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Stan Treanor, Physics and Computer Science high school teacher from Merkel High School, Merkel, Texas, was invited by UTIG Chief Scientists to participate in NSF sponsored research as a science party member aboard the R.V. Nathaniel B. Palmer. To document his experiences, Stan sends frequent electronic journal entries and photographs from the field. Stan is also a videographer and often mentions the "filming" he is doing for a video documentary of the expedition. Highlights of his entries are below. Click on the dates below for full text. |
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By
the morning of April 30 at 09:20 Z, we had transited around Snow and Livingston
islands and were moving down line #5 recovering OBSs. We picked up our
last OBS for the experiment at 15:15 Z and turned onto line #8 to Seabeam
potential OBS sites on it, moving northeast at 15:51 Z. Now we're homeward
bound!...
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Steffen,
Ian, and Dan have been a great help doing short educational videos regarding
the science associated with the Bransfield Basin research project....
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Early this morning, before light, a whale was following the ship behind the gun array. It was spotted by the Bridge because they keep a spotlight trained on the gun array's buoys bobbing along behind the ship...
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Everyone
seems in good sprits today. Barney and his men have spent 30-man hours
doing maintenance on the gun array. The time was spent taping, to prevent
chafing when the guns "kick", replacing an air hose, and modifying the
chains on which gun #1 hangs, to limit movement.
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The
guns have been "popping off" on schedule without a slip. However, when
we retrieved the guns, they were in poor shape. The air hoses and electrical
cables needed replacing. The modifications done to limit the "kick" when
the guns are shot has helped, but the guns are still ripping themselves
apart, given enough time....
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...At
dinner, I was commenting on how well the guns were doing. Everyone
got on me. Shhhhhh...don't say a thing. I laughed, and said,
"Here are renowned scientists pulling out their rabbit's feet the day after
Easter; now, that's a new twist to 'scientific'."
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...Yesterday,
I saw a pod of whales. One was crossing off the starboard bow (I'm
really sounding like a sailor now) between us and a green-blue iceberg.
Ian Dalziel told me that the color of the ice is a result of the iceberg
recently "turning over"; re-crystallization of the ice, which was originally
at or near the ice-sheet's base, gives it its blue-green color....
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The
morning of April 23 at 8:34 Z, we had retrieved all OBS along line #3,
with the exception of OBS #23, which hadn't surfaced. A decision was made
to abandon it and continue to line #4. We arrived at the start of that
line at 16:40 Z hrs.
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...We’ve
delayed repairing the gun as a result of waves coming over the stern and
presenting a safety problem for the men working on the back deck....
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In
the lab, Willie Nelson is singing in the background. The music has
an intoxicating effect on my mood, or maybe it’s the homesickness welling
up...
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The
morning of April 19 at 05:30 Z, we were 100 meters south of the OBS 69
site on line #6. We avoided challenging the iceberg over the site. Using
Seabeam sonar, we are scanning the ocean bottom along line #6, while we
await sunrise before moving Northward through Nelson Strait...
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At
09:57 Z, at 57.1333 W, 62.0171 S, we picked up OBS 22, 13,591 m on a 004
degree heading from where it was initially deployed . The conclusion is
that OBS 22 must have released from the ocean bottom after we left this
location yesterday. We're now heading back to pick up the remaining four
OBSs...
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The
essence of all this work is to enable the geophysicists to 'see' the structure
of the earth beneath the Bransfield Basin. Instead of using light waves
reflected off objects to perceive things visually, they use sound waves
to 'see' deep into the earth's crust....Imagine the ship moving along shooting
it's guns. Boom! Boom! Boom!
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Through
the previous night (April 15) and the early morning of April 16, the guns
shot 329 times before failing again. The first failure was for a blown
air hose. This last time it was an electrical problem; an electrical cable
had to be replaced.
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We
were quite downtrodden when faced with repeated failures of gun #1.
This could have ended our mission. Now spirits have risen again.
Seadog
1 (see report
dated 4/13), Jamie Austin, our Chief Scientist, has his usual "bounce"
in his step and smile on his face. We’re on the move again. Boots
are secure in their stirrups, and we’re shooting up a storm with our six
shooter!
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The
morning of April 14 we recovered the last OBS, on line #1, at 0508 Z hrs,
50 km NE of King George Island. Now we're heading SE to Line #2,
100 km SE of King George Island; the line runs 250 km southwest to Deception
Island. The crew has worked hard recovering OBSs and are resting
until we begin deploying them again, starting at mid-day.
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...We
reached the end of the line at 1309 Z, just NE of the Antarctica Peninsula.
We could see d’Urville Island 20 km to the south of us, at the NE end of
the Antarctica Peninsula. Icebergs surround the ship in every direction.
Just off the bow of the ship, I can see two other small islands off d'Urville
Island, in the midst of icebergs. In the background is d’Urville
Island, below cloud layer. It seems cold and foreboding....
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...When
the storm blew in last night, dinner was being served and plates, cups
and silverware were sliding back and forth. You had to make a stab
at your meal as it passed! Someone yelled they needed help in the
dry lab. When we arrived, chairs, paper, books and other objects were scattered
everywhere....
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There
is a feeling of relief now that the technical problems have been resolved
with the gun array and the Syntron (gun synchronizing) unit. (When
I arrive for my midnight watch, Carrie and Steffen were dancing around
in some weird body contortions I can't find the words to describe.)
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...We
have six different gun sizes, when categorized by the size of the air chamber.
One might conclude geophysicists are poor shots, needing six guns vs. just
one. Poor marksmanship may be a fact given their unsteady stride
on this ship the past several days. There are other reasons to have
so many guns for this shoot...
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At
0800 Z hrs, we crossed the Shackleton Fracture Zone which runs in a NW
to SE direction between the western side of South America and the Antarctic
Peninsula. As we approached the fracture, you could definitely see
the change in the depth reading sensed by the Bathy 2000 sonar.
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The
morning of April 6, at the dock in Punta Arenas, Chile, we
drilled on what to do in case of an emergency. What an experience!
We put on rubberized survival suits, which delay the early onset
of hypothermia, and loaded ourselves into a lifeboat. You have to
buckle yourself into the seats of the covered lifeboat so, when it
should roll at sea, everyone doesn’t roll within it, keeping the boat from
righting itself again.
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Well,
I made it. I'm down in Punta Arenas, Chile and moved onto the ship
from the hotel yesterday. This ship is like a candy store to a geek
- every type of computer with every type of operating system to play with.
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10 February 2004
