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Teachers
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Expedition 301
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Journal
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4 August 2004
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FISHING: STRANGE DAY!!!
Last night, the CORK assembly was completed and sent on its way to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean to be put into Hole 1026B. I went to bed thinking that the CORK scientists would be putting the string of osmotic samplers into the CORK in the middle of the night; that would be the last step in the CORK deployment. I was VERY surprised when I woke up and found the drillers “fishing.” It turns out that in 1998 an ROV visited the old CORK to collect samples. During the work, they lost some equipment that fell into the reentry cone at the base of the CORK (but they didn’t tell us on Expedtion 301!). When we pulled the CORK out yesterday, the material slipped to the bottom of the cone at the mouth of the open hole. Our drillers devised a “fishing” tool to snag what looked like a hose. When they tried to pull the object out, it slipped and went into the hole. Our drilling staff had to devise another fishing tool to remove it from the hole. The drillers were successful (it’s truly amazing what they come up with!!!); they were able to pull it out of the hole.
Surprise #2 came when the drillers put the CORK into the hole a few meters and pulled it out only to find more junk just inside the hole. This time it was stuck to the assembly. They were able to knock it off with the camera assembly, and FINALLY, put the CORK assembly inside the hole.
Late in the evening, the CORK scientists and the rig floor crew were able to send the osmotic samplers into the CORK. Mission finally accomplished - the CORK at Hole 1026B has been installed and we are moving back to Hole 1301B to do our next phase of the operations.
Here is a partial update for today given by Adam Klaus, Expedition Project Manager/IODP-USIO Staff Scientist (USA):
The CORK assembly went well and the CORK head went through the moonpool late last night. Once the end of the CORK was near the seafloor, we lowered the camera/sonar system to reenter Hole 1026B. When the camera got to the seafloor, we had a bit of a surprise... Inside the cone there was a ~50 cm-long tube sitting in the bottom across the opening of the hole... not what we wanted to see! We did not see this on the ROV platform when we retrieved the CORK. Andy and others believe this is likely part of an instrument deployed by submersible or ROV in 1999 or 2000. Apparently, it must have fallen through the ROV platform (sometime before Expedition 301) into the reentry cone against the base of the old CORK. Our next step is to try to fish it out of the cone so we can put the CORK in. It would be best if we can figure out a way to do this without having to retrieve and take apart the CORK. There are a couple of choices as to how to fish the tube out: 1) pass some sort of fishing tool out the bottom of the 4 1/2-inch casing; or 2) attach a fishing tool to the camera/sonar system frame. I think we have decided on the latter. Take a look at the Lab TVs now and you can see it going down already. We should see the actually fishing this morning.
Countdown to Astoria: 16 days
6 Week Effect Alert Level: RED, RED, RED: be extremely patient with others and yourself! (low- Green; medium- Yellow; high- Red)
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 FISHING TOOL #1. The camera is sent down to the bottom of the drill string each time it reenters the hole. Early this morning, when the CORK assembly was about to enter the hole, the camera spotted a rod-shaped object in the reentry cone near the opening of the hole. Some quick calls were made and it was discovered that in 1998 a visiting ROV lost some equipment in the hole.
Our drillers made this grappling hook fishing tool and attached it to the camera. They then used the guidance system of the camera to move the hook until it caught the foreign object. Unfortunately, it slipped from the tool and went into the hole.
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 CAMERA ASSEMBLY. The camera assembly is a critical tool on the JOIDES Resolution that is used primarily to take video of reentries into the hole so that the equipment doesn’t get damaged. Of course, we know that it can be used to bring cups down for pressure experiments. Today, it was used to remove foreign materials from Hole 1026. If you look closely, you can see a cable hanging from the bottom of the camera assembly. Attached to this cable is a second fishing tool (see next picture) that was used to remove debris from this hole.
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 FISHING TOOL #2. This is the second tool that was created. This time the goal was to pull the foreign material out of the hole (it had slipped 1-2 meters into the hole). This tool was successful. The object was pulled free of the hole. We then moved the ship several meters to the side of the hole and brought up the tool. Unfortunately, the camera bumped against the pipe and the object fell off at about 1,400 meters (4,600 feet) below the surface; it's a good thing we moved the ship to the side!!!
Shown from top to bottom are: Fernando (Nandi) Punsalan, Assistant Driller (Philippines); person bending over is unidentified; and Joe (Bubba) Attryde, Core Technician (USA).
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 REENTRY ATTEMPT. This is one of several television monitors hooked into the signal from the camera assembly at the bottom of the ocean. Here, at Hole 1026B, it is just over 2,649 meters (8,691 feet) deep (the depth here is for the camera). You can see the CORK assembly being lowered into the hole at the center of the reentry cone (only 2/3 of the cone is showing). Just after this picture was taken, the assembly was pulled back out with more foreign materials on it, including a rope. The drillers used the camera assembly to knock off the debris and they were finally able to set the CORK in the hole.
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 ASSEMBLING THE OSMOTIC SAMPLERS. Once the CORK was in place it was safe to assemble the osmotic sampler string. Inside the white plastic tubes are a series of the osmotic samplers that will be used over the next several years to collect water samples and microorganism samples from the bottom of Hole 1026B. Once the string of samplers were assembled, they were lowered from the rig floor, through the drill pipe, through the CORK assembly, and just into the open hole below the casing.
Shown from left to right are: Nicholas (Nick) Parish, Driller (USA); Gus Gustaffson, Marine Laboratory Specialist (USA); Fernando (Nandi) Punsalan, Assistant Driller (Philippines); and Phil Christie, Core Technician (UK).
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 Gus Gustaffson, Marine Laboratory Specialist (USA), and Juan (Big John) Vito, Derrickman (Philippines), watch as the last section of osmotic samplers is placed into the top of the drill string. The silver section above the white sampler string is a stainless steel weight that serves as a sinker bar and top seal. There is another much larger one at the bottom of the sample string. These add weight to carry the string of samplers to the bottom of the hole; the sample strings are not very dense so they need the extra help to get down the hole.
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 KNOTS. These knots were used to lower the nylon rope attached to the osmotic samplers. The top of this rope was lowered and fastened into the top of the CORK as the CORK was sealed. There was approximately 200 meters (656 feet) of rope. This length was used to make sure that the samplers would hang down enough to be just outside the bottom of the casing in the hole.
Shown from left to right are: Phil Christie, Core Technician (UK); Juan (Big John) Vito, Derrickman (Philippines); and Jose (Pepe) Estevez, Senior Toolpusher (Spain).
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 LAB ACTIVITIES #1. The scientists are still hard at work analyzing samples from the previous coring. They are also getting their equipment ready for the next round of coring; we will be coring sediments in the next couple of days. Here Samuel (Sam) Hulme, Inorganic Geochemist (USA), is in the chemistry lab titrating a sample of seawater to determine its salinity. He is calibrating the equipment that will be used to analyze the geochemistry of pore waters from sediments samples.
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 LAB ACTIVITIES #1. Takuroh Noguchi, Inorganic Geochemist (Japan), is also getting equipment ready for the next round of sediment coring. He is in the chemistry laboratory calibrating the spectrophotometer that will be used to measure ammonia and phosphate in sediment cores in the next couple of days.
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