Well, here it is quickly approaching my first internship in this new profession as a ROV technician. I have finally finished all of the tasking and now the excitement is beginning to build. There were a lot of loose ends to take care of and I am finally on my way. I have been reviewing different sub-sea sampling instruments and basic sea-man ship skills for this internship. I am beginning to pack my last remaining items and will soon be on my way up north to Duluth, Minn. I do have some concerns; like how well will I sleep in a strange environment-minor eh!
Category: MATE Blog Archive Page 86 of 89
Posts that were imported from the historical MATE blog at marinetech.org
R/V Marcus G. Langseth,
08-June-13, The Study Site
R/V Marcus G. Langseth: Working out the Kinks
When I last left off, the Marcus G. Langseth had begun to collect data. While we may have started to collect data, all was not completely perfect. During the past few days there have been some unexpected kinks and faults that have had to be worked through and fixed. Nevertheless, after the hard work of all those on the boat, we have managed to successfully work through the problems and find solutions. The Marcus G. Langseth is now successfully collecting data again!!!!! Give me some data!
The first of the problems that arose stemmed from a fault in some of the data collection software. During our shift, myself and the two grad students on my shift, Brian and Luke, noticed that our recording system wasn’t acting correctly. We looked at what was going on and we noticed that our data wasn’t being collected. We mentioned this to Bern, who is the observer supervisor, and immediately everyone began to run around trying to get it fixed. Eventually though, after many hours of work we managed to get it fixed.
With that problem solved, we thought the next day would be an easy day, however we were terribly mistaken. Part way through my shift, our streamer monitoring system let out an alarm. Everybody frantically went over to check the monitor. On the monitor streamer 4 had lost contact with all of its acoustic recording devices and consequently, we were not gathering data on streamer 4. We didn’t want to pull in the streamer since, the boat can’t slow down because all the streamers are out. This makes us reel in a streamer at about 2 meters a minute since there is a huge amount of strain put on the streamers. And with a 6km long cable brining it in this slowly would take hours. Not only this, but we would have to bring in 2 of the gun streamers, and the door holding streamer 4. We tried to work through the problem from the main lab for a few hours, but soon we realized that the only way to solve the problem was to bring in the streamer.
Once the order was given to pull out streamer 4, I rushed up to the gun deck to assist with the reeling up of two of the gun strings. I was given a harness, a hardhat, put my gloves and coveralls on, and hooked up to the fall safe line and edged towards the edge of the boat to bring the gun strings up. As the guns were brought up, Carlos (one of the gun mechanics) and I unhooked chain hooks from trolleys on the ceiling to hook onto the guns. In this way, we can haul the heavy guns up on deck without straining the thin air hose. After about an hour we had managed to bring up the guns. However, while this job was done, I was not done as there was more work to be done.
I headed up from the gun deck to the streamer deck to see what I could do there. I saw that we were bringing up streamer 3 so that they could unchain it from streamer 4 and thus enable us to bring in streamer 4. I helped with what I could and after we had successfully unchained streamer 4, I headed up yet one more deck to the vein deck and began to help bring in the door.
I mentioned in one of my previous posts, that the doors just folded down off the side of the boats. I was mistaken in this. In fact the doors, known as veins to the techs, are not connected to the sides of the boat, by pins, but are chained to the sides of the boat and are held up by large winches mounted on the vein deck. The veins are disconnected from the boat and are lowered into the water where a float holds them aloft. They are designed in such a way so that they pull away from the boat, yet because they are attached by a strong steel cable are held to the ship. Streamer 4 and streamer 1 are then attached to the veins and streamer 2 is attached to streamer 1 and streamer 3 is attached to streamer 4. In this way streamer 1 and 2 are held away from the boat by one vein and 3 and 4 are held out by the other. Thus it was necessary to detach streamer 3 from 4 before we could bring in streamer 4.
Now that that correction is out of the way, we can go back to the story. Well, once we had brought in the door, we began to pull in the streamer, but after long hours of work our shift ended and the next shift took over. I was exhausted and dirty. I didn’t even bother to take a shower once I got back to my room. I brushed my teeth, washed my face and fell into bed exhausted.
I woke up feeling refreshed and was hopeful that the problem had been solved in the night while I slept. I was happy to see once I had arrived in the main lab the problem had been solved. But, my happiness was too eager, there was yet another problem that had begun almost immediately after the problem with streamer 4 had been fixed. This problem was with the main computer that coordinates the navigation, gun strings, and the streamers. This was a problem that I could barely help with so I watched and learned and tried to be as helpful as I could. I brought the tools they needed grabbed the spare parts for the computers they needed, and brought them extra wires to help plug in the spare parts. Eventually, after hours of work, we had finally fixed the main computer and everything was up and running. A few hours more and another eventful shift was completed and I went to bed.
The same routine happened the next day, as I arrived at work, all looked well. Of course sometimes, looks are deceiving. About a quarter of the way through my shift the navigation system, SPECTRA shutdown. As it shut down our guns stopped firing and we stopped collecting data. This in itself is bad, but if it is dark and the guns stop firing for more than eight minutes, in order to protect any unforeseen mammals that might have swam near the guns, we have to stop firing until morning. Luckily, while I was on gun monitoring I noticed that the guns had stopped firing and started them up again whilst everyone else was trying to get SPECTRA operational again. Eventually, after an hour or so SPECTRA was brought back up and since I had restarted the guns we were able to begin collecting data as soon as SPECTRA was restored. After this ordeal I was finished with my shift and was able to go to bed.
The next day, proved easier than all of the last. As in fact, there was not a single problem, during my shift. And since then there haven’t been any problems. I am thus hopeful that there won’t be any more problems and we can collect data easily and that all will work out.
Well, that is all for this post, I will post again soon. Until then, take care everyone.
– This is Tyler Poppenwimer, signing off –
Then we sat there. For several minutes we sat, or so I thought. It wasn’t until the top of the lock became visible did I realize we were being lifted by the force of seemingly infinite water being let into the lock. Once I started seeing grass, I nearly panicked. Generally I am one of the most observant people. I was looking at the walls checking for signs of water inlets, anything that might allow for the passage of water from one lock to another that I failed to think that it would make most sense to put the inlet/outlet at the lowest point. I felt slightly foolish for this glaring oversight on my part, but in my defense I have never been through a lock system and have never even seen one that functions. Granted I am from a city which still has many antiquated and useless locks, I have spent days climbing on and in those old locks, but never did I stop and think the GIANT hole at the bottom was where the water transferred from lock to lock. So yeah, once I realized I had missed where the water might be coming in from I glanced down and saw the eddies and frothless water flowing into the lock, raising both our vessels. Again this was a silent happening. The only noise was that of the ships quietly humming from the massive diesel generators that supply their power. Even that was somehow muffled slightly, or so it seemed to me.
As our ship rose, there was a quiet excitement filling the air. Granted I had never seen this, so in my typically nerdy fashion I was more than over joyed at the massive feat of engineering that was going on all around me. To think this 48 mile canal began its life in 1881 by the French and was completed by the United States in 1914. So here I am standing on a ship built in the 1990’s going through a lock system that was nearly 100 years old. The technologic changes that the canal has had to deal with since its construction are nearly unfathomable. By todays shipping standards the locks are too small, so they are constructing a third larger lane for the massive super tankers that share our seas today. Just imagine what the canal will look like in another 100 years, probably nearly the same, with the mystique tempered by the ages and the endurance and grace forged in the massive number of ships that travel through it every year. More than 10,000 ships pass through those locks each year. But this is all information you can get from google. You aren’t reading this for that. It is a fundamentally amazing feat of human will power against insurmountable odds that brought it into existence.
So there we were on our journey to ride through a jungle on a research vessel that has just been floated up 80 something feet through three locks, when out of nowhere my allergies started killing me. I guess late May in the jungle isn’t a place for a woman with horrible allergies. Part of the reason I like being out in the middle of the ocean is that they don’t bother me as much. So with sinuses straining my brain for room I went and took Benadryl to avoid the migraines that so often accompany my allergy attacks. Luckily for me I take enough Benadryl on a regular basis that the sedative side effects rarely ever kick in. So able to breath and with the sun setting in a jungle, I was struck by the surrealism of the journey I was on. This canal was cut through the middle of some of the most inhospitable wilderness that the Americas has. Malaria ran rampant through the camps of the people who worked on the amazing feat. So with that in mind I sat back and watched what wonders were to play out before me.
Lake Gatun was marked by buoy markers to mark the ship lanes. Then as we progressed through the dark wilderness we came to these odd markers. So I had to know what these yellow and green markers set high on the slopes were for. They are a set of four total markers set one atop the other. One set is yellow and to the left of the green pair. I asked the chief mate what they were for. He then explained to me how when we are going into a turn the pilot has to line them up, generally lining up the green ones to ensure that we are in the portion of the channel that is deep enough for ship traffic. These markers are set so that at a distance and the correct course heading they line up one on top of the other.
Then we came to what can only be described as the single most beautiful bridge I have even seen. This bridge called the Centennial Bridge rose up out of the jungle in a glistening light show. At first only one of its two massive supporting towers was visible. With the super bright lights shining delicately off the glistening metal cables and steel beams it was like a shining pinnacle of brilliance in the middle of the jungle. The cables which held up the large roadway shone with a grey brilliance that even the most erudite of painters could not conceive of a color to put to canvas this brilliant. The second tower came into view and the symmetry of this concrete and steel expanse left me awe struck in a way that the rest of the canal had. As we passed under the bridge I was hurriedly taking pictures with my phone. The tiny 8 megapixel machine caught the bridge of the Atlantis and this bridge behind it in near perfect succession, our bridge bisecting that bridge; two modern things of beauty sharing the same space and time on the elder canal in perfect unison. Then we began passing giant bucket dredge barges that were feverishly digging at the canal in what can only be assumed to be expansion efforts for the next phase of this marvel.
The hours drove on; we were moving slowly, maybe a maximum of 3 knots, so it was going to take every bit of the twelve hours I was promised it would take. We came up to the next set of locks, this one began our decent to the Pacific Ocean. An ocean I had never previously been to. New adventures were before me. A whole new life of things I have never before seen, as if I haven’t experienced enough wonder and awe to fill a life. We passed a large container ship that was moored to two giant stable mooring platforms. The Atlantic Klipper was slowing its approach as we went into the narrow neck of the lock. Again we were boarded by a group of line handlers; again they worked their coordinated effort in our safe passage. This time the water flowed out of the locks, and slowly the walls began to rise up past our ship. It was midnight or later, so I decided to retire, most of the other non-deck crew had long since gone to their bunks. I decided I should soon sleep for tomorrow was a new day, a new ocean, and a world of possibilities and unimaginable adventures before me.
Time: 2357
Nothing like a little ‘red-eye’ flight to commence my journey as one of this summer’s Marine Advanced Technology Education interns. Time is one of the first things given a different face at sea. We are expected to reject the classic comforts of a daytime routine based on ‘morning tasks’ being different than ‘night tasks.’ It may very well be possible that I may be brushing my teeth at 0300 or dead asleep at two in the afternoon. The ship makes its own time bubble, where we will operate separately from land, twelve hour shifts and no days off- Here we come! I am wearing my new lilac waterproof watch, it seems to be lacking military time so I am hoping I will get good at adding twelve hours to all my times.
With a small hiccup in my travel plans from west coast California to east coast Delaware I maybe taking ‘plane, train, and automobile…’ and ship of course! In fear of misplacing my luggage during the itinerary change, the airline suggested I carry my bags with me. So here I sit with my one 48 liter backpacking pack, a small bag, a water bottle, my rain boots, and my laptop; all I am bringing with me for six weeks. It still sinking in that I am on my way, not only to greet the Sharp as my summer home, but on my way to the Atlantic Ocean. While I have been to the East US before, I have never been to Delaware.
Oh! My airplane to Houston is boarding now- What a grand landmass lies between me and my final destination. Looking forward to this opportunity and blogging again soon. I’ve included a quick “eye spy” photo that I took during packing.
~Maia
P.S. Thanks Jesi for your help getting me out of town!
R/V Marcus G. Langseth,
08-June-13, The Study Site
R/V Marcus G. Langseth: Collecting the Data
Hello everybody!! I am sorry that it has been a bit longer than the 3-4 days I promised but with the amount of work time my schedule involves, it is hard to blog as often, I am going to have to revise this to about every 5-6 days. I work 12 hour shifts now, starting at midnight and ending at noon, but of course that is just a rough estimate. Usually I stay a bit later and get there a bit earlier to help with the shift changes. As such, I work a bit longer than the 12 hours and plus I also have to have lunch after my shift ends and do regular things like laundry and other necessities. After this I am usually off to bed to get ready for the next day of work and so my blog writing time is getting rather small.
Anyways, since I last posted, the Langseth finished deploying all of the equipment and has begun recording data. It was a pretty exciting moment when all of the equipment was deployed in the water and the first shots from the gun fired! It was at this moment that our hopes were realized and everything was working properly. Then, when the first data from the gun shots appeared on one of the monitors in the main lab everyone cheered and was really excited. The moment of research had begun!
Now that we had begun to collect data, my work schedule, while not being reduced in the amount of time, was reduced in the physical aspect of work. With the streamers and guns out, we are hopeful that we will have little to do with these. We will have to bring the guns in every once in a while to check them but this is minor compared to the work needed for the streamers. Instead my role now consists of monitoring the various equipment using the monitors and recording data into our numerous logs.
The main lab is set up so that from any one position surrounding the main terminal you can see any of the 36 monitors that display information about the ship, the streamers, the guns, our course, and our intended lines that we need to follow to gather data. From this information, the students and I must log information every 30 minutes, when we start and end a line, and when we start and end a turn. Some of the information we log are our latitude and longitude, depth, salinity, magnetics, temperature of the ocean, speed, boat heading, wind speed, wind heading, and the current shot number (the shots are from the guns). Some of the data that we have to monitor include information regarding the depth of the streamers, the timing between gun shots, our navigation and speed, and the data to make sure nothing looks erroneous.
To help explain what I have just written, the lines are the longitudinal lines that the ship and the streamers trailing behind it are to follow so that we can make sure we cover the entire study area. They set up like the lines of the paper and once we have completed all of the lines, the streamers will have gathered data across the total area of the paper. However, as our streamers are 6km long, we can’t make a tight turn and so rather than doing the line underneath, we have to skip about 7-10 lines. This results in really long turns, of which we log the start and end, which can last about 3 hours! During these lines, which can take about 9 hours to cover, we shoot approximately 1900-2000 shots. Each shot then gives us data about the bottom of the ocean.
Other than that, life has become pretty mellow around here, if we don’t have any problems then my time should be filled with monitoring equipment and getting to talk to some of the grad students and principal investigators. Let’s hope no problems arise!! Well, that is what is going on during my time on the Langseth. Take care everyone.
– This is Tyler Poppenwimer, signing off –
When confronted by the sheer magnitude of some things in life I am often left speechless. Not for lack of vocabulary, or lack of knowledge of the structure of written language, but rather some things written seem almost paltry in comparison to the experience. I have seen grand and terrifying things in my life, but none has left me as nearly dumbfounded as the spectacle that is the Panama Canal. Granted this technology is rather old in the scheme of things, bordering on the antiquated when looking at the size of modern super tankers that share the oceans with us, but the fundamental achievement of moving a vessel through up onto what used to be land, through a jungle, then back down to a completely different ocean is a phenomenal feat of human ingenuity, bravery, and will.
Pulling into the staging area, if you will, it is basically a harbor, but the openness of it was much more so than any other harbor I have personally been in yet. We anchored up amongst the other ships, some of which overshadowed our ships nearly three hundred feet by hundreds and hundreds of feet. We were scheduled to begin our maneuvering into the canal at roughly 3:30pm ship time, as to what the local time was I am not too sure. To this day nearly four months into this internship there are two times I concern myself with, one being ship time, because lets be honest you need to know when to eat and sleep in sync with the ship, and then there is good old eastern standard time, which is the time zone basically a majority of people I know and care about reside in, and well I need to know when not to call them in the middle of the night. So any way the whole thing was set to go at 3:30pm. We were to be in the locks with another ship because by comparison our ship was so small it would have been a waste of space and resources to send it in by itself. So we set in behind the Atlantic Klipper (yes with a K because it was a Russian vessel and that is how it was spelled on the stern of the ship.) I am still not exactly sure the location of the first lock. It kind of appeared out of the aether. I was on deck while we slowly made our way toward it, we crept along at about 2 knots, maybe less. The first thing I remember seeing were the silver mules. Now these mules are actually small trains on rails, but they have kept the moniker of their predecessors, which were, well, flesh and blood mules. Anyway, I was absolutely nerdy giddy in seeing these machinations. I had heard stories about them, and had spent the better part of a week thinking about what they may look like, how they were to keep the boat alined in the middle of the channel, you know the things most people think about in their down time. I could have looked the information up on the internet and found a definitive answer in about 5 minutes, but why ruin the wonder and surprise. Why not savor the unknown. And much to my surprise they were pretty much how I pictured they might look, because well after all how many different ways can you design a small train with a wire coming out of the side.
One thing you must know is that before you pull up to the lock a crew of men, in this case there were no females who boarded our vessel, called line handlers board the ship and well handle the line that leads from the mule to the ship. The mule does not really pull the ship along, its sole purpose is to act a mobile spring line and keep the ship centered so as not to allow it to drift into the side of the lock. Some ships like the GIANT ship in the locks next to us have very little room for error, maybe a foot on either side and it is then metal against concrete, and well generally speaking the metal is going to lose that battle because the concrete is old and hardened. So you can imagine most of the time the line handlers and drivers of the mules have a rather daunting task of keeping very large vessels from moving a foot either side to side or front to back. Our small ship by comparison was probably a walk in the park for these guys. They threw a rope from our ship down to a small dingy that was rowed by one person, and another person caught our line. That line was then passed up to another individual waiting next to the mule. This person put the line through a loop in a large wire rope that was coming out of the side of the mule, tied it off, and the line handlers on our ship started pulling the wire rope, across a 10 foot chasm through the small opening in the side of our ship where lines go through. Granted I should probably know what that hole is called, and I might, but the name eludes me at the moment. Anyway they pass the wire rope through that hole and onto a stanchion. The mule then takes up the slack and begins driving forward at the same speed as the ship. There are two teams of line handlers, one in the bow and another at the stern. So this same thing is happening in the rear of the ship as well. The handlers started with the port side of the ship, and then did the starboard side. So we now are tied to four different little locomotives via some wire rope. While all that is going on we are slowly creeping ever closer to the stern of the Atlantic Klipper.
So there we are behind a large ship, tied to four mules, surrounded by concrete walls, and then they started closing the doors. Now I am not one who is generally claustrophobic, but just the sheer magnitude of what was going on was enough to make me shudder slightly as I saw the last rays of sun cut off when the doors finally, and eerily quietly shut. Now when I say quiet, I am not talking the normal humdrum mechanized quiet that accompanies most things on a ship, I mean actually I could not hear these massive steel doors move at all. There was no thud as they came together, there was no reassuring hiss of hydraulic pressure, nothing, just the sunlight being severed. When confronted by the sheer magnitude of some things in life I am often left speechless. Not for lack of vocabulary, or lack of knowledge of the structure of written language, but rather some things written seem almost paltry in comparison to the experience. I have seen grand and terrifying things in my life, but none has left me as nearly dumbfounded as the spectacle that is the Panama Canal. Granted this technology is rather old in the scheme of things, bordering on the antiquated when looking at the size of modern super tankers that share the oceans with us, but the fundamental achievement of moving a vessel through up onto what used to be land, through a jungle, then back down to a completely different ocean is a phenomenal feat of human ingenuity, bravery, and will.
Pulling into the staging area, if you will, it is basically a harbor, but the openness of it was much more so than any other harbor I have personally been in yet. We anchored up amongst the other ships, some of which overshadowed our ships nearly three hundred feet by hundreds and hundreds of feet. We were scheduled to begin our maneuvering into the canal at roughly 3:30pm ship time, as to what the local time was I am not too sure. To this day nearly four months into this internship there are two times I concern myself with, one being ship time, because lets be honest you need to know when to eat and sleep in sync with the ship, and then there is good old eastern standard time, which is the time zone basically a majority of people I know and care about reside in, and well I need to know when not to call them in the middle of the night. So any way the whole thing was set to go at 3:30pm. We were to be in the locks with another ship because by comparison our ship was so small it would have been a waste of space and resources to send it in by itself. So we set in behind the Atlantic Klipper (yes with a K because it was a Russian vessel and that is how it was spelled on the stern of the ship.) I am still not exactly sure the location of the first lock. It kind of appeared out of the aether. I was on deck while we slowly made our way toward it, we crept along at about 2 knots, maybe less. The first thing I remember seeing were the silver mules. Now these mules are actually small trains on rails, but they have kept the moniker of their predecessors, which were, well, flesh and blood mules. Anyway, I was absolutely nerdy giddy in seeing these machinations. I had heard stories about them, and had spent the better part of a week thinking about what they may look like, how they were to keep the boat alined in the middle of the channel, you know the things most people think about in their down time. I could have looked the information up on the internet and found a definitive answer in about 5 minutes, but why ruin the wonder and surprise. Why not savor the unknown. And much to my surprise they were pretty much how I pictured they might look, because well after all how many different ways can you design a small train with a wire coming out of the side.
One thing you must know is that before you pull up to the lock a crew of men, in this case there were no females who boarded our vessel, called line handlers board the ship and well handle the line that leads from the mule to the ship. The mule does not really pull the ship along, its sole purpose is to act a mobile spring line and keep the ship centered so as not to allow it to drift into the side of the lock. Some ships like the GIANT ship in the locks next to us have very little room for error, maybe a foot on either side and it is then metal against concrete, and well generally speaking the metal is going to lose that battle because the concrete is old and hardened. So you can imagine most of the time the line handlers and drivers of the mules have a rather daunting task of keeping very large vessels from moving a foot either side to side or front to back. Our small ship by comparison was probably a walk in the park for these guys. They threw a rope from our ship down to a small dingy that was rowed by one person, and another person caught our line. That line was then passed up to another individual waiting next to the mule. This person put the line through a loop in a large wire rope that was coming out of the side of the mule, tied it off, and the line handlers on our ship started pulling the wire rope, across a 10 foot chasm through the small opening in the side of our ship where lines go through. Granted I should probably know what that hole is called, and I might, but the name eludes me at the moment. Anyway they pass the wire rope through that hole and onto a stanchion. The mule then takes up the slack and begins driving forward at the same speed as the ship. There are two teams of line handlers, one in the bow and another at the stern. So this same thing is happening in the rear of the ship as well. The handlers started with the port side of the ship, and then did the starboard side. So we now are tied to four different little locomotives via some wire rope. While all that is going on we are slowly creeping ever closer to the stern of the Atlantic Klipper.
So there we are behind a large ship, tied to four mules, surrounded by concrete walls, and then they started closing the doors. Now I am not one who is generally claustrophobic, but just the sheer magnitude of what was going on was enough to make me shudder slightly as I saw the last rays of sun cut off when the doors finally, and eerily quiet, shut. Now when I say quiet, I am not talking the normal humdrum mechanized quiet that accompanies most things on a ship, I mean actually I could not hear these massive steel doors move at all. There was no thud as they came together, there was no reassuring hiss of hydraulic pressure, nothing, just the sunlight being severed.
R/V Marcus G. Langseth,
04-June-13, The Study Site
R/V Marcus G. Langseth: Letting out the Streamers
Hello everyone! As promised, here is another blog post about what I have been up to whilst on the Langseth.
Just as a quick recap, since I lasted posted, the Langseth picked up the rest of the crew who are all part of the science team. These are the people who are actually using the gathered data to examine the ocean floor to see if their hypotheses are correct and or learn new information about the continental crust and plain. Their team is led by Dr. Sawyer from Rice University. I will take part is some of the data analysis, but for the most part the geophysical aspects of what they are doing and the examinations of the data are beyond my scope. Nevertheless, it was interesting to hear Dr. Sawyer talk about the mission goals and talk about how much work has went into this mission. It turns out that he proposed this mission over 10 years, got funding for it 3 years ago, and then had to wait until the Langseth was in the proper ocean so they didn’t have to pay to move it across the world.
After we picked up the crew and had our discussion about our mission, we then departed from Vigo, Spain and headed out towards the study site. Once we arrived at the study site, we began shift work. I am working the shift of midnight to noon, which is a difficult schedule to get used to it, and I am still not completely shifted over to that sleeping schedule. Well, with shift work starting, we began to deploy the streamers. It was similar to what we had done before, but this time the streamers, rather than being out for a few hours, will be out for about 35 days. Thus, we had to make sure that everything was in complete working order. Of course, there were some issues with some of the streamers that had to be sorted out. We had to take some sections off, add some new ones, but today, after my shift ended, we had streamers 1, 2 and 4 deployed.
During my shift, we have graduate students who are there to assist us during their four hour shift. What is interesting about working with the graduate students is that they like to ask me a lot of the questions regarding how the equipment works, what the plan is for their shift, and how the seismic data is captured. Since, I have been on here, I can tell that I have learned a great deal since I can readily and easily answer most of their questions. Not only this, but the graduate students are now being given the hard labor tasks while I am given charge of operating the hydraulic reel for the streamers. My job now is to let the streamer out and then stop it occasionally, when Bern, my main mentor, tells me that he needs to check serial numbers, add a bird, add/remove weights (to help control buoyancy), and add/remove collars (for the birds). I use a remote control and when I stop the streamer, I let the grad student know what it is they are doing, are they adding a weight, removing a collar or adding a bird. They then set to work, while I wait for them to finish and once complete, I use the remote control to let the reel out. I never thought that while I was on this internship I would be having grad students do the work while I got the easy jobs.
Well, that is what has been going on here. I am sorry that this post is a bit short, but with 12 hour shifts and trying to get onto the right sleeping pattern I am pretty beat after work. I will post again soon. Take care everyone.
– This is Tyler Poppenwimer, signing off –
Well with just over a week left in my journey in the Pacific Northwest, its been a trip of a lifetime! I’ve seen places and things that never would have been possible without the MATE internship program.Going out to sea through The Bar in 15-20ft steep waves that were just stacking up, waiting to be plowed through on this 275ft ship. Waves breaking over the bow which sits 21ft above the water line.
As far as this current cruise goes, its been fairly slow for me. Reason being, we are using a laser which has been mounted on the bow and comparing it to a new radar that has been installed. With these two new systems,we are comparing wave heights and what the waves are doing within the Columbia River mouth plume. So for the most part we are going across the plume(riding in the ditch,making for a bumpy ride) and in and out of the river mouth while the two systems mentioned above collect data.
Though collecting data has been the name of the game for the most part, I have been able to conduct some science here and there. Twice a day, we are needed to do an XBT(seen in the picture)that corrects the differences in the sound velocity profile. This is basically a lead weight with a very thin copper wire attached to it. This sends a signal to the computer that the canister is attached to and we correct it from there. A few days ago we conducted a series of yoyo(up and down and up and down) CTD casts on the inside of the river mouth as the tide came in to see where the salt water and fresh water sits in the water column through the duration of the tide. My roll in the this process was exciting. I was at the “driver” seat watching the graphs of real time data. The scientists were there too, they would tell me where they wanted the CTD in the water column and I would relay the message to the winch operater via radio who was three decks above me. During deployment and recovery of the CTD I would man a tag line so nothing got broken or people hurt. All the while recording what activities we are doing on the ships wiki page.
We have also been deploying tracking drifter bouys on the inside of the mouth and recovering them on the outside daily for the past few days, a recovery is about to happen shortly after I get done writing this. So in about a week I’ll be east bound and down. Back in the south and ready to get back in the saddle and get to work. Hope you have enjoyed my story telling, until next time-Brophy out!
R/V Marcus G. Langseth,
31-May-13, Vigo, Spain
R/V Marcus G. Langseth: An Explanation of How Stuff Works
Hello again everyone. So, I was originally planning on talking about what life is like on the boat since we are docked here in Vigo, Spain and not much is going on. However, since life on the boat is about to change due to the actual research cruise starting and shifts beginning, I will hold off on that for a few more posts. Instead, this post, will better explain the streamers, modules, sections, birds, acoustic devices, and all of the other stuff that is used on the boat to conduct research. I will try to explain what all of these things do and how they work to map the bottom of the ocean floor. Also, I will be trying to upload pictures about some of the devices and equipment so that you can see what it is I am talking about.
The two main components that are used to map the bottom of the ocean floor are the guns, and the streamers (streamers have a diameter of approximately 4-5 inches). This boat has 4 sets of streamers and 4 sets of guns. The guns are basically air guns that when fired shoot a wave of sound towards the bottom of the ocean. This sound reaches the bottom and bounces back. Depending on the medium, the amount of sound energy that bounces back will change. The streamers have sensors that then detect the sound energy and pipes this information back to the main lab on the boat. This information is then used to figure out the depth and the material on the ocean floor.
In order to maximize the accuracy and amount of data the streamers collect, there are a number of different elements that are used in conjunction with the streamer. First is the tail buoy. The tail buoy is connected at the very end of the streamer and lies about 150-300 meters from the end of the streamer. Its job is to relay GPS information back from the end of the streamer to the boat so that the main lab can identify where the end of the streamer lies in relation to the boat. Next, on the streamers themselves, are the birds. The birds have three major functions; 1) they give a compass reading to the main lab, 2) they give a depth reading to the main lab 3) they control the depth of the streamer using rotating wings (here is where the name bird comes from). A bird is attached about every 300 meters and there are a total of 22 birds per streamer. Finally, comes the acoustic devices. There are five acoustic devices per streamer, two are near the tail-end, one is in the middle, and two are near the boat-end. The acoustic devices talk to each other between all the streamers so that the main lab can tell where the streamers are in relation to each other.
As the streamers are 6km long, they are built in sections. Each section is about 150 meters in length, and contains numerous sensors as well as two coils. The coils are used to attach birds and acoustic devices to the streamers. Each coil is not used and so there are extras in case a coil fails (coils cannot be replaced, only whole sections can). At the end of the sections are connectors. These connectors can connect from streamer to streamer, but it is necessary for power and for data transfer that a module is placed in between the connectors on the ends of sections. A module pretty much just connects the section, but I have no idea what is inside them. At the boat-end of the streamer comes the lead end. The lead end is basically a long cable that gives extra length to the streamer so that the streamer can be attached to the wings of the boat. The lead end also connects directly to the boat to relay power and information.
That is pretty much how the data collection is performed. After that, numerous computer programs as well as the researchers sift through the data and decipher its meaning. After all of this work, the output is a beautiful 3D map of the ocean floor in that region.
Well, I hope this helps explain everything a bit better. I know that what I have been saying gets quite technical. I hope you are all doing well and I will post again soon. Take care everyone.
– This is Tyler Poppenwimer, singing off –
P.S. If you want to track the Marcus G. Langseth, you can use one of these websites:
http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=WDC6698
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ (to track from this website, search for Marcus G. Langseth)
I’m sitting on the ATLANTIS in the middle of the Atlantic, with the unique and amazing ALVIN. Yet it is neither of these that mesmerize me. I stare out into the seemingly infinite sea and ponder on my humanity, on my fragility of being a human so utterly out of her element. In the middle of the ocean the creaking of the ship is a constant and begins to fade quietly into the back ground. The constant movement becomes comforting. The occasional thud of the hull from things unknown no longer jostles me. The only thing that terrifies me is the thought of falling overboard. Not so much the fall itself, but the fact that on a transit there is less activity, people go about their daily routines quietly, often times not seeing one another for a day or two. So if I fell overboard I surely would not perish from the fall itself, but from the exposure to the elements. This long dwindling of hope as you see the boat drive on at 12 knots with you floating in the water, hoping only that someone, anyone, saw it happen, and knowing that probably no one did, terrifies me. So as the sun sets, and darkness begins to climb I head inside, for this is a place where the darkness owns all, and no screams would be heard, no splash would be large enough, no matter how fast you could swim it would not be enough. You would slowly meet the sun in the morning on your last day as you faced the elements, and your creator, on the planets terms. We are fragile humans, playing in the realm of giants, out here in the middle of the ocean. I am usually a night person. Anytime I am back on land, and generally during times when science is aboard I love the night. Some people are night people. My grandmother was a night person, and on an evolutionary sense it is only logical to have a certain percentage of people whose circadian rhythms awaken them when the rest of the clan is sleeping. Someone needs to keep a watch out; someone needs to be around to make sure everyone who is asleep can do so safely. I have been that person my whole life; always calling night time my home, always being comforted by the darkness and the inability to see too far. Maybe it has something to do with my poor vision. I am a rather myopic individual, only able to see unaided approximately four inches in front of my face before things become a jumble of color patches and vagary. At night I don’t need to see far. At night things seem at peace, but not out here. The darkness still holds a special place, but it is the ever churning seas whose moans and wet splashes against the hull over ride this peace I normally feel. It is during this time that I can imagine Lovecraftian deities raising up from the bottomless abyss and bringing me to meet their creator.
Some would ask, why subject yourself to abject fear in the face of nothingness. Because I am human, and the greatest part, to me of being human is the curiosity of the mind. To let it wonder into the dark places that unsettle you in the hopes of bringing back knowledge that can change our fundamental understanding of how this vast ocean works. I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but the thirst for knowledge has driven me most of my life, that thirst to know the unknowable, to ascertain the uncertain. This has driven me to learn how to repair cars, to leave the collision repair industry and pursue an academic degree, to work in a lab, and now to live on boats for six months. Learning is not found only in text books, learning is not found only in the classroom, often times the best learning comes from doing. These are lessons no book can ever teach properly, no teacher can ever test you on, no standardized entrance exam can ever hope to quantify. These are the lessons the ocean chooses to teach you, and the lessons people you work with day in and day out choose to share with you. No one can take those from you; no one can live them but you. So as I stare out into the uncomfortable blackness that stretches before me on this over cast night, I can’t help but wonder on what lessons tomorrow will bring; what simple truths will the new day share with me. Seek out your own path, and maybe one day you too will be staring into the blackness of an overcast night in the middle of the Atlantic wondering, contemplating the mysteries of life.