Week 1 - The Transit

It’s been quite a memorable trip!! It took over an hour to drive from my home town of Romulus, NY, in the middle of the Finger Lakes region, to get to Rochester, NY, and just 10 minutes by plane to fly over Romulus on the way to Newark, NJ. I left my home at 10:00 AM and arrived at Panama City at around 8:30 PM (local time – they aren’t on Daylight Savings Time). Several of us on the plane were bound for the ship but we had to wait for another shipmate before being taken to the ship in a private car. We reached the ship at about 1:00 AM on the 11th…

JOIDES Resolution lifeboat #1.

Leaving the last lock on the eastern side of the canal.

Me and my video camera. (I took over an hour and a half of footage).

At the science meeting/indoctrination for all technicians and scientists, we went over the objectives of the cruise, how to survive the cruise, and cruise etiquette, as well as a briefing by the computer staff. Safety training was held at 1300 (1:00 PM); speakers included the captain, ship’s doctor and second mate. We were taught safety procedures and rules, and then given a tour of a lifeboat.

After the safety meeting, there was a technician meeting in the core lab to review splitting techniques. The new technicians and I were given the “IODP Core Lab Cookbook.” We went through the procedures for processing the core to insure its integrity in the labs and throughout the testing process.

We left the pier at 1600 and started through the Panama Canal. The first set of locks were absolutely incredible! Everyone’s heard of the Panama Canal, but it’s awesome to actually go through it. There was a large cargo carrier that went through all of the locks with us. I can’t believe we both fit in the locks at the same time. We left the first set of locks at almost 1900. After the first set of locks came Gatun Lake, and the ship didn’t even feel like it was moving!!!

We came to the Centennial Bridge at approximately 2130. Even with the top of the ship’s derrick lowered, it appeared that the ship just barely fit under the bridge. It began to rain, a nice gentle warm rain! We reached the last set of locks shortly thereafter. The rain picked up a little. We reached the Bridge of the Americas at about 0130. It was now raining pretty hard. Just as with the first bridge, it looked like we were in danger of hitting it, but we passed through without incident.

Preparation for next week is underway; everyone is getting ready for the first core. This is the lull before the storm. The thin sections from Leg 206 were in need of re-organization after borrowed slides were returned, so they were placed in numerical order and inventoried. The science meeting was at 1000. We reviewed necessary shipboard information, then had an overview of Leg 206, when Hole 1256D was started. We then had brief introductions to each of the labs. I was invited to attend the operations pre-site meeting at 1400 with Damon Teagle, Co-Chief Scientist (UK); Susumu Umino, Co-Chief Scientist (Japan); Neil Banerjee, IODP Staff Scientist/Expedition Project Manager (USA); Kevin Grigar, IODP Operations Superintendent (USA); Florence Einaudi, Logging Staff Scientist (France); Akram Belghoul, Logging Trainee (France); Doug Wilson, Geophysicist (USA); and the TransOcean Drilling, Marine and Electrical Supervisors. During the meeting we were given the drilling plan for this expedition and reviewed objectives/expectations, methods and materials for carrying out the plan. Some of the items discussed were bit sizes, hole casing, core casing, and logging of the hole (inserting special instruments into the hole to take measurements such as temperature)

A close up of sections of core from Leg 206.

Core samples on the description table  from Leg 206.

I visited the underway geophysics lab at midnight and stayed until 0300 to watch the start-up of the equipment. The IODP equipment that keeps track of the ship’s position, sea depth and seafloor magnetic properties are housed and monitored there. A lot of earth science in that room! While the ship is underway, these features are being physically monitored. After a nap and breakfast I helped the technicians move some Leg 206 archive-half cores into the core lab. They were moved from the storage refrigerator so the scientists could examine them after the morning science meeting. The cores came from Hole 1256D, the hole we are going to deepen.  By examining these cores, we will have an idea of what to expect from the cores to come.

At the morning science meeting, everyone with core sample requests was asked to state the purpose of their request. This was done to foster collaboration between the scientists. The vast amount of geologic knowledge in that room was amazing to me. Quite a bit of collaboration had already occurred, and now more was to take place.