channels.
1250 2568 033 Heading to way point 2 after that sheet flow petered out, and we're flying over broad glassy lobates. Quite broad, on the order of 6-8m across and longer than my field of view. Swimming crinoid, and a large collapse that's about a sub-and-half-length long and about half-a-sub across and almost a meter deep. More shallow collapses here. And right here I think I see the birth of a channel; it just pours out of these lobes. The lobes are definitely flowing away from me, towards 9:00 as the sub heads.
1253 2568 030 Heading over some deeper and sub-sized collapses, over 1-1.5 m deep with nice bathtub rings on them. Locally, the lobes are folded, but they're still lobes: they have individual boundaries. But they're up to 1.5-2 m thick.
1254 2567 036 There's a large drop-off here, which very possibly is the axis, and I can make out lots of bathtub rings and a jagged collapsed margin of the lobates. Depth, yeah, this must be the axis. It's about 9-10m deep, lined with bathtub rings all the way up to the top. I'm looking at a talus slope now. Yeah, those are definitely bathtub rings, those are not flow units. Lobate crust locally supported--Dudley sees a pillar so I think we must be in the axis here.
1255 2567 059 x-81, y-5119. What's our range and bearing to 2?
1257 2571 105 and changing. x-65, y-5120. There's a chaotically folded sheet flow below me, patches of orange hydrothermal staining. Dudley said he saw a pillar when we were over the collapse; maybe it wasn't the axis but just a large collapse. I see spaghetti worms out my window. Patches of orange hydrothermal sediment. Sparse, clusters of spaghetti worms, lots of crap in the water, spaghetti worms getting more common now. Big blobs of orange hydrothermal sediment. Yuck.
1300 2570 024 I think we're in the ditch or on the edge of it. There are pillar walls and lots of orange crud in the water, like orange bacterial mats. These pillars are connected, they're walls. They're not free-standing single pillars. The free-standing parts of them are only 1.5m tall or so, but the whole complex is 6 or more meters tall.
1305 2568 We're right on the edge of the axial ditch, and Dudley says he sees tubeworms out his window, and there's spaghetti worms out my window, and a small collapse. Phil is going to take a piece of this stuff right here.
1316 2569 x-13, y-5052. Picking up from collecting sample #5 and we're going to head to way point 3. I think we're on the eastern wall of the axis, but I could be wrong, we might be on the west side already--I don't know how wide this thing is. So we're gonna see if we can find the westernmost contact of this flow.
1316 2567 097 Picking up from collection of sample #5. There's lots of spaghetti worms out my window, draping over the walls of the collapse. A couple of white shrimp. A lot of this orange crap in the water. Lots of little baby white shrimp.
1318 2568 103 I believe that was the west wall of the graben where we collected sample 5. So the graben--ditch, whatever. It's a collapse pit. It's very narrow. Where we just passed over it it was only 20 or so meters across. So we're passing over glassy lobes that are broad, uncollapsed, with patches of orange hydrothermal staining, lightly sedimented, age 1. I don't see any life so that life was concentrated very near the collapse itself.
1321 2572 102 Flying over some collapse areas in the younger lava that are filled with jumbled sheet flows intermingled lobes and the occasional pillow.
1322 2574 102 There's local collapses here with abundant white hydrothermal staining around the margins of the collapses, but only around the collapse margins--I don't really see it in other places. I see a lone galatheid crab sitting out there amongst the lobates. Still glassy, light sediment, still the young stuff. Lobes smaller, more bulbous on the scale of 1-2m, not the big broad flat lobes that we saw on the other side of the axis. Patches of orange hydrothermal staining, but it's pretty localized stuff.
1324 2576 100 There are occasional striated pillows now in the lobate terrain. The lobes are decorated, and the pillows are decorated as well. Not massively decorated, I mean you can still see the lobes and pillows through the decorations, but they're abundant.
1325 2579 100 Phil says he sees a collapse on the stbd side; I caught just a glimpse of it in the pan & tilt video. Things look pretty solid out the port side.
1326 2579 099 Now we're over a region of lobes and fewer pillows, although there are still pillows locally. Everything still pretty glassy. Still buds. The vertical relief is on the order of 1-1.5 m. Local patches of white hydrothermal staining around fractures. Very few sessile organisms; I've seen a rare anemone but that's it.
1327 2584 099 Flying over a field of mostly pillows now. Fewer lobes, mostly pillows. Still decorated, looks a little bit older but I wonder if that's just because they're pillows and don't have as much glass to begin with. There's a beautiful drained pillow out my window. Broken pillow just disgorging this big blob of lava. The pillow's about 2m across.
1328 2587 100 We've been in a depression for the last 1.5 minutes, although actually I think we're still sortof in a depression cuz I'm looking up, away from me. Filled with pillows and lobes, local hydrothermal staining. Pillows are 4m long an 1.5 m in diameter. Omigosh, there's a deflated pillow--it just looks like a basketball that someone pulled the air out of!
1330 2591 099 Passed over a couple of anemones. The sediment cover seems a little bit higher to me, although the lavas are still glassy and fresh. I'm wondering if we passed a contact somewhere that I didn't quite catch. There are patches of orange hydrothermal staining. I would call these age 1.5-2.0, cuz there's a dusting of sediment, but I don't remember seeing a contact anywhere.
1333 2590 099 Flying over sedimented lobes and pillows. They're decorated and glassy, and yet I think there's more sediment on them than the young flow. So I think somewhere we passed a contact but we're going to fly a little bit farther to the east just so I can ease my troubled mind and make sure we're in the older stuff. It's still glassy, that's what troubles me. There's a worm floating in the water, a holothurian, hydrothermal staining.
1335 2593 105 We're about, not quite 0.5 km off-axis but we passed out of the young stuff but I'm not exactly sure where. This is older material, it's more sedimented, this is more like the stuff we first landed in. There are patches of white and orange hydrothermal staining, limited sessile creatures, but this is a pillowed flow, decorated, and it's got more sediment cover on it than the young stuff. So. I don't remember seeing a contact; hopefully I can pick it up on the way back in. It's always easier for me to pick it up when I'm going from heavy to light sediment as opposed to when I'm going from light to heavier sediment.
1352 2599 x658, y-5202. Picked up sample #6 and I think this is in the same kindof stuff we first landed in; I don't think this is the young flow. We're gonna traverse SW heading about 160 for about 300m maybe, just to ease my troubled mind and then we'll be heading to way point 5.
1354 2601 160 x677, y-5212. Heading over decorated pillows and lobes. Local patches of white hydrothermal staining. Some of these pillows are really seriously ornamented--almost can't see the surface of the pillow. Still glassy; I'd give it a sediment cover age of 1.5-2.0. I'm pretty sure this is the older stuff, but I want to fly over it for a while just to make sure.
1356 2607 161 Last minute or so I've been seeing a lot of patches of white hydrothermal staining in the cracks, but no big pockets of orange stuff like we saw closer to the axis.
1357 2609 163 Over mostly bulbous pillows now, with dimensions of not terribly huge, maybe 1m in diameter and 1-2m long, intermingled with very decorated lobes. The lobes are smaller than the pillows, they are long and skinny: a few tens of cm across and maybe a meter long or so. I've seen 2 stalked crinoids since the sample was taken.
1359 2613 163 Local patches of folding within the lobes, and local broken up stuff, and it's broad lobes. We passed over a period of highly decorated pillows and lobes, and now broad, undecorated lobes.
1359 Not only are we in lobes now, but I'm starting to see local patches of orange hydrothermal sediment along with white staining in the cracks. No obvious change in sediment cover, however.
1400 2616 162 Phil says it's starting to get broken up, and lo and behold, it's true: I can see it out my window. WE are passing over a broken up sheet flow, very jumbled, plates overturned. I can't even really make out folds. There's a stalked crinoid. Still glassy, there's sediment over everything. This is a lava channel. A jumbled, broken-up sheet flow. And I can't tell how old it is.
1401 2618 161 There's a deep collapse out my side, probably about 6m deep, filled with rubble and surrounded by this broken-up sheet flow. Everything's got a coating of Mn on it. I don't think this is the really young stuff. I think this is an older material. This is a broad lava channel. I can't tell if this is the young stuff or not. It's too broken up--sediment cover's deceiving when it's this broken up. Stalked crinoid. I didn't notice an obvious contact, however, between this stuff and the lobes.
1403 2618 161 As I'm looking out the port window it looks like the lava's flowing in this channel in a direction about 8:00, based on local lava pile-ups and folds. It's really pretty twisted up stuff, though. And again, when we get close, I can see there's a Mn coating on most of this stuff, even though it's glassy. There is sediment. Phil says we're starting to come out of it now.
1404 2619 We're coming to the far end of this jumbled up sheet flow. I've asked Phil to get a piece of it because while I don't think that it is the young flow, it might be. So we'll grab a chunk of it and then we'll head back toward the axis. As we're settling down on the ground, we're settling onto these lobate flows here next to the sheet. It's talus here from the sheet that's fallen onto the lobate flow. There's an orange patch of hydrothermal staining in one of the lobate pockets right out my window.
1415 2620 x802, y-5523 (?). Picking up after collecting sample #7 from this jumbled sheet flow. We're going to head to way point 5 now.
1418 2618 275 Heading to way point 5, back toward the axis, back over this jumbled sheet flow. Still trying to determine how old it is. Surrounded by lobate flows. I can see actually on some of the pieces a pretty good Mn coating. Locally folds are still intact on the jumbled sheet flow but mostly it's pretty much busted up.
1419 2617 276 There's a nice channel, jumbled channel out my side. It's filled with jumbled stuff and it's got jumbled levees so it's kind hard to easily identify the margins of it. I'm not sure that I'm seeing all the way across it, which means that it's on the order of 15m wide or more. Very broken up in the middle, but I can get some flow directions from the intact folds, and it looks like it's flowing toward the direction the sub is facing--which is good. That means it came from the axis. There's a stalked crinoid. It's pretty glassy stuff.
1420 2615 276 x706, y-5526. Coming out of that jumbled sheet flow, now flying over bulbous lobes and pillows. This looks like the young stuff. Yes. Yes, this is it. So there was the contact, right around x692
1421 So that jumbled sheet flow we sampled was in fact an older material; we're back over the younger stuff. So it doesn't seem to extend very far on the east side of the axis, at least not here.
1422 2611 276 Glassy lobes; local patches of white and orange hydrothermal staining. Not very decorated, but there are a few buds on some of these lobes.
Sediment cover age 1 or less, 0.5-1.
1423 2610 273 x649, y-5524
1424 2608 274 Broad lobes, no pillows. Vertical relief is approaching a meter where a couple of lobes stack up on top of each other. Patches of orange hydrothermal staining are common in pockets.
1425 2607 275 There's a small collapse out my window, on the scale of an individual lobe, so it's about 80 cm deep and about 1.5 m across.
1429 2605 x486, y-5523. We're over the young lava. I've asked Phil to pick up a piece of it because I don't believe we have a piece of it this far out on this side of the axis. Dudley says out his window he's got about a 10m across collapse. And actually, outside my window there's a 4-m across collapse that's about 1 m deep.
1437 2605 x 484, y-5523. Just collected sample #8 from this young lobate lava east of the axis and put it in the bio box.
1440 2603 Picking up and heading to way point 5. Going over a large collapse that's about 2-2.5 m deep, supported by a pillar on one side. Hydrothermal staining around the edges and it's about sub-size all the way around. As we're turning around to fly toward the axis.
1443 2598 284 Still heading over broad lobes with the occasional collapse that's on the scale of individual lobes. Orange hydrothermal staining in the pockets and white hydrothermal staining in the cracks. Some of the lobes are 4 m across and the collapses are I guess they're not really becoming more frequent but they are out there.
1444 2596 277 There's a large collapse out my side. About 4m deep, and I can't see the other side of it. It's got a couple of ledges to it. Locally it looks like lava is flowing over the ledges but that might just be an optical illusion. The collapse is floored with rubble and jumbled flows. Coming up over another collapse, this one the size of an individual lobe.
1445 There's now a jumbled flow out my window that's locally onlapped by lobate flows. It's a very small patch of jumbled flow, maybe 5x8m, but it is poking out as a little puka through the lobate flows.
1446 Now I'm just in decorated lobates. Still very broad lobes but decorated.
1446 2593 275 The collapses are sub-sized or larger, and are flanked with white and orange hydrothermal staining around the edge of the collapse.
1447 2590 274 Coming up a local rise. Pillows are elongate, flowing about 8:00 compared to the sub heading, but it's pretty gradual and is a local thing.
1449 2586 275 Over decorated lobes and bulbous pillows. Pillows are on the order of 2-4 m long, they're pillow tubes. And on the order of 0.5-1m in diameter. Local patches of white hydrothermal staining in the cracks. x200, y-5495, which looks about right.
1450 2583 277 The terrain is definitely sloping down away from me, or at least was for about 20 m or so; now it's not quite so obvious. But it was sloping away at about 9:00 as compared to the direction the sub faces. Now it looks like we're climbing up a little bit of a rise. There are elongate pillows, wow, longer than the sub, 20m or so I think. Down a gentle slope.
1452 Coming over a field of bulbous pillows, slightly decorated.
1454 2572 276 x82, y-5492. We just passed way point 5, passed south of it by about 50 m or so. But we're going to continue west until we get to the axis, and we're gonna go to the west wall of the axis, and then turn south along the west wall of the axis. Hopefully we can find this channel-like feature that's on the sonar but I have a feeling it's just going to look like a big collapse. Entering into a region of collapse right now below me, filled with chaotically folded, curtain folded flows, broken up flows, bounded by lobates.
1455 275 Phil says that it's all broken up beneath us; all I catch is the folded margin of that, however, and then the lobates. There's a baby rat-tail. More collapse features. We're definitely getting closer to the axis.
1455 There's a large collapse out my window that's about 2.5 sub-lengths long and about a sub-length wide and about 2m deep. And coming up into a small patch of curtain-folded flows here, only about 2m square and broad lobates.
1457 2568 276 Locally there are some broad shallow collapses out my window but still it's glassy lobates, only marginally decorated.
1458 2566 278 x-78, y-5486. We're flying over the axis now. There's spaghetti worms, tall lava pillars about 6 m tall. I'd say the axis is about 8m deep here. There are lots of spaghetti worms, lots of this orange crap in the water, little worms, lots of collapse. Spaghetti worms draping the tops of the pillars and the remnants. Very cloudy water.
The floor of the ditch is filled with rubble, and lineated, folded, and jumbled sheet flows. Every once in a while I see large plates of what look like lobate crust that have just fallen on the floor, and I wonder if those aren't the remnants of a primary crust from this lava flow.
1501 2565 279 We're crossing over the axis here which is filled with remnants, pillar walls. They're not individual pillars, they're chunks of crust that are lined with bathtub rings, have lobate tops that are sticking up in the middle of the axis. So finally here at x-143, y-5487, we're finally I think reaching the west wall, which is covered with lobates.
1502 2564 We've just crossed over the axis. Phil's turning south now and we're gonna motor south along the west wall of the axis until we can pick up that feature that we see on the sidescan and try to follow it down.
1504 2566 167 x-156y, y-5503. We're flying south along the west wall of the axis, so I get to look down in the ditch, which is pretty cool, and we're looking for that large channel feature which this close to the axis might just look like a big ditch heading off to the west. If we find it we will follow it down to the west.
1510 2566 282 We may have found this feature that we've been trying to find. It's a collapse. It's floored with rubble and some sheet flows. This may be the start of the channel.
Dudley sees a margin on his side; I see a margin on my side--except I'm losing it but I think we need to go a little bit more toward my side and a little bit down. It is a collapse margin, but
1512 That collapse that we followed for a little ways just ended, and now we're heading almost north... It extends out to my side. It curves around here and goes back toward my direction. So we lost that collapse, but a little spur went off in another direction and we'll follow that for as long as we can. The collapse is fairly narrow, <8 m wide and not very deep here.
1514 Looks like this comes to an end, but there's a beautiful lava coil right at the end of this collapse pit, and I'm looking into a lava tube. This is great. And I'm looking into another lava tube. There's 2 levels of lava flowing out this wall. There's lava coming out at me from both directions.
1518 Right before leaving the bottom we picked up a sample #9 from the margin of a collapse wall. It was a piece of rubble that had fallen from the wall of the collapse. Within the collapse wall, there were 2 holes coming out of the wall. One was about a meter off the bottom, and the other was at the bottom. You could see lava flowing out of both of these holes. And it was pretty cool.
1602 Maggie spin started
1613 Maurice dance stopped