Journals 2007/2008

Christine Kirch
West Warwick High School, West Warwick, Rhode Island

"Life in the Extreme Environment of Mohn's Ridge" Norwegian Research Vessel G.O. Sars June 25 - July 9, 2007

Journal Index: June 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26,27,28 - 29 - 30 July 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7,8 - 8 - 9 Additional Resources

July 6, 2007
"Tow-yos" overnight

All last night the ship did "Tow-yos" with the CTD. The captain had never done one before but Eric Olsen showed him how to do it. The Sars is different from most American RV's in that the equipment is deployed mid-ship not from the fantail. The captain was reluctant because he didn't want to wrap the cable around the propeller, however it was done. The scientists were excited this morning because the tows showed strong evidence of a plume. The ROV was down at 5 pm. I was virtually the only on watching the dive. The ROV was able to pick up a large piece of wood, and spent several delightful minutes with a "Dumbo" octopus. I didn't see as much plankton as before. At 9:30 pm I went to see the wood fall. It was so much larger than it looked. I helped Christofer Schander, the macro fauna scientist for a while. If I had had more practice with picking out things under a microscope I could have helped more. (He does stuff that is more to my liking. I should have aligned myself with him earlier. Another difference in this cruise is that I wasn't assigned to anyone.) He was picking out gastropods and found some new species, his specialty is mollusks. He spent time in Woods Hole working on his PhD.

Wood fall		Me working on the wood fall

I pulled out lots of foraminiferans, some gastropods, and tubes of the tube worms. It was fun.