Greetings from aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth! We have had a very busy, productive first week aboard the Langseth, assisting LDEO’s technical team in preparing to get underway. In regards to getting underway, the Langseth will now be setting sail for Cape Verde, off the coast of Africa, to retrieve OBS equipment as opposed to our initial plans of traveling to Costa Rica to deploy OBS equipment. This change comes in light of concerns with next year’s NSF funding, with fears that there may not be enough funding to retrieve the equipment that was to be deployed off the coast of Costa Rica.

The Langseth is a remarkable ship, and the only one in the UNOLS fleet equipped to carry out multi-channelled seismological research, making it a world-class floating Earth observatory! One of the very first things we did was a vessel famaliarization tour with our supervisor and Cheif Science Officer, Cody Bahlau, allowing us to familiarize ourselves with all of the impressive lab spaces that we would be frequently working in.

One of the first major projects we had aboard the Langseth was the construction of a set of shelves that would be fitted into the ship’s Dry Lab in order to replace the old filing cabinet and fencing, create more workable area, and improve the overall quality of the lab.

The shelves were contructed in about 3 days, leaving us very proud and fulfilled with our final products! This was the first time I had every built something from scratch using power tools, so I was thrilled to put some hard work and new skills under my belt so shortly into my internship! The three of us even signed our names underneath, which I thought was really cool!

We also began to learn about the instrumentation aboard the Langseth that is used to conduct research, such as the multibeam sonar system, Digibirds, weather station and gravimeter. While still waiting till we are underway to really begin using and maintaining the sonar and Digibirds, this first week exposed us to running the sonar’s instrument testing, ensuring the weather station was transmitting data properly, and performing a Gravity Tie and weekly checks in preparation for transporting the gravimeter off the ship.

Moving and preparing the gravimeter for transportation was a very precise task, as we had to ensure it recieved uninterupted power at all times, otherwise, we could be risking thousands of dollars in damage and repairs! While our time with the gravimeter was short, we learnt a lot about how it functions and were involved in every step of its offloading.

We also had the opportunity to join Cody for a venture along the Savannah River in the Langseth’s science workboat, which provided us a nice break from the ship out on a beautiful day, but wasn’t free of complications! While issues with the port motor were not ideal, it gave us the opportunity to perform some maintenance and troubleshooting, all valuable experience!

Besides these larger activities, we have been hard at work preparing the Langseth to set sail for Cape Verde, which includes less glamarous but essential tasks such as securing items to the ship, cleaning and organizing work spaces & labs, installing computers & monitors, offloading non-essential equipment for transport back to WHOI and Columbia University, labeling equipment, loading provisions, inventorying PPE, and continuing to familarize ourselves with the vessel, daily operations, and emergency procedures. Cody has been a great supervisor, forthcoming with his experience and wealth of knowledge, and always present to assist us as needed but allowing us the autonomy to work and troubleshoot tasks independantly. Unfortunately, we did lose Ethan a few days ago, as he could not do the couple extra days added to the trip by Cape Verde due to other commitments he had.

I am super excited to get underway to Cape Verde soon, and I look forward to continuing to share my experience during this internhship! See you at sea!

– Will