two more cores

hello y'all,

yet another beautiful day in paradise-dise,,,

awoke to find the last kasten core (that we were headed for when i
went of watch) was only ~20% full. so, since it was so light, when
they lifted off the corer from the liner, the liner did not have
enough weight to hold it on the ground and it fell down, mixing up the
mud/sand a little (so the recovered sediment is in poor shape).

so, i set up some waypoints for a survey/transit to the next core
site. we are headed for ODP site 1019 N 41 40.972 W 124 55.48. this is
a site that was drilled (not cored) in 1996. there are good
sedimentation rate records here that record the reservoir correction
(the difference in the radiocarbon age of sea water between the
surface waters, which are closest to the age of the atmospheric
radiocarbon, and the waters near the sea bed). the difference in ages
of these two settings can tell one about the circulation of the water
column ('ventilation'). the 1996 cores do not contain some of the
Holocene sediments (~<10,000 yrs), so we hope to core there to fill in
this gap of information. we use the reservoir correction for our age
estimates of earthquake timing, do this information will be useful for
our research.

we just finished removing the 0.680 wire and re-threading the 9/16
wire so we can piston core. we used the 0.680 wire to collect the
kasten core yesterday. we recovered a spectacular core with most
excellent turbdite stratigraphy (see previous post about the northern
Viscaino block core). this was our best kasten core yet! a good thing
to end a shift on. all my stagehand rigging experience back in the
80's makes me feel rather comfortable doing rigging on this ship.
rigging is like riding a bike. things have not really changed much in
the last 20 yrs. most of stage rigging is based on maritime rigging.
maritime rigging just has larger loads than in convention centers and
theatres. concert rigging max loads were typically ~2tons. we
recurrently have ~15,000 pound tension on the coring cable here on the
ship (when we pull the core out of the sea floor).

following this core, we will head back out to the abyssal plain (site
1019 ~1,000 meters water depth up on the shelf/accretionary prism).
Dr. Romsos and i have set up a survey to optimize for clean sub-bottom
data collection. we have good mutlibeam bathymetry data here already.
we will take one more piston core further north, hopefully also in the
shallower accretionary slope basins (where foraminiferid abundance is
higher, enabling us smaller sample sizes for radiocarbon age samples).

After that, the weather is going to be really rough as the 'perfect
storm' comes to whip us in the posterior. once that happens, we will
have no more science to do (too unsafe to work out on deck in those
16' seas). this will give me some time to work on my presentation that
i am giving next tuesday. i started it a week ago, but there is still
quite a bit to do. i am also going to help Mo on her presentation,
which is to be given on sunday morning. she has a spectacular story
about the sedimentation in the gulf of alaska following the Last
Glacial Maximum (LGM), ~22,000 yrs ago. i will be helping her process
her CT data from her cores. this was a contingency of her attendance
on this cruise. some certain people keep forgetting this, but not me.
i am very thankful for her presence on this cruise. she is doing a
banger job, along with Amy M. Garrett, on the Multi Sensor Track data
(where we collect density, P-wave velocity, Magnetic Susceptibility,
and resistivity data). this is nice, as there are already so many
things for me to keep track of (i am the B-team 'chief scientist').

ok, good morning, Sunshine... hugs and kisses to you...