Date: Tue, 09 Dec 1997 16:27:00 1997
1st Weekly Progress Report December 9, 1997 The Process 1 cruise of R/V ROGER REVELLE has been at sea for one week. Three stations have been completed; the weather has been exceptionally good. Wind has come up a few times to about 20/25 knots. When the wind blows and it rains it is very cold on deck. Hard to believe it's late spring. The wind has also died twice and when that happens the Southern Ocean calms down very fast. Mike Grogan commented that he'd never seen the equatorial Pacific as calm as it was last night at 57deg.S. R/V ROGER REVELLE is a great platform for oceanography. She is exceptionally stable in the moderate seas we've been having. The temperatures inside the labs and staterooms are comfortable. Vibration and noise are as low as any ship I've worked on. The fantail is covered with seawater cooled incubators. We have five different incubator designs, one each for Si, N and C uptake, plus one each for micrograzing and macrograzing. The ship's seawater lines were re-plumbed during the last port call to give the incubators more flow. That work has been successful. So far the incubators have been a maximum 0.7 deg over ambient and during most of the day there is no increase. Of course, we haven't reached the really cold water yet. Surface water temp was 7.5 deg at Sta. 1, 5.5 at Sta. 2 and 5.2 at Sta. 3. Sailing from Lyttelton was delayed from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 to await arrival of the new Trace Metal Clean Rosette (TMCR) that was fabricated in record time by Craig Hunter at Moss Landing Marine Labs. The shipping from Moss Landing to Lyttelton was letter perfect. ASA's tracking system knew exactly where it was at all times. It arrived exactly as advertised at 0300 on Dec. 2. Mark Cook and Jonathan Borden assembled it; Craig Hunter's hand drawn plans were complete, accurate and helpful. Because of the delay the ship's labs were well set up, so the usual frantic last minute activity was missing. On Dec. 4 test deployments of the CTD, thorium pumps, TMCR, bongo nets and live tow nets were carried out. Dec. 5 at 0630 we arrived at Sta. 1, about 57S, 174W. The thorium pumping and shallow CTD cast went well, but the meter wheel for the TMCR did not read wire out or rate correctly. The camera on the Particle Optical Profiling System (POPS) also failed, so Sta. 1 did not get off to a good start. For the midnight TMCR productivity cast we marked the cable with colored tape at measured intervals down to 150 m, and the double cast to collect water for biological rate measurements was successful. People rushing the TMCR to fill their bottles are a weird sight, but a common one on JGOFS cruises. Come to think of it, the same happens when the CTD rosette lands, but it is a slightly different group of individuals. When CTD and TMC rosettes are landed back to back, 80% of the scientific team are in the hangar collecting water. Everyone is polite and O2 always goes first (or else Lou Codispoti would offer a mild word of admonition), but if you hesitate to check your work sheet, folks always slip in and get their water ahead of you. It is civilized competition at its best. Sta. 1 went pretty well. It was cold on deck and landing the CTD and TMC rosettes required eight people. Gene Pillard, the Scripps resident technician worked out an effective procedure for getting the rosettes out of the hangar and over the side. Gene and Mike Grogan run the deck operations under tight control. Everyone has to follow orders and work together. When that is done, the rosette deployments are smooth and safe. The deployments take considerable time and tie up a relatively large group of people. The two-rosette JGOFS plan is necessary for our mission, but UNOLS ships, even the biggest and newest, aren't configured for this kind of science. The CTD rosette has about an inch of clearance through the hangar door. At the very end of Sta. 1 our deep CTD cast fouled AESOPS Mooring #1 and broke the mooring line. Three sediment traps and one current meter surfaced right by REVELLE. Gene Pillard, with help from Mike Grogan, Jonathan Borden, Ian Walsh, Jan Gunderson, First Mate Wes Hill and Boson Ellis Bourbonnais, quickly and smoothly picked up the trap, floats and current meter. The cause of this very unfortunate incident was a communications misunderstanding that resulted in the ship being exactly over the mooring when the deep cast began. The sediment traps had very nice samples and Ian Walsh has processed the samples according to instructions from Hedges, Peterson and Honjo. Sta. 2 at 57S and 170W began at1000 on Dec. 7 and lasted until 0400 on Dec. 9. At this station some complications developed with the winches, but a full complement of work was carried out. The thorium work of Allen Freer and Peter Landry went smoothly. They can always be counted on to be on schedule and get their samples. Juanita Urban-Rich and Jay Peterson carried out a diel Bongo study with sampling every 4 hr as well as their regularly scheduled midnight and noon grazing experiments. They earned the respect of everyone for their toughness and endurance. Everyone's performance at Sta. 2 was excellent. The weather got a little worse. It was cold and an occasional wave broke over the rail. Laura Fandino was in the tritium van when one broke over the van, but fortunately there weren't many like that. It appears that everyone got the water samples they needed. In fact, it is apparent that the TMCR and CTD rosette can collect water much faster than we can process it. Many of the rate measurements are 24 hr long and some are 48 hr. After a brief period of water collecting, the pace of over-the-side work slows and sometimes stops. At Sta. 2, POPS made a day/night series of optical and particle measurements. The shallow, intermediate and deep CTD casts provided lots of water for the nutrient, CO2, trace metal, DOC, POC and chlorophyll folks. The main Markey hydrographic winch failed, but Gene and Jonathan switched over to the spare Markey in an hour and a half. The TMCR meter wheel worked, but the aft SeaMac winch lost its wire out and rate readouts. Right now, we're using the aft Markey and TMC winches and working on the others. After leaving Sta. 2 at 0400 on 9 Dec we made a CTD cast and POPS lowering at 58"30'S. Both operations went smoothly. The SW temperature at Sta. 3 was about 5.25 deg. The PALMER people say those temps seem like the tropics; they've had -1.7 for the entire cruise. The scientific party is meeting tonight to review the schedule for the remaining stations. We know the weather won't remain as good as it has been so far. Tim Cowles lost 10% of the Survey 1 time to weather too rough to do any work. We are expecting some rotten weather, but how much is anybody's guess. Capt. Arsenault is running REVELLE at 14 knots to make up some of the time we lost waiting for the new rosette. It appears that we'll be able to get to 66S and concentrate 3 or 4 long stations in the frontal region. The crew has supported the scientific work with enthusiasm and vigor. The Chief Engineer has been constantly busy working on the winches and some other electrical problems. Scott Hiller, a Scripps technician, has performed several miracles. He and Lisa Borden, Duke University technician, got the TMCR readout fixed and Lisa has spent a couple of days on the POPS camera. The first week has had its ups and downs, but the work is going well now. When the weather changes, we know it will get much harder to get our work done, but we've gotten a good start. The data are rolling in. Regards, Dick Barber 9 December 1997