Essential Questions "See the Sea Floor"

1. NOAA: Who are they and what do they do? -NOAA is the National oceanic and atmospheric administration. They are creating a comprehensive map of the sea bed.

2. The Intensity of a sonar echo tells scientist what? -What the sea floor and water column look like, also differences and changes in each.

3. Why does an ROV assist scientist? - it allows scientist to better see the sea floor first hand, to better understand exactly what the characteristics are under the surface of the ocean.

4. Why are these studies important to society? -Because for the most part we do not know what lies beneath the surface of our oceans.

Uniformitarianism or Catastrophism vs. Plate tectonics

By Patricia Zapien and Jonathan Franco

Theories, Dates, People.

Uniformitarianism: 1830. assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe

- the work of geologist James Hutton, which was refined by John Playfair and popularised by Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology 

Catastrophism: (19th century) the theory that the Earth has been affected in the past by sudden, short-lived, violent events, worldwide

-geologist Charles Lyell built upon James Hutton's ideas 

The theory of uniformitarianism is more closely related to the theory of plate tectonics

Uniformitarianism 

Catastrophism

R/V Melville day 19

Day 19- Interview

Ruth Musgrave (Chief Scientist)

Ruth Musgrave is PHD student at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) focusing on oceanographic fluid dynamics. Ruth was born in the west London, United Kingdom. From a young age Ruth was intrigued by math and the constant challenge that came with it. Moving to Australia at the age of 20 Ruth obtained a Bachelors in Science (BS) in physics from Melbourne University, followed by an honors in applied math from Monash University (Australia). Ruth worked as a Patent attorney for a year and dreaded every second of it. She moved to the United States to pursue a PHD which she is currently working on, and loves everything about it. "In most jobs you do the same thing every day, you're told what to do by your boss and do the same thing every day. My job is nothing like that and thats why I love it," -Ruth Musgrave. 

Ruth's favorite places to travel are;

East Anglia, United Kingdom - To visit family 

and Baja California, Mexico - because its wild, remote, you can get away and enjoy life.  

"The ocean is full of the most incredible currents, It blows me away." -Ruth Musgrave 

Ruth Musgrave

Enjoying a beautiful day

Hydroulic mixing (fluid dynamics) 

Sunrise from the hot tub

#the_nightshift aka the 4am HOTUBBERS 

Ruth and her many Teas getting work done 

Ruth presenting her data from Mendocino Ridge

Downloading data

 

Chief scientist at work 

Smile :)

Ruth operating the A-Frame

R/V Melville day 18

Day 18- Interview 

Amy Waterhouse (Chief Scientist)

Amy Waterhouse is a post doc Physical Oceanographer. She is a Canadian native who currently resides in La Jolla, California. Amy grew up sailing, windsurfing, kayaking and swimming with her family as a  child and from a young age fell in love with the ocean. Following her heart she pursued her dreams and obtained a masters in oceanography at the University of British Columbia (UBC). After extensive field work and many expeditions in Florida, Mexico, and even Korea, Amy got her PHD at the University of Florida. She now works at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD) as a post doc under the guidance of Jen MacKinnon.

Amy's favorite places to travel are Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, and Papua New Guinea because they are beautiful, and the remoteness is just amazing.

"I love the ocean"- Amy Waterhouse

YOU CAN FOLLOW AMY'S BLOG AT - https://sites.google.com/site/mixingatthemargins/ 

Amy Waterhouse in action

Bubbly and smiling :)

Amy Waterhouse and Jonathan Nash attaching T-loggers (temperature sensors) directly onto the mooring line

Amy pinging acoustic releases off the starburt side

Amy Waterhouse and Jonathan Nash 

"technologically savvy?'

Testing testing testing

Amy Waterhouse and Jen Mackinnon performing a deck test on a pair of acoustic releases 

R/V Melville shirt design day 17

I was asked to think of ideas for a group shirt design, i picked up a pencil and voila!  

And YES everything is hand drawn and I drew everything myself

R/V Melville day 16

Day 16 CUP DAY!!!

Today we sent around 100 cups 1335 meters so about 4380 feet down below the surface of the ocean. We attached a mesh bag filled with the cups above the CDT using a book clamp and after their descent  we recovered them and the results were AWESOME!!!

*Mr. Blas 3rd period class i will show you mine but you will all have to wait to see yours in class when I get back to land*  

My Cup (and yes i drew everything myself)

BEFORE

AFTER

My 2 cups zombie baseball and the beautiful R/V Melville

All the cups Right out of the water

Sunrise from the Hot Tub on board ;D

Beautiful sun 

Super sunny day

A Mola Mola also known as the sun fish  

R/V Melville day 15

Day 15: Question of the day

 Is Collecting data hard? -Patricia Patticakeslicious Zapien

What kind of stuff are you doing on the boat , on the second week ? -Carlos Reyes

-Collecting data is not hard, the instruments do all the work, however analyzing and writing code to compute the data is a challenge.
- During the second weeks we are doing CTD cast throughout Eel canyon gathering data on internal wave prorogation.

Chief scientist Amy Waterhouse and Computer tech Kris Weeks in the lab

Some of the gang

Multibeam rendering of the topography of the ridge (Dancing Man)

Paul Chua, Jonathan Nash, and Amy Waterhouse ready for work

MMP ready to be deployed

Scientist Paul Chua and Rez-tech Josh Manger

Vanessa Crandell on the air tugger

Chief Scientist Ruth Musgrave giving us a presentation on some of the data collected so far

Scientist Jen MacKinnon up bright and early ready for a hard days work

Computer-tech Kris Weeks launching an XPT

Sun through the fog