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Archive of September 23th, 2007
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Red star indicates current location of R/V Kilo Moana
Click on the Image for larger version |
Teacher at Sea log for September 23, 2007
September 23
How can I share the pictures taken at the bottom of the ocean with you? A website of streaming real time scientific data, known as the Virtual Van, allows me to observe the data collection. The Virtual Van has the three camera views and all sorts of information about the moment the photo was taken. There is the longitude and the latitude, the heading, and the depth. What I do each night is I go through the film and look for the critters and the interesting views and I save them as JPEG flies for you. We call this a "screen grab". We have monitors on all over the ship and sometimes I see something I like out of the corner of my eye and I run over and write down the time so that later I can go back to the Virtual Van and have a better look.
The scientists have one more camera that stays on the Jason 2 that takes very high quality digital photos. This camera is limited in the number of images it can hold and is downloaded once Jason 2 is brought up from the bottom. These better quality photos are often used in the scientists work for publication later.
Science Update by Todd Bianco
Today is our last day at the bathymetric bump south of Kauai. At Site 04, we found very interesting rocks showing a variation in texture, and possibly characteristics of intrusive rock. Some samples from Site 04 also have the thickest manganese coating throughout all of the samples thus far, which may mean they are the oldest. We may come back to the south side of Kauai at the end of the cruise if there is time, but for now we are heading to a new feature, the island of Kaula.
Kaula is a tiny island southwest of Niihau, and very little is known about its formation. Chief Scientist Michael Garcia has sampled the small tuft that makes up the entire subaerial portion of the island. This tuft is Kaula's equivalent of Diamond Head on southeast Oahu. Like Diamond Head, the tuft is very late stage volcanism, and therefore is not representative of the formation of more than 95% of the island. Therefore, part of our survey will seek to sample the main shield stage of Kaula, so that we may put it in context with the other shields of Hawaii. But first, we will dive on a flow farther offshore of Kaula, Site 05. This site is the freshest lava field in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Our hypothesis is that this flow is perhaps only one million years old, while Niihau, Kauai, and (most likely) Kaula have shields that are 4-6 million years old. Therefore the young flow may be linked to the formation of the young subaerial tuft on Kaula. |
