June 2nd, 2021
Today began with a continuation of the Jason dive that began yesterday. After 21 hours searching for the lost mooring on the ocean floor, we were unable to locate where it ended up. Being in the Gulf Stream, the current was quite strong and could have influenced the movement of our target. To search for it, we did parallel transects 20 meters apart surrounding our “best guess” location. Eventually we had to give up the search and start transiting to our next site: Blake Ridge. Unfortunate we weren’t able to find the mooring, but we did our best and have to continue with the main goals of the cruise. I (Liam) had my first and second 4-8 (AM and PM) shifts in the Jason van, where I spent my time logging events onto SeaLogger. While it was a great experience, it was rather boring and included lots of the same thing: ocean floor and blue water. Nevertheless, it was awesome to see how they operated Jason first-hand! Giving the undergraduates a chance to work shifts in Jason was amazing and felt like a science fiction movie with the amount of screens and data coming in regularly.
While Jason was attempting to recover the mooring, the science team took the time to sort through our collected tube traps from the two previous sites. These tubes were packed with Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) and were placed to collect larvae from our seep sites. When opened, these samples were full of amphipods that had been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for over a year. They did not smell good. Sharing our lab with the Sentry team, we received many hilarious comments about the stench. Think mussel septic tank fermenting for a year. Luckily wearing face masks for COVID safety doubled as a stench blocker! We sorted through the 4 tube traps relatively quickly however, and even managed to find one of our target species, a Bathymodiolus larval shell!
Meet a Scientist on Board
Hi all! My name is Liam Patrick. I am an undergraduate student from California State University Monterey Bay joining WWU/the Arellano lab as an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) student. I have one more semester left at CSUMB, super close to majoring with a B.S. in Marine Science. After that, I have no idea!
I was born in Scottsdale, AZ, but raised in Anacortes, WA (also home to WWU’s Shannon Point Marine Center). In my free time, I am an avid beachcomber, dinghy sailor, and sailing instructor. I enjoy SCUBA diving as much as possible and I’m planning on being certified for advanced SCUBA through my college this next semester (super excited). Other than that, I spend my time hiking or playing video games with friends, especially during quarantine!
The opportunity to join this cruise rose out of the WWU REU program at SPMC. While I know almost nothing about larvae, I saw the cruise as an amazing opportunity to learn and experience life on a research cruise. Currently, I am assisting others when I can and taking part in various graduate projects. Once we start into the Gulf of Mexico, I will be focusing more on helping Mitch’s project with T. Naticoidea larvae, a deep-sea snail that can be found around hydrocarbon seeps at depths from 400-1700 meters. By helping with that, I hope to hone into my own research question concerning these larvae or something similar for my REU.
Later in the day, in preparation for one of our deeper sites, Blake Ridge – 2160 meters deep, the science team and anyone else who felt inclined, made cups! This is a staple on any deep sea research cruise. Styrofoam cups are drawn on with every color of Sharpie that shrink when brought to the ocean floor and back. The cups are placed in a mesh bag and attached to Jason, where the increasing pressure causes the cups to compress, and when returned to the surface retain the artwork on a miniature cup. We shared stories about who we are making cups for and what the artwork represents, had a lot of laughs, and became closer as a group. We also discovered there are quite a few artists in our group! Some of our cups boasted familiar characters like our submersibles Sentry and Jason, others highlighted marine animals and our seep sites. Now we are all eager for the Blake Ridge dive to see how they all turn out! Here’s a pictured of our cups displayed, each one so unique!
