Official Home for Dr. Vernon Asper on the Web

Friday, August 27, 2010

In order to provide quicker SITREPs and general updates going forward, the site is migrating to WordPress. The link is here:

http://www.vernonasper.com/wp/

Vernon

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Okay, so I haven't been so very prompt in submitting blog entries. My excuse? Well, in spite of what you might think about weather in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer, we are getting our butts kicked out here. No, it's not too rough to work, just rough enough that some are pretty green and we keep bumping into things (and each other) when trying to walk in the passageways.

The good news, from my perspective, is that the camera worked very, very well yesterday: I got 985 images that covered the entire water column from the surface to 2,100 m. This, by the way, is the deepest I've ever sent the camera and it's the largest number of exposures I've ever obtained so I'm very pleased with the new battery pack and the repaired wire. No, there wasn't anything exciting on the images but we consider these stations to be"control" (not affected by the oil) stations.

But our next station should be the real thing. We did a regular CTD and found some CDOM (oil?) signal at 1200m and a very nice oxygen depletion signal to go with it so that bodes well. I'm REALLY anxious to see what the images from that layer look like!!

After the "snow cam" this morning, we recovered the floating array in a relatively smooth operation. Okay, I admit that I did connect the "stopper line" above the glass floats instead of below them but that only took a minute to swap around so it wasn't a big deal.

The really big deal with the array were the 3-4 large Mahi mahi that had congregated around the buoy as pelagic fish are wont to do. Leo, one of the AB's, spotted them during our recovery and was really excited, so once the equipment was on deck, he rushed off and grabbed his fishing pole and put 3 of them on our dinner table! It was pretty amazing; he caught each one on the first cast; one in fact took the lure while it was still in the air, or at least that was what it looked like. These are amazing fish and they sure were good to eat!

Next on the agenda (I'm writing this at 03:00 on Friday morning 8/27) will be the redeployment of the floating array at this new station and then the snow cam and then a multicore and so it goes. If I get any really cool pictures, I'll send them along.

Vernon

Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 2/2

We did another camera cast early this morning but again, the battery failed. It was in the water from 01:35 until 04:30 but we only got a few hundred pictures. When I checked the battery voltage, it was normal, but after resetting the camera and seeing that it works perfectly on the bench, I found that the voltage drops to less than 6 Volts (from 7.7) each time a picture is acquired. The warmer the battery got, the less the voltage dropped so I conclude that the battery is toast. I ended up making a battery pack out of alkaline cells so we'll try that tomorrow morning.

Next on the agenda was a multicore, which is a pretty big operation requiring careful handling of the device so that the individual cores don't "pre-trip". We lowered it to the bottom in 3,000m of water and got back 8 lovely cores that show some neat features. We'll analyze them for oil, of course, but none was conspicuous so we don't expect to find much at this site.

After that, we recovered the floating array in rather rough conditions. The crew did a spectacular job of bringing the ship alongside the buoy, attaching to it using a grapnel, and then hauling the whole thing on board. The whole operation took about an hour so we thought that was pretty good. During the process, Clindor lost the bitter end of the grapnel line and I thought it was gone forever, but it remained attached to the float line and he was able to get it back. Not so fortunate was the nut driver that fell out of my pocket and over the side.

We then moved on to the next station, about 50 miles to the west and re-deployed the floating array at 22:15 this evening. Very nice weather and a great group of people combined to make this super smooth and safe, so it's now in the water and collecting again. Later on this morning, we'll try the camera again; this time a long deployment, to at least 2,000m, so it'll take quite a while. I sure hope the battery holds up! And I sure hope everything is in focus!

So, you're probably wondering, "Where's the oil?" Well, so are we! As of this writing, there have been mixed reports on what we should expect. Terry Hazen has stated that his measured microbial decomposition rates are "faster than expected" and that the oil is probably all gone. Rich Camilli reported a 22 mile long, continuous plume similar to the one we documented back in May but his conclusion is that decomposition appears to be very slow and that we can expect the "plumes" to linger for months or longer. What's the reality? We're doing our best to find out. We and another ship, the Cape Hatteras, are working together to sample the areas where the hydrodynamic models predict the plumes will be transported. So far, we've seen some interesting hints that there might be some oil out here (down there) but we haven't found the right spot yet.

There have been anecdotal reports that the plumes have intersected the seafloor at various locations and that these encounters have had dramatic impacts at places like "the Pinnacles." But again, it's nothing official and we haven't seen this for ourselves yet. This cruise will last a full month so we have a good bit of time and we are optimistic that we'll be able to contribute to the overall understanding of the ultimate fate of this oil.

Vernon

Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 1/2

Here are some pictures from yesterday:

The anchor... Drop it (gently)

Attaching the sediment trap The Kiel Sediment Trap

Floats are deployed

Monday, August 23, 2010

The weather out here has been just delightful! Not as hot as you might expect and the breeze today was almost cool so we didn't mind it as much as we did yesterday.

The floating array: this is a lot of effort to collect a very small amount of sample material. As with the moored sediment trap, we want to monitor and collect any particles (or globules) that might be leaving the surface so we deploy traps at both the bottom and just under the surface. The bottom one is fixed in position by the big anchor but the surface one is free to drift about so that biases due to hydrodynamic interactions are minimized. The array consists of a big buoy (that I made myself!), some floats on a line, two large, hollow, glass floats just under the surface, a long line extending from there down 150 meters to a hunk of heavy chain that serves to pull it all taut. Just above the chain is a cross-shaped bracket that holds 8 clear, plastic tubes with caps on the bottom. So particles falling through the water column are intercepted by these capped tubes and we can bring them back to study them.

The deployment is pretty straightforward. Start by lowering the chain into the water and, once it's about 30 feet down, attach the bracket and tubes. Then lower it until the rope is all paid out, attach the two glass floats, then all of the smaller floats and then the buoy. The buoy has two strobe lights (for tracking at night), a radio beacon (for tracking any time), and an Argos satellite beacon (for tracking when it gets lost). The latter sends a message in the blind to anything that might receive it every minute or so. If an Argos orbiting satellite is overhead, it picks up the signal, triangulates on it, and reports the position data to a computer on the mainland. To get the position, we just log onto their web site and download it. Very cool.

Once that was in the water, we did a camera deployment, starting at about 04:30. The time was a bit short, so we only went down to 900 meters but that was plenty. Unfortunately, the battery in the camera died inexplicably after only an hour so we didn't get data for the whole cast. What we did get was pretty interesting, but no oil was obvious. I spent the day fooling around with the camera battery, trying to figure out what it might be doing and what my options were. All I can figure at this point is that it has lost some of its capacity so we might just have to live with shorter casts until we get in to port in a few weeks and can get a new battery pack. I could build one out of alkaline batteries but the pack is embedded inside the camera and it's kind of risky to disassemble that much of it over and over again to change batteries. I'll try another cast tonight and see how that goes.

This blogging thing was a lot easier on the last cruises when we had oil on the surface and while the plumes were still prominent. At this point, I'm not sure if we'll see anything really conspicuous but you just never know so stay tuned.

Vernon

Sunday, August 22, 2010

For those of you who might think we're on pleasure cruises out here, I wish you had been here this morning. We started work at about 04:30, yes that's a.m. The first task was to put the camera system in the water to test the focus, which we did, in pouring rain and very gusty (~20 knots) winds. After three tests, we settled on a focus distance of 0.9m and the pictures look great. We lowered it to only 200m because of time constraints, and had it back on deck at 07:00.

Next was the moored sediment trap deployment. The "sediment trap" is a device that is used to collect particles as they settle from the surface towards the sea floor where they will eventually make up the mud that is on the bottom of the ocean. This one is pretty big by our standards; maybe 7 feet tall and 4 feet in diameter and pretty heavy. It has a fiberglass funnel that concentrates the particles into one of 21 small cups that are on a "rotator" at bottom of the funnel. Every three weeks, a computer will activate a motor and move a new cup into collecting position so that we end up with a time series collection of whatever is settling. The deployment consists of lining everything up on deck, winding the line onto a winch, and then deploying it, floats first. As each component is connected to the line, the floats get farther and farther off the stern and eventually the anchor is attached and deployed. The anchor is composed of two train wheels and a solid axle, altogether weighing 2500 pounds. So it's a job to move it around and get it into the water where you want it, but it's what we do, so we have our ways.

That was all over by noon, so after cleaning up the deck, we started prep for the floating mooring array. That work started at 02:00 this morning (I'm writing this on the 23rd) so I'll talk about that in the next installment. If anyone wants to track our progress, you might try this link:

http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=WXAQ

or just Google "shiptracker AIS" and choose one of the tracking sites. The callsign for the Oceanus is WXAQ.

Vernon

Saturday, August 21, 2010

We're off! It took longer than we expected to get the massive amounts of gear stowed but we set sail at 13:00 and are now headed out. There isn't much to tell during a transit so I'll just end with that. Our first station is tomorrow (8/22) at 05:00 and I'm at the top of the agenda. I sure hope the camera decides to work this time!

Vernon

Friday, August 20, 2010

Today was a very busy day that started with me picking up a colleague (Uta Passow) at the airport and bringing her and the rest of my equipment, to the ship. As soon as I got here, I was informed that I needed to be "fitted" for a respirator in case we encounter any fumes. Given the lack of oil anywhere on the surface, I doubt we will but it was strongly suggested that we comply with this directive so, well, now I'm certified to use a face mask.
After that, we loaded more gear and get things set up in the lab. I helped Uta unpack the large Kiel sediment trap and put batteries in the timer and then I installed a new lithium battery in the Benthos acoustic release and tested it. This is a very critical piece of equipment. It goes just above the anchor on our mooring and above it is the equipment, a few hundred meters of line, and some pressure tolerant floats, the shallowest of which is about 1,100m below the surface. To get this array back, the release is commanded (by sending an acoustic signal to it) to release its grip on the anchor and, if it does, everything except the anchor floats to the surface where we can retrieve it. Clearly, if it does NOT work, we never see it or any of the equipment again. So it was worth the time it took to carefully assemble and test it. I also worked on my array some and I checked out my deep-sea camera. It seems to be working fine. We'll see.
We sail at 09:30 tomorrow (Saturday) so I'll have more updates after that.
Vernon

[Editor's Note: The above was posted late... mea culpa.]

Communication aboard the Oceanus is going to be tricky, and our Internet capabilities will be limited to very low-bandwidth applications. I may not be able to post any pictures until I get back. We shall see.

In the meantime, there's a special email address that's been created if you have any questions about what we're finding out here. I will not have time to answer all of them, but I'll do my best and post answers as soon as I can. The address is questions@vernonasper.com. Please feel free to write to us.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

It's been a long time since I posted anything but I haven't been to sea for over a month so, well, there hasn't been so very much to report. But that's about to change. I leave on Saturday for a two-week cruise on the RV Oceanus from Woods Hole and, after that, Arne Diercks will take over for another two weeks so most of the scientists will be out there for a full month!

We're going to be looking for the plumes that we discovered way back in May and that Rich Camilli and others just published a paper on. Interestingly, they claim that the standard oxygen sensors don't work when oil is around so that means that, if he's right, our "low oxygen" layers don't exist! Well, we'll see about that. We saw low oxygen well beyond the distance where the oil disappeared so we're still pretty confident that the oxygen numbers are not that far off. But it's a really important point because, if he's right and oxygen isn't being drawn down, that means that the oil is NOT being decomposed by the microbes and that has all kinds of implications. Yes, it's going to be an interesting cruise.

I started loading the ship today; load #1 consisted of me pulling a trailer with a mooring anchor strapped to it. The anchor? We're using a standard oceanographic anchor for deep sea moorings and that means train wheels. In our case, it means we'll use two of them welded to an axle. The whole kit weighs 2,200 pounds and that's a lot of weight for a small trailer.

The ship is 177' long and has well thought out lab spaces and plentiful deck space. That is, when there aren't a dozen or so scientists and mountains of crates all over the place. Yes, the ship is a mess, with stuff all over the place and a lot of work yet to be done to stow gear before our departure but it'll all get done.

One interesting feature of this ship seems to be that they don't have the same Internet connection that other UNOLS ships have and this means clunky and limited email. No photos, no attachments of any kind, in fact, and no emails over 10k so text-only and keep it brief. Given that they have the same hardware and system that the other ships have, I'm not sure why they're set up for such archaic services but I'm sure there's a reason.

Tomorrow I'll pick up a scientist from UCSB (Uta Passow) at the airport and we'll head to the ship for final setup and we'll sail sometime Saturday morning. I do wonder if we'll find any oil..

Vernon