by Emily An & Jamie Oman July 29, 2019
Our second day on the open ocean has everyone slowly gaining their sea legs! A few of us started the morning with taking some water samples for the stable isotope research our grad student Nicole is conducting. The whole group met shortly afterwards to do some activities relating to global change drivers and effects, interspersed with decorating Styrofoam cups which (hopefully) will be lowered and miniaturized by ocean pressure on a CTD cast tomorrow. We got to chat with Danik Forsman, one of the youngest pilots ever on the Alvin team, who was performing a maintenance check on one of the Alvin’s 12 inch thick windows. He shared his experiences as a pilot of a deep-sea submersible, from interactions with giant six gill sharks to the descent out of the photic zone into the ocean’s depths. We were shocked to learn the Alvin’s windows are sealed only by pressure, lubricated with a calcium paste. Hopefully in the next few days we will be able to actually tour the inside of the submersible!
Our afternoon consisted of some lectures and activities relating to stable isotopes and the JOIDES Resolution. We spent a couple hours with sediment core replicas trying to stratigraphically identify different sediments and fossils. We then got a tour of the bridge and all of its instrumentation, complete with a windy ascent up to the top level of the ship where the antennas, search lights, and horn are located. Everyone on the ship has been immensely polite and willing to answer any questions we may have, and we truly feel welcome anywhere!
