sunny day today

yet another beautiful day in paradise-dise

seas are ~3m peak to trough today... like 2 days ago, but i have sea
legs now, so i am not sea sick. totally sunny and a great view. we are
a little further offshore than yesterday, so i cannot see land
sticking up over the horizon anymore.

we are making great progress on mapping. yesterday we had to stop for
an hour to wait for some fishing boats to get out of the way and we
had to go back to fill some holidays (areas we did not map) because of
other fishing boats and also our pos-mv (our positioning unit that
tells the mapping/sonar system where we are) went out for a moment.
these delays added several hours to our survey.

here is a pic of me sending out an XBT. we drop this device (lead
'dart' with a copper wire attached) to measure the sound velocity
profile. the sound velocity profile varies with temperature and
salinity primarily. sound velocity is important as the timing of the
sonar pings through the water column is how we can tell where the sea
floor is and therefore how we can map the bathymetry.

bathymetry mapping

here is a shot of the software we are using to manage the sonar
mapping. basically, color designates depth. blue is deeper than red.
the blue is the Juan de Fuca channel offshore Washington. this channel
feeds turbidity currents that have been cored in the past to document
the earthquake history of earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone.

3.5 kHz logging example

here is an example of the 3.5 kHz CHIRP logging that we are doing here
offshore WA.

i mentioned this log in a previous post. depth is marked on the right.
i have labeled two units, a lower more sandy unit i am interpreting as
tubidites. the upper unit is either a series of muddy turbidites or
simply just mud. i suspect there are turbidites here, as i see some
faint reflections (difficult to see in this image).

this was taken in an arm of the Juan de Fuca Channel at approximately
N 47 24.5424 W 125 23.5226. the channel is colored blue in the next
image i will post.

survey area

here is a shot of some of the surveying (just a small portion) that we
are up to...

the orange lines are the areas we plan on surveying first. pink stars
are the ocean bottom seismometer draft locations. once we survey the
bathy and sub bottom, we will know how we might need to change the
locations...

oregon and ca will come next. more later,,, got a good shot of the 3.5 data...

at sea

we are under way and collecting excellent bathymetric and sub surface
data. yesterday i spent being sea sick as the seas were rough and i
usually get sick the 1st day. pam of the ship's crew provided me with
some bonine and i am now feeling much better, back to 110%!!!

ill post a pic of the bathy and 3.5 kHz screens later today to show
you what we see when we are collecting data. currently, we are
transiting across a wide channel that has a nice record of turbidites.
looks like there is a package of mud (~10m thick) overlying turbdites
of at least ~30m thickness. the mud is probably the holocene and the
turbidites probably represent the pleistocene (which had a much higher
frequency of turbidite deposition). this interpretation is not based
on any core data and is purely hypothetical! the mud package may
actually be turbidites that are muddy and have little density contrast
to show up on the subsurface data.

buddy shane is applying for the mariner position at COAS (soon to be
CEOAS, welcome geoscience buddies!). here is the link to the wecoma
page: http://www.shipops.oregonstate.edu/ops/wecoma/ and the link to
the elakha page: http://www.shipops.oregonstate.edu/ops/elakha/

here is the live web cam for the wecoma: http://webcam.oregonstate.edu/wecoma/

the wecoma does local research, as well as global research. it was
recently in hawaii. where it goes is based on the requests of
researchers and who gets it. the elakha generally stays local as it is
a much smaller boat. good luck to shane.

more later, j-j

locks

here is a shot from the locks...

heading to sea...

well, the fine shipboard engineers, led by terry, got the ship running
on their estimated schedule. we left dock before 17:30.... i awakened
from a nap at 5:44 and we were in the locks... i had 15 mins to get
dinner and the cook sarah had made me a custom mushroom risotto just
for me! she is the bomb. i am so lucky to have such a kind cook on
this cruise!

we were quite the spectacle to memorial day tourists at the locks.
many photos taken of our ship and us... and i got a few shots of them
too...

we are now in puget sound and are heading north to the strait of juan
de fuca. N47 42.8176 w 122 25.4833 is our position right now. now it
is not, lol.

we are already logging bathymetry and the res techs (computer and
technology crew from the U/W crew) are working on getting the 3.5 kHz
chirp running. it is currently not recording the heave (the ship
motion going up and down). the heave is important to remove from the
measurements to have a 'correct' bottom and depth measurement.

we expect to hit the mouth of the strait around 5 or 6am... my shift
is from 8am to 4pm, so i will begin my shift a little early to make
sure we get off on the good foot, just like james brown would say.

sailing off into the sunset~~~~