Author: Theo Lafontant Kagan

We’re finally closing in on Mindelo in Cabo Verde! We get in tomorrow morning at around 6am, and after that I am headed back to San Diego. This past month has flown by, and I’m super grateful to have had this opportunity—I feel like I have learned so much. I’m looking forward to staying in touch with the technical team and participating in similar opportunities down the line!

Now let me catch you up to speed on this past week. And when I say catch you up to speed, only one thing comes to mind: birgatory. We spent a lot of time working in the Bird Shack this week, and we started off pretty easy working on the Acoustic Pingers. These instruments are very similar to our digibirds except they’re a whole lot simpler: they basically just ping the boat to let us know the location of the streamers in the water behind us. All we had to do was recalibrate them and recharge their batteries. We were bumped up a level in difficulty, however, when we started working on the digibirds with bad motors. This took FOREVER. Let me walk you through testing one bird: you dismantle the bird, carefully dismantle and pull out the compass module, push out the motor and the electronics modules, carefully disconnect the motor from the electronics, carefully reconnect a new motor back to the electronics, reinsert both modules back in the bird, put the whole bird back together, and finally retest the motor functionality. If the bird still doesn’t work, you troubleshoot it by redoing that process all over again with a different motor. If both motors aren’t working, then the electronics module was bad, which meant stripping the bird for parts and retesting both the original and replacement motors. It was definitely hard work and ever-so-slightly mind numbing. At the end of the day, however, (and maybe because I never have to do it again) I can tell you that it was definitely a valuable learning experience for me. In any opportunity moving forward, I know I can calibrate, troubleshoot, and repair sensitive scientific equipment, even if I know very little about the instrument to begin with.

Speaking of sensitive equipment, perhaps the highlight of my week was getting the chance to run through troubleshooting our streamers. We finally got to test out one of the streamers on deck, unspooling the very end before screwing in a few LAUMs (line acquisition unit modules). Following that, we moved downstairs to learn how to read and interpret the data from the hydrophones, and how to troubleshoot the system if something goes wrong. It was super super interesting, and I would love to get more experience doing data analysis and troubleshooting in the Main Lab control room in the future. The program the Langseth team uses, SEAL, models all the data being transmitted from each individual hydrophone along the entire 15km line, as well as every LAUM and FDU (field digitizing unit). This amounts to five hundred something hydrophones for each streamer, half that many FDUs, and a couple dozen LAUMs. It’s pretty incredible technology and was great to experience so closely.

I’d say my final highlight of the week was working up on deck, familiarizing myself with Niskin Bottles and working on the Vaisala Weather stations. This scientific equipment aligns a lot more closely with my own personal interests in biological oceanography, and after a few weeks it was interesting taking a little break from seismology. While we didn’t actually get to apply either of these instruments, I did become pretty familiar with how to take them apart and put them back together again. If I’ve learned anything from this experience, understanding the fundamentals of how something works is a great substitute to deploying an instrument in the field. I know I got a lot more of the former than the latter over the course of this internship, but I am leaving feeling very confident in my ability to perform technical duties aboard a scientific vessel. Again, I am very grateful to have had this opportunity, and I look forward to applying the skills I learned over the course of this internship to future projects.

2 weeks already—it’s a little hard to believe. We’ve been at sea for just about a week so far, and the transit has been great. We haven’t hit any patches of rough weather, and it’s starting to get a lot warmer too. The ocean has been choppy for most of the week, and the motion took some getting used to, but otherwise I’ve felt quite good this whole trip. Part of that is definitely because of our stewards; the food has honestly been amazing so far (to my surprise). One more week until Cape Verde!

Our biggest project since my last post has been our work on the digibirds. As a marine seismology vessel, the Langseth uses two key tools to gather seismic data while at sea. The first of these tools are our four airguns: sources that release soundwaves into the ocean that bounce off different layers of rock and sediment below the seafloor. The second of these tools are our streamers: four 15km long seismic hydrophone cables that float behind the research vessel listening for the returning soundwaves. Together, they allow researchers to gather 2D and 3D images of the ocean floor and the features beneath it. The digibirds themselves are devices that attach to the streamers that allow us to remotely monitor and control the position of the cables in the water column. Using the digibirds, we can keep the streamers at a specific depth and at a specific distance from one another, allowing us to gather more precise seismic data. The ones on the ship have been through a lot of wear and tear, so our job repairing them is critical for the ship’s ongoing research.

Over the course of this past week, Will and I have worked through about 60 digibirds. They’ve come with all sorts of issues: incorrect depth indicators, poor wing movement, broken motors, bad electrical systems, and even physical damage. For each bird, we’ve had to test thefunctionality of each system and identify what we can actually fix and what has to be sent back to LDEO. We calibrate the depth systems and test the movement of the wings, and if either of those fail we replace the wing module with one we know is functional. If either of those tests fail again, we know we have an issue with the bird itself, and not just the sensors. For the most part, however, we’ve been able to fix the birds up just by replacing or tweaking the wing module before recalibrating all systems. Definitely a cool hands-on mechanical and data-driven experience to have under my belt!

While that was definitely our biggest project this week, it wasn’t the only thing we did. One of our daily tasks at sea has been monitoring the echosounder and multibeam data streams and outputs. These are essentially the same device, except they output in 2D and 3D respectively, with the echosounder measuring the depth directly beneath the ship and the multibeam mapping underwater topography. We’ve learned how they function and how to read/analyze their data outputs, which will be super valuable for future projects. Other electronic systems we’ve worked on this week aboard the Langseth include installing a monitor displaying our sonar system power information, designing junction box schematics, and troubleshooting the AML SVP. This last device is used to measure the speed of sound in a given location and standardizes the measurements of our multibeam systems. It sits below the ship’s hull and has swappable attachments to measure temperature, salinity, pressure, and more. All in all, I’ve learned a lot this week, and I know there is much more to come!

Hello! All is well on the Langseth; I’ve really enjoyed working with Cody (the Chief Science Officer), the other interns, and the rest of the crew so far. Quick update—we are no longer headed to Costa Rica. Things have been a little crazy around here, and because of some uncertainties about funding we’ve made a rare last minute change in plans. We are now headed to Cape Verde to pick up some OBS equipment that was deposited last year, which means we’re sailing across the Atlantic!

This first week has been super eventful and I’ve learned a lot. The Langseth is a very impressive boat and it’s been really great getting my bearings around the ship. It’s a global-class marine seismological vessel—the only of its kind in the UNOLS fleet—and the equipment they have on board is incredible. We’ll start working more closely with some of those systems next week—most of what we’ve done so far has involved a lot of maintenance and upkeep across the ship’s different labs and stations. We’ve packaged and shipped some outdated equipment back to Columbia and WHOI, and have also unpacked and stored new shipments of PPE, tools, and stores. Some daily and weekly responsibilities we have include cleaning the labs and making sure all loose items are tightly secured for the transit. It’s been quite busy but I’ve enjoyed getting my hands dirty, especially on a few key projects!

One of our first projects involved prepping the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory’s gravimeter for transport back to Columbia. This instrument is incredible—it’s a gray box built in the 60s that measures localized gravitational pull. It’s fragile and a little finicky, so we learned how to run daily checks on the instrumentation, run a gravity-tie test for calibration, and how to prepare it for transport without ruining everyone’s day (it would be a very costly break). We had to constantly keep it hooked up to a power supply and had to be very careful while moving it so as not to upset any of its internal workings. I’m very grateful I got the chance to work with it and to pick Cody’s brain about what makes it tick.

Another one of our projects was creating two shelfs/desks in the Dry Lab to create more workable surface area. I’ve never worked seriously with power tools before, and it was a blast getting to test things out with all the equipment and materials around the ship. This was definitely the project that took us the longest: we had to plan out the dimensions, clear the location, figure out our materials, cut out our metal frame, cut out our wooden surfaces, bolt pieces together, smooth out rough patches, and stain the wood. I’m very proud of our end product and it’ll definitely inspire me to work on more construction projects once I get home.

Finally, we spent some time on the workboat when we went to go get it fueled. This boat is kept on the ship in the event technicians need to perform maintenance on deployed equipment or lines. We were only supposed to be gone for an hour and a half, with the fuel dock being about 5 miles away, but our little vacation turned into a 4 hour maintenance trip. We initially had some problems with our electronics and port motor, which snowballed into an oil leak we had to patch and refill at the dock. It was a great time! We saw some dolphins, enjoyed the weather, and got very, very familiar with the inner workings of outboard motors.

Really looking forward to starting the transit tomorrow! I’m excited to get the ball rolling with a bit more technical projects, including working on our digibirds, getting familiar with our sonar systems, and testing out the streamers. Fingers crossed that I don’t get seasick!

Hello! My name is Theo and I am one of three interns aboard the R/V Langseth this February.

I recently graduated from Bowdoin College, where I majored in Biology (concentrating in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology) and minored in Environmental Studies. I have a strong background in marine science, having previously studied shark populations in South Africa, modeled upwelling dynamics along the Skeleton Coast, and analyzed marine food webs using eDNA.

Down the road, I’m interested in pursuing graduate-level studies in ecology and marine systems, but before applying I wanted to become more familiar with the technology and instrumentation used in field expeditions. I’m looking forward to developing my technical skills with the Langseth’s state-of-the-art scientific equipment and to collaborating with the marine technical team at sea. This will be my first time working aboard a UNOLS vessel, so I am excited to learn from everyone on board.

Check back in next week for an update!