V24 Leg 2 Begins
After a very successful Leg 1 where the R/V Atlantis sailed under incredibly calm weather, Leg 2 began with a slightly wavier start on August 18th.
The team returned to the 80 m Oregon Shelf site, which was the final site visited on Leg 1. Operations there were stymied by the discovery of a log laying over the cables connecting the Benthic Experiment Package, zooplankton sonar, and the digital still camera to the junction box. The first goal of Leg 2 will be a series of four or more dives at the Oregon Shelf site to swap all of the equipment there and find a solution to the log jam.
The team is well prepared for the challenge as we have spent the last two days in port. The R/V Atlantis returned to Newport, OR on August 16th. During the two days in port all of the recovered gear from Leg 1 was offloaded and new gear for Leg 2 was loaded onboard. Port calls are a mix of well-earned relaxation and hard work, with the team enjoying a mix of long walks (a luxury when you can’t go further than 273 ft for a week!) and instrument testing and integration along with gathering supplies and pondering the log. We also said goodbye to seven students, three scientists, and three engineers who were only sailing for Leg 1 and welcomed the new group of 10 students, two scientists, and two engineers for Leg 2. Check out the thoughts from the students from Leg 1 and Leg 2 (coming soon) about their experiences onboard on our participant blog page. For most of the students it is their first time going to sea and for many will be a life changing experience.
The other major goals for Leg 2, besides swapping equipment at the Shelf site, are to swap equipment at the Oregon Offshore site and Southern Hydrate Ridge. Also at Southern Hydrate Ridge, there will be two days of work led by Dr. Laura Lapham (from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science) to recover osmotic fluid samplers deployed last year and collect a variety of samples (sediment cores, water samples, biological samples) to characterize the site.
RCA research technician Andrew Paley demonstrates calibrating an instrument on the benthic experiment package to V24 students Jose Cornejo, Elena Calderon, and Roy An. Credit: M. Elend, University of Washington, V24.
Dr. Laura Lapham and her graduate student Anna Hildebrand pose in their “gumby” survival suits during the Leg 2 safety meeting. Credit: A. Rose, University of Washington, V24.