Our Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS) recoveries off the east coast of New Zealand have been a success, and our last OBS has now been recovered! We have had heavier seas and high winds the past week. Our final OBS count is 29 recovered out of 30 total deployed a year ago. The last one may… Read More
Earlier this week we performed a magnetics survey off the coast of southwest New Zealand. Our new magnetic data will be used by our New Zealand colleagues to piece together part of the tectonic history of New Zealand. When molten rocks cool, they freeze in a record of the Earth’s magnetic field. The Earth’s magnetic… Read More
The OBS’s spent a year on the seafloor, and during that time became home to or were visited by some small sea creatures. With this post is a collection of photos of some of these small animals that came up with the OBS’s. Most of them have very little pigment – can you guess why?… Read More
We have completed our work off the west coast of New Zealand, and are now heading south and east. The count is 20 out of 21 ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) recovered. That is a good recovery rate. Out of the 21: one was not found – no signal (NZ17), one was picked up by fishermen… Read More
A few nights ago we saw thousands of bio-luminescent creatures in the water – we think they were jellyfish, but are not sure. They were about 2-3 feet long and tube-shaped, and glowed green. It was an incredible sight. The stern (back of the ship) was where the big show was – thousands of them… Read More
Our euphoria from the resue of OBS9 was short-lived. The next day was fine, with 3 OBS’s recovered with no problems, and awesome views of the Southern Alps. The following day, however, was trouble. We had the same problem with OBS10 as we did with the formerly stuck OBS9. We could communicate with it, but… Read More
The past few days we have been lucky enough to be within sight of the Southern Alps. Beee-yoo-ti-ful. The Southern Alps are a big part of why we are on this research cruise – not just to look at them with our eyes, but to look beneath them with seismic waves. A nice intro to… Read More
Yesterday we returned to OBS9 and rescued it. It is amazing that it worked. We could communicate clearly with OBS9, but it never dropped its weight and surfaced. We were not sure why – maybe stuck in the mud, or having a net draped over it, or simply the burn commands to release the weight… Read More
Life at sea is very simple – no commuting, no cooking, no cell phones. Three delicious meals per day are prepared by the cooks Mark and Ahsha, and a large range of both healthy and not-so-healthy snacks are available all the time (including a refrigerator full of assorted ice cream bars – the New Zealand… Read More
Here is my first attempt at using iMovie to make a video and upload it to YouTube. It is of retrieving OBS #NZ8 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I7cb8s4CMQ[/youtube]… Read More
