Cascadia H.O.P.S. has begun and all sailing scientists are onboard RV Oceanus until the expedition is over. The day started around 0800 hours with Paul Walczak and his coring team, Ben Freiberg and Chris Fanshier, arriving to begin loading the coring gear. As the day went on, the other scientists arrived at the ship with everyone on board by 1600 hours.
While the coring team used the crane to move the heavy gear on to the ship, the other scientists started to get the lab spaces set-up. There are three main lab areas that we’ll be using. The first is the CHIRP and mapping lab, where we survey the sedimentary structures of the seafloor using sound waves and map our progress. The second is the multi-sensor core logger laboratory, where we collect geophysical data on the sediment cores before they are even opened. The third is the pore water geochemistry laboratory, where we study the water in the sediment cores and learn about organic carbon cycling.
During the day, we also held a few events, including the first conference call with our shore based scientists and a Facebook live event on the Oregon State University, College of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Facebook page.
We’ll be ready to leave the dock tomorrow morning after a few safety drills–between 9 and 10 AM. Then it will be about 8 hours of transit to our first site. We are expecting to recover our first core sometime between 6 and 8 PM.
