Beyond the Abyss: South America
Alan Jamieson and the HADEEP team are returning to the lightless depths of deep-ocean trenches, and they'll once again be sharing what they find with Planet Earth Online readers on this blog.
This time they're onboard a German research vessel, and will be dropping their landers into the hitherto-unexplored Peru-Chile Trench in search of the elusive creatures that are adapted to life several kilometres down, with no light, scarce food and constant, crushing pressure.
On earlier research cruises in other trenches, the team's discoveries include the deepest fish ever caught on film. Watch this space for updates on what they find. Unfortunately the research ship's computer system can't handle emailing large image files, so we'll have to wait until the intrepid team return to see their results.
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
It's my old man's 60th birthday today. Happy birthday big guy. I am sure he's worked out by now that I will miss it. A great shame but that's what happens when you go to sea and you do ask yourself if it is worth it.
By doing this trip I have missed my friends funeral, my Dad's 60th, in two days I'll miss my wife's birthday and I missed my boy cut his first tooth and learn to roll over. All these things I'll never get back. I remember discussing this in a dodgy Irish bar in Wellington with Toyo after the last job, trying to figure out whether this trip would be worth everything that would be left at home.
I decided it would be, and thankfully in some ways it was. All we have truly left behind are 18 ballast weights and in about 2 hours a beard. It has been a good hard slog but very productive and great fun. When Bilijo is older I'll show what I was up to when I missed his first tooth and hope that he never finds these blogs on the internet....
First light tomorrow morning will see all the in-jokes, the banter, the comradery and bonds that have forged and engulfed every waking moment of the last 22 days simply fall into the sea as everyone scatters to their 4 corners of the globe, and everything that was Sonne 209 vanishes in the blink of an eye. Probably best though, I never want to see another gummy bear or Jever as long as I live.
Now that the Andes are on the starboard side it looks like we are off. Tomorrow we arrive in Valparaiso and once unloaded I am being taken to a characterless hotel near Santiago airport. I would have liked to have a look around but I am desperate for a game of bouncy bouncy with Bilijo, so not this time.
So, given that tomorrow will be a day of paperwork and Chilean customs, fork-lifting, freight containers, bus transfers and hotel check-ins we shall leave Beyond the Abyss: South America here. As always it's been good fun writing these incomprehensible ramblings - I have absolutely no idea what Niamh (NEVE!) has been writing so that should be interesting.
Cheers as always to Thomas and the Planet Earth Online team and a big thanks to Julian Partridge and Milly Sharkey for taking such amazing photographs of the things we caught.
Next time we are off to Japan again for the final Japanese cruise in March. Once again we will be on Tansei-maru, which means a nice round cup-noodle golf. Joy. That cruise marks the end of the HADEEP project as we know it, however do not fear trench fans: it also coincides with the new hadal project led by yours truly which will last a further two years and will rely a lot of New Zealand and their lovely wee boaty the Kaharoa. No worries.
Goodo, danke, cheers for now,
Alan out.
Posted on 22 September 2010 | Comments (1)
Alan Jamieson
So, today with the backdrop of some snow-capped Andes to our port side we continued the OBS survey. Not much to do today work wise. I tried to get a little bit of sun on my pasty Scottish complexion but instead just went a little red. Nice that the sun is out though.
So, the cruise is almost at an end but what a cruise it has been. I love this vessel, it is awesome. She is nearly 42 years, and was originally a large trawler until she was commandeered for science about 30 years ago.
She is due to be replaced in the next few years which is a shame as she is of a far greater design and works far better than any of the modern research vessels I have been on. I suggested that they simply build an exact replica but apparently these days they prefer not to use designs that work well.
Despite being one of the greatest working platforms I know, the atmosphere is so very refreshing also. I like it when the Captain and the Bosun show a genuine interest in what you are trying to achieve and help you to do so. The Bosun Andreas is a good bloke, he told me he actually enjoyed deploying nacho.
But there is a funny phenomenon in the lander business that this vessel does not suffer from. Typically when deploying a lander there seems to be a horrendous rush to get the thing off the ship as if the camera has a timed detonator in it. That's when accidents happen and bloody fingers appear. Not on this vessel, we deploy nice and slow in a very controlled manner.
In between coupling or decoupling floats we just stand and have a chat about last nights gerfluegenpfannkucken or watch Kota doing an animal impression. During recovery there is plenty of time to check with Niamh what was in each trap before going back to the operations. Very refreshing all-round.
Niamh has been great, we should bring her every time. I think she brings a nice injection of common sense to the three nachos and has done a far better job of the amphipods than I ever could have, she's a top lass alright. Whether she likes it or not I think she should be permanently assimilated into HADEEP. I am going to try my best to get her on the next trip. She has done a great job coping with the fact that nobody can pronounce her name anywhere close to what it is - it's NEVE, not 'Niam'.
There are still people, including her cabin mate, who still can't pronounce it - it's NEVE!. Anyway, her patience is admirable and she's been a pleasure to work with.
So, 24(ish) hours to go before Valparaiso.
Posted on 21 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
Pretty slow day today, I think the ship-time continuum actually crashed and will require rebooting. I spent most of the afternoon performing my other secret scientific mission: to collect as much thermosalinometer and weather station data for a nice chap in Aberdeen called Tomasz.
He reckons these data from these here parts can be used in some kind of El Nino modelling which is a phenomenon that I don't actually understand nor have any idea quite what he'll do with it, but I am always happy to oblige. I downloaded about 15 parameters of data from every 60 minutes from the moment we left Guayaquil until now. After compiling that and sorting out the surface to seafloor CTD profiles it was mission complete.
With any luck Tomasz will be a happy man, although I hope he has the $500 for it.
Some of the new people on board aren't making the best impression. There hasn't been a great deal of gelling between the two groups; our group is winding down and frankly had enough whilst theirs is in full swing work mode. They are deploying an OBS every two hours. One of them told me that we are now sitting directly over the fault that shifted 10 metres in February, hence the catastrophic earthquake.
Our Chilean observer informed me that the earthquake was 'interesting'. Apparently this fault is still creaking and grumbling, hence the OBS array. The other interesting part of the new group is that a couple of them have no idea regarding vom spot etiquette.
Yesterday I was stood on the starboard side speaking to man we call 'Mr. Peanuts'. One of the blokes came out of the Geolab, causally walked towards us and barfed over the side. Thanks the lucky stars the wind was going aft or I would have had a face full of it. There are certainly a few cautiously nauseous faces about.
Niamh got all the poddie samples wound up today. It looks very impressive when you see it all put together. We have got some great samples this trip, should keep Niamh busy for some time. These samples will go with her to New Zealand for identification then flown back to Aberdeen where our chap and chapette in the department will perform some phylogenetic analysis.
Nacho has no been stripped down to his bare bones and lashed to the aft, lying in stasis until the next time. He's been on good form this trip and he has just 5 months before he goes hadal again....
Posted on 20 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
This morning we were sitting off the harbour in Coquimbo surrounded by the Andes wondering if Andes was plural. After all the paperwork was done a small boat came along side to make the boat transfer. All the luggage was precariously lowered down on the boat and then we threw a bunch of scientists on top.
As the boat pulled away from the mighty Sonne there was a lot of waving, bowing Japanese style and the occasional British V-signs. Man I wish I was getting off too. In the harbour there were pilot whales, sealions, pelicans and an enormous pod of dolphins. That was kind of cool to see. I was told of the best name ever for a dolphin, but I won't be able to post it on this website.
After a short while the boat came back with a whole bunch of geophysicists and a camera crew to take the place of those we have just lost. The geophysicists are here to deploy Ocean Bottom Seismometers (OBS) along the trench to measure seismic activity in response to the Chilean earthquake earlier this year.
The camera crew are here to film them doing it. My new cabin mate turned out to be the director. A nice guy called Claus. Julian and I made a bet which meant I would win a bottle of beer if Claus threw up by the end of the day. It's funny, you don't realise just how much we have let ourselves go until lots of new fresh faced people show up. We must look like a right bunch of hobos (some more than others).
It took just 30 minutes for Claus to throw me out of my cabin (MY cabin) on the grounds he wanted to share with his mate so they can do some directing I guess. So I packed up my things and moved three cabins up the deck. I am now sharing a cabin with another yank called John Paxton.
J-Pax as we call him is lovely bloke; despite being 127 years old he's still doing his thing with the rest of us. Apparently he is a shark on the ping pong table. The problem is that J-Pax will probably snap in two if he tried to get in the top bunk, so it's mine. I just hope I remember I'm up top now when I wake up or they'll find me in the morning with two broken ankles.
In the evening we had a dilemma: The Fahrtlieter had deserted us in Coquimbo. We have a new fahrtleiter now but nobody seems to know who it is. So what do we do at 5 o'clock? Shaun managed to score a bottle of Gin and we took to the upper deck and opened up the 5 o'clock club to anyone.
We watched the sun go down, looked at the occasional Ande or two, I won my bottle of beer when Claus vommed (he nearly did again when I offered him a gin) and remembered just how cold it is here. I went and put my jacket on only to find the pockets stuffed full of gummy bears. Very funny Lee, wait until you see what's in your luggage....
Posted on 19 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
{i1l}The departure of Kota yesterday has left an irreplaceable void on the ship. He was always a great source of amusement in those moments when you were waiting around for something to happen, with his various animal impressions or other doings (the best was his imaginary mouse dissection).
We have all put our photographs taken over the last few weeks on the ship's shared drive. Kota has over 500 pictures there, of absolutely everything from the lander deployments to the signs hanging in the bathroom. The strange thing is nobody remembers ever having seen Kota with his camera out during the whole trip!
Posted on 19 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
In the cold light of day it seems that the snailfish is still a new species. However, I might have donated it to the Natural History Museum in New York in exchange for a 6-pack of Jever. After the events of last night (and this morning) there weren't many people around today. Kota and I were out on deck early stripping down the mooring lines and greasing the shackles. Niamh won the team nacho duvet award for not surfacing until 2 in the afternoon.
I spent a bit of time today putting together the 'best of Nacho' collection and sorting out everything we have done. It seems have taken 5940 images spanning a presence on the deep-sea floor of exactly 99 hours.
We have also recorded 45,871 rows of CTD data, discovered a new species of snailfish (in the most unlikely of settings) and photographed I think 10 species of fish, two of which are probably new species also.
'Lee still think that I spend my time waist deep in a cold Scottish Loch wearing nothing but a tartan skirt wrestling a stag for standing on my bagpipes.'
Alan Jamieson
Unfortunately images are not enough for taxonomic purposes but what's in a name anyway? The data we have collected on this cruise has ben amazing. The best yet. No super-duper world records though but quite spectacular nevertheless. I am very chuffed with what we have achieved.
Today we have been mostly at ramming speed trying to get to Coquimbo for 8am tomorrow to swap some of our scientific party for some geophysicists.
Tomorrow we lose Kota which will be very sad he's been such a fun guy to work with. He is always in the right place at the right time when I need him on deck and he has had an amazing ability to make me laugh out loud at the times I have needed to most. I'll see him again in Tokyo in a few weeks anyway, but the atmosphere in the lab will be very different when he is gone.
Justin and Lee are also getting off tomorrow so the dynamics of the group will change considerably. Sharing a cabin with the gummy bear munching yank has been a pleasure.
We have done our best to uphold some national stereotypes. Lee still think that I spend my time waist deep in a cold Scottish Loch wearing nothing but a tartan skirt wrestling a stag for standing on my bagpipes. Whereas I still see Lee sitting in his hollowed out cheeseburger rocking on his chair only ever taking his hand off the shotgun resting on his lap to high-5 his grandma for another great apple pie.
So I tip my imaginary trilby to these fellas for being jolly good sports, and for being so very professional and silly, and for knowing exactly when to be which.
Posted on 18 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
Sarah and I got haircuts last night. Sarah is now sporting a very short fringe with a slight curve in it thanks to the trimming abilities of one Alan Jamieson - a dab hand with a scissors. I have a fringe where there was previously none thanks to Milly (who did quite a good job actually).
This morning we called to Coquimbo in Chile, where some of our scientists, including Kota, got off and were replaced by geologists doing seismic studies of the area. We had to wait a few hours for Chilean customs to do their inspection and for the exchange of scientists.
It was a good morning for nature watching though, as there was a big pod of about 20 pilot whales cruising around the bay as well as a couple of curious sea-lions and loads of terns and pelicans.
Unfortunately it seems like there will be no time for more lander deployments in the coming days so we packed up all our gear and dismantled Nacho. When we get to Valparaiso we will all go our separate ways, Alan back to Aberdeen, me to Wellington, and Nacho on to Japan where he will lie in wait until the next HADEEP trip in March.
Posted on 18 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Today's mission was a strange one, one that seemed to go nowhere then everywhere. The story goes something like this: If you have a problem and no one else can help, maybe you should call team nacho.
There is another top Aussie bloke on here called Shaun Collin. A proper Aussie, not like that pseudo-Aussie Justin. Shaun however must have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock because he came here with the idea of sampling the degenerative eyes of hag fish.
There are two places in the sea where you can guarantee you will not find any hagfish. One is in the mesopelagic where we have been trawling and the other at hadal depths where nacho thrives. So with a spare 24 hours we were asked if we could do one more dive for Shaun but this time at a meagre 1000m near the coast.
Shaun agreed to pay us $1000 for the hire of nacho and 25$ for every hagfish we catch. The only catch however was that nobody knew if you get hagfish here, not even Shaun. So we lashed every possible trap we had to Nacho, repositioned the camera to an outwardly oblique view (which in German translates to an Arte-Fahrty angle) and lashed the red lights and low light video camera from Mr. Bobby onto Nacho. A real international effort this deployment.
There was once a time when I considered 1000m deep but after all the recent work it was a pleasure to simply pop the old boy down to such a shallow depth. It was a short deployment, just 6 hours on the bottom.
When we brought it back up it was the moment of truth. Would there be any hagfish for Shaun? No. None on the images either. The traps we all full of fat little isopods which proceeded to vomit all over the place. I downloaded the data and what did I see? Hagfish? Nope. Snailfish!
Another two possibly three species to add to our little book of snailfish. Perhaps the most interesting thing on the photos were these long slug like creatures called Scaphopods (?) I have never heard of such a thing but we have a very nice time lapse sequence of them sliming around the seafloor.
In the end I didn't think much of the deployment, but it was worth a shot, we didn't want to see Shaun go home hagfishless. When Nacho's three legs hit the deck it was officially 'end of science', or so we thought. The Germans converted the table tennis table in the hold into a makeshift night club in preparation for traditional end of science party. Unfortunately another tradition is that the events that take place at the end of science party are not reported outside of the ship.
I was a little late getting to the party due to some last minute report writing and nacho tinkering, and this is when the unlikely occurred.On the lander we have the 'dark-trap', a converted niskin bottle which closes when the ballast drops. Julian and Milly take it down and open it under low red light and pull the eyes out of anything that may be in it.
This time they thought there was nothing in it and so poured the contents into the sink and switched the lights on. At this point they realised there was a snailfish in the bottle. They brought it on deck and the cheeky scamps tried to sell it to me for $500. Anyway, I thought great, a snailfish from 1000m, that's pretty cool. Later however when I finally got to the party there was some commotion.
A tall American fish taxonomist (who shall remain nameless) seemed extraordinarily pleased to reveal that the snailfish was in fact a new species of Paraliparis. What are the chances of that? The very very last thing on the entire cruise was discover a new species of snailfish using a converted water bottle. However this discovery was being made by a man standing a 30 degrees swigging out of his 3rd bottle of wine, so we better check it over again tomorrow.
Posted on 17 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
Today we went hagfish fishing with the lander! This was extra to the trench work as it was deployed to the relatively meagre depth of 1000m.
Nobody actually knows if there are any hagfish here but we baited the hell out of the lander anyway to see if we could catch anything. We also borrowed the video camera from Mr Bobby and attached it in addition to our own stills camera. In theory it should have been a really interesting deployment, with a much higher diversity of amphipods and fish than what is found in the trenches, but unfortunately it was probably the most boring deployment yet.
Quite a few isopods (a relatively close relation to the amphipods), but not a single amphipod was caught in the traps. No hagfish either. We did, however, catch a lovely little liparid fish in the dark trap which the fish taxonomists cannot identify - so possibly a new species.
Result! Unfortunately Mr Bobby's video camera failed before the lander hit the bottom, but judging by the still images, it wouldn't have recorded much anyway.
Posted on 17 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
We were up early again this morning to release the lander. Unfortunately, Alan got some sad and worrying news from home... apparently our lander's namesake, Nacho the Goldfish, has sadly passed (flushed?) into goldfish heaven.
We hoped this wasn't an omen for Nacho the lander, and that the goldfish sacrificed himself for the greater good - the world just ain't big enough for 2 Nachos. The lander behaved itself though and released ok, so now we just had to wait with anticipation (those missing wedding rings with more anticipation than others) until its appearance at the surface.
We had a 4 hour wait for the lander to surface so the idea was to use that time to go pick up Mr Bobby, who was deployed yesterday. Mr Bobby, however, had other ideas and decided to misbehave by getting his mooring line entangled beneath the ship and caused all sorts of problems so we were late returning for the lander.
Nacho, however, faithful as ever was patiently waiting for our return and was plucked out of the water, complete with associated jewellery, without any problem. More Eurythenes!
In Loving Memory of Nacho the Goldfish.
Posted on 16 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
Boy what a day. I got up far too early to day to do some pacing back and forth, trying to think of some possible excuses why I no longer have a wedding ring. I was completely regretting having put those rings on. I mean Jochen has been wearing his for 41 years. What on earth were we thinking?
So eventually after the pelagic trawl monkeys finally wrapped up I released the lander. Of course at this depth I have no idea if it's coming up for the first hour or so at least. I checked a while later and through all the spurious ranges it seemed that it may be on its way. I don't know if it was the anxiety or too much coffee or both but I thought my heart was going to beat itself out on the chest.
Just to make things extra tense we were told we had to leave the site by 1pm therefore we had to release and recover Mr Bobby (who was 3 miles away) whilst Nacho made the ascent, which meant I couldn't talk to it for a few hours. After a calamity of errors which involved putting Mr Bobby's 700m dingle-dangle line through the propeller we were still nowhere near Nacho.
If all had gone well Nacho was on the surface and we were still 3 miles away. Once all Mr Bobby's loose ends were on board we steamed to the Nacho site. Quietly over the VHF receiver I could hear him chirping away which meant he was up. About half an hour later the rings (with lander attached) were finally on deck. Boy what a relief, I think I nearly passed out. I am NOT doing that ever again.
'Boy what a relief, I think I nearly passed out.'
Alan Jamieson
The 8000m dive was a complete success. I don't know what people were worrying about, have they no faith in me? At that moment I was the Lord of the Rings. The rings were uncoupled and redistributed to their rather relieved owners. Not many people in the world can say their wedding rings have been to a depth equal to the altitude of Mount Everest. 6 of us in the fellowship can. When told of our antic, Jochens wife (Mrs Fahrtleiter) simply replied "Small boys playing". At least he had the bottle to tell his wife, I didn't...
I got about downloading to see what we got. The pressure sensor revealed just how deep our love is: 8072m. We got 1230 images from the bottom which to be honest are quite spectacular but not a single fish. Why don't fish go to 8000m? We have seen them in such big numbers at 6000, 7000, 7560m, 7700m but never at 8000m. It's an odd one, but if we knew all the answers I wouldn't be doing this would I?
The images (and traps) were mostly full of large amphipods again. For some reason Hirondellea are not here and Eurythenes are. This is the opposite trend to all the other trenches we've seen, interesting. We got some really nice images of a holothurian (Sea cucumber) crawling around for hours on end which is a good find too.
Given that chuckles used to work on holothurians and her goldfish sacrificed itself to the sea for the greater good of the nacho lander, I can only assume then that this holothurian is the reincarnation of her goldfish. So, chuckles, little nacho is alive an well living at 8072m but now looks a lot like a potato with wibbly bits on.
So after a day of horrendous anxiety we relaxed. Team Bobby also got some fantastic squiddly-diddly footage so today was a great success all round. At 1300hours we left the trench.
But why I hear you gasp did Team Nacho set up the lander again if we are leaving the trench? That, snailfish fans, is a story for tomorrow.
Posted on 16 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
This shifting of day to night shifts every 2 days is really taking its toll. I don't know when it is most of the time. After another really early start and more delays the lander was finally deployed to 8000m, rings n' all. The tuna shroud was looking especially filthy this morning, it didn't even stop the fishy giblets from sliding around on deck.
I don't think I have ever been so nervous about a lander deployment - talk about upping the stakes. The seas are getting worse which will make the recovery something special, not to mention the potential for sinking into the sediment. I know the lander is working to its full potential but there are all these other parameters such as sea state and sediment type which can scupper us in our tracks.
That combined with our little wedding ring antic makes this deployment the most frightening of my life. But what are we to do? We are miles away from the sticky sediment of 7000m, 1000m deeper, on a plateau and given there is no way to accurate sound the seafloor with sufficient resolution to figure out if a 50kg might sink, I decided it was definitely worth it.
I then realised that today was the 13th and got some news that Nacho, as in 'Chuckles' goldfish' had died. Was this a sacrifice to the sea or a bad omen? One should not fear the trench, the trenches after all are our arena, let us play. The lander is now at 8000m.
On other matters (distracting from having just deployed my, and 65.5 years of wedding ring to the deepest part of the SE Pacific), let's talk gum for a bit.
After this morning I feel I have to mention Gummy bears, no matter how much I have avoided it so far in this cruise. I hate gummy bears because they are simply not nice and frankly not food. For some reason the pelagic trawl monkeys who I share a lab with are going through giant bags of gummy bears by the kilo per day. I have voiced my opinion on the matter many times. Everywhere I go there are gummy bear wrappers and sticking gum remnants. Even Niamh and Kota have joined the gummy bear parade.
Kota's tooth filling keeps falling out. The doctor keeps putting it back in with epoxy resin (!) but she has given up. The filling now sits in an origami box in our lab; that's what happens when you eat gummy bears. It's vile, I reckon each of them has a 500g ball of gum in their stomachs by now (called Mr. Gums). Thankfully not a single gummy bear has passed my lips this trip, whereas these guys will need to go to gummy bear rehabilitation when they get off.
This morning when I got up I found a handful of gummy bears in my bunk. I opened my wardrobe and found rows upon row of little gummy bear soldiers. I went into the bathroom and found another squadron of bears around the sink. I opened my cabinet and found another platoon of gummy bears. When I put my shoes on I found more gummy bears in my boots. It was clearly Lee behind this gummy-funny-ha-ha. Typical American; one little difference of opinion and he sends in an army.
Well, I met his gummy bear army with just one British special forces gummy bear. I left one of them in my shoe and wore it for two hours as we were working on the lander. Afterwards I brushed it down and popped it straight back into his newest gummy bear bag by his laptop. Nice. He knows that I matched his army with one bear and has been scratching his chin all day trying to figure out where this rogue 007 gummy bear might be. What he still doesn't know is that he has eaten it already.
Posted on 15 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
At this point, I should probably mention Alan's detestation of Gummy Bears. I don't know what this inexplicable hatred stems from, but we decided to take advantage it of by placing an army of gummy bears in his cabin last night while he was asleep. Lee, his room-mate, threw them all over the bed and in his boots and clothes while I lined them up in the bathroom cabinet. (The things you do to amuse yourself at sea).
I think I'll keep my phobia of the texture of velvet to myself until I'm safely back in New Zealand and revenge is more difficult.
Niamh Kilgallen
Retribution was swift for Lee who unwittingly ate one of the boot-gummies that Alan had walked around in for a few hours before replacing it in the packet. I still haven't had my come-uppance.
They tried to use my phobia of the word 'panties' against me (I can't even type it without shuddering), but that quickly wore out. I think I'll keep my phobia of the texture of velvet to myself until I'm safely back in New Zealand and revenge is more difficult (I know Alan won't read this until he is at least back in the UK).
It turns out there are many entertaining uses for the snacks on board.
We have also used liquorice to make little fishes and throw them in the plankton net while the net-minders were distracted by a sea lion. The taxonomists weren't fooled though! Those few people whose wedding rings are still safely attached to their fingers have been walking around with a smug look for most of the day.
The rings hit the water at 08:03 local time and if all goes according to plan will return at the same time again tomorrow morning. There was a bad omen though. James, the last known photo of whom was taken with said rings before they were attached to Nacho, sadly committed suicide this evening by flying off and landing on her back in a pool of salty water between some crates, just out of our reach. In Loving Memory of James.
Posted on 15 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Howdy trench fans. It seems I am still grinning from yesterday's snailfish. These trenches just keep on giving. Being a Sunday we all had to go church again this morning. It seems I have dropped 1.5kg in a week and Kota is well on his way to doubling in size. Being such a bunch of dedicated churchgoers our livers are probably better preserved than our amphipod specimens at the moment.
As the congregation gathered the sun came out for the first time this trip. Yip, the weather has been lousy, not the South American sunshine jolly I was expecting. The weather has been so miserable and bleak I could have been in Aberdeen.
So, there comes a time in every mans cruise when he has to do something stupid. This cruise is no exception and this time it is exceptional.
This little stunt or antic as I like to call them involves shuttling something down on the lander. Many people ask me to do this but I tend to avoid it if at all possible. Basically you just tie some polystyrene cups or some other rubbish on one of the float racks and someone goes home with some souvenir. I do, on occasion attach a wee something myself if it is a significant deployment, for example my 10,000m coffee cup and my 7700m Y-fronts.
This evening a fellowship was forged between myself, Lee Frey, Di Bray and Professors Wagner, Partridge and Marshall. A lot of years of academia went into this ridiculous antic.
Now, what we decided to do is possibly the single most stupid thing I have ever done, but life is clearly too short to weigh up risk against reward, and hey, what a rush. Tonight at 2000 hours the fellowship all pulled off their wedding rings, handed them to me and I, using a specially chosen cable tie, tied them all to the lander. There is now 65.5 years of marriage on the nacho lander. Tomorrow it all goes to 8000m no questions asked (but there will be a lot of explaining to do if all goes wrong). I feel I may have gone too far this time.....
Posted on 14 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
Somebody has decided (Alan claims that he is doing it entirely under protest and it wasn't at all his idea) that it would be a great idea to attach people's wedding rings to the lander and send them to 8000m tomorrow as a token of love to their respective spouses.
A total of 7 people, henceforth to be referred to as the Fellowship of the Rings, have actually volunteered their rings. The difference between a successful marriage and certain divorce for those 7 now lies in the strength of one cable tie (one ring to bind them all).
Posted on 14 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
Team Nacho were looking pretty worse for ware this morning at absolutely stupid o'clock in the morning. I released the hadal hero and we resumed our yawn practising. At these depths it is rare to get an accurate slant range so what I normally do is just releases both units and start ranging it an hour or so later when it's shallower and clear off the bottom.
When we came back I got a whole bunch of good ranges but by my calculations Nacho was at least 1000 metres too deep. It didn't make a lot of sense.
By brekky he was on deck and begging to be downloaded. As I downloaded the pressure data I noticed that it didn't leave the bottom until 0305. I released it at 0230 and checked it at 0330, what was it doing for those 35 minutes? I quickly downloaded 1370 images and the answer was obvious.
"That was way too close for my liking; not sure my heart can take much more of this."
Alan Jamieson
The lander had sunk about a foot into the sediment. It was in there so hard it took 35 minutes to pull itself clear of the seafloor. That was way too close for my liking; not sure my heart can take much more of this.
The sinking resulted in a relatively low number of animals in the images.
In the first hour there is some really hardcore amphipod action. In the traps there were loads of great big Eurythenes so Niamh was happy. No Hirondellea though which was odd. But what made the whole thing another fantastic victory for team Nacho was about 20 shots of a snailfish. Big score. It's a real beauty too, kind of similar to those at similar depths off Japan and New Zealand but distinctively different.
So there you go, at 7000m or so in the NW, SW and now the SE Pacific Ocean there are snailfish, with each trench having its own species. There is one photo in particular which I think is perhaps the best photo I have ever taken, I couldn't have taken a better shot of it if I had framed it myself. Very chuffed with today's results although the sinking business makes me very nervous. So after all the problems with memory card failures, ropey deployments, sinking into the sediment it appeared all our hard work had finally paid off.
Mr Bobby also brought back some really nice footage after a nights drifting in the mesopelagic. It got ransacked by a bunch of squiddly-diddleys (Justin's terminology not mine).
So after a good day in the deep-sea we settled down to an evening of
Connect-4 only to find out that Zak from New York has a super-human ability to whip anyone at this classic of games. Seriously though, the guy can probably beat you blindfolded, never seen anything like it.
Posted on 13 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
Today started at midnight which is no great surprise, most do. The ship-time continuum was elasticised beyond belief, in fact today might have been over 30 hours long, but it's hard to say.
At stupid O'clock this morning Kota and I started building the lander (that has a name). I decided to do a spot of comms verifying. Nothing.
I tried to verify comms several more times. Nothing. The camera was whipped off and we began some emergency open-cam surgery. 'Memory card error'. Ah ha, I have had this problem before, dodgy CF card. We managed to score a new one from Julian's personal camera and inserted that.
'Memory card error'. Oh dear. I tried everything I could think of and for a good half hour I figured our cruise was over and to forget renaming Jonah I decided to drag Lee from his pit and get some fresh eyes on it.
We scoured the boards and eventually found one tiny little connector on the back of the CF drive that had somehow wriggled free. We popped that in and managed to have the lander (that has name) ready with 20 mins to spare. I have never been so pleased to temporarily blind myself with a flash gun. The deployment was a little ropey (excuse the pun) despite the sea being as flat as an X-factor contestant. So, through the squid and the occasional sea lion, the lander (with a name) was deployed to ~7025m.
So, what about the naming competition? This has been a major source of discussion these last few days however what exactly 'Bilijo' meant was discussed the most. So much for a nano second. After about 8 people discussing this for 24 hours we think we cracked it.
We did think it was a south American swear word so I went to Rodolfo our Peruvian observer but I didn't get far. He stared at me blankly for so long that neither of us remembered what we were talking about. However, late last night it twigged: my wee bambino is called William Jozef, which could be shortened to Billy-Joe (if he takes up a career in Country and Western music), which could then be cunningly shortened to Bilijo to make it sound South American. So there you go Mr. Anonymous from Cloud 9, you'll have to do better than that.
So after much deliberation we decided to call it 'Nacho' for a plethora of reasons. But first I must say that I am disappointed that 'Tania' Balfour from London is still living a lie. Both she knows and I know (and now everyone who reads Planet Earth Online now know) that her real name is 'chuckles'.
So as Chuckles rightly points out the lander is 1) indeed male as it is (especially after this morning) a liability and it was never going to be pretty, 2) a good solid south American reference and I have always been an avid fan of Mexican corn-based snacks, 3) I couldn't bare the thought of Chuckles' goldfish swimming around in that lonely wee tank thinking he's a loser and 4) during the bambino pregnancy he (before we knew he was a he) was coincidentaslly also referred to mostly as 'nacho', which ties nicely into the runner up 'Bilijo'.
I tried to convince my wife to call him nacho but she was adamant that a human name would be more appropriate than one derived from a corn-based snack (I also thought Fajita would be nice for a girl, and burrito if he was really fat). So the prize goes to Chuckles from London and her happy little goldfish. A laminated photo of the Nacho-Lander and the grand prize will be winging its way to Chuckles upon our return. I can't say exactly what the prize is yet because I still need to catch it....
Posted on 12 September 2010 | Comments (1)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
It was a 2:30am start this morning, so the lander could be on deck at 6, just after the sun comes up. I tried to get some sleep beforehand but to no avail. It was going to be a long night.
Earlier, I had earlier discovered a stash of board games in the library upstairs, so Connect 4 kept us going for about a half-hour. Then it was back to sitting and waiting again. It was during this time that Kota dropped the bombshell that, upon closer inspection, it turned out that James was actually a she.
So now we have a hawk moth with an identity crisis on our hands. Mr Bottom (now known as Nacho the Lander) worryingly took much longer than expected to rise to the surface and when Alan looked at the photos it became obvious why.
The sediment at the bottom was so soft and muddy that the lander had sunk into it a good few inches and once the ballast was released it still took a half-hour to pull itself off the bottom.
There were lots and lots of amphipods though, and big Eurythenes (still not as big as the Kermedec one though). It took almost an hour to detangle all of them from the mesh of the traps. I finally got to bed at about 10am, just as the delirium had started to set in.
Posted on 12 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Still deflated after yesterday's news. It's difficult being stuck out in the middle of nowhere at times like this, but we must keep on going.
We are still steaming south, and are somewhere around 16 degrees south by
75 degrees west. The lander (that might have a name) isn't being deployed until the early hours of the morning now.
I'm spending most of my days sitting in the geolab shooting the breeze with Justin and Lee. Lee is my cabin mate, a very nice chap from Harbour Branch in Florida. Lee has all the best tools; spotlessly shiny with tactile grips and all sorts of stuff you can clip onto your belt.
HADEEP lander on deck.
I have a box full of rusty old tools that smell of rotten tuna. One other obvious difference between US vs UK engineers is the terminology. When Lee prepares Mr. Bobby for deployment he has to 'verify comms', whereas when I prepare the Lander (that might have a name) I tend to scratch my bed-head and mumble, 'suppose I'd better switch it on eh?'
When the flash-gun discharges in my face causing temporary photobleaching, I consider that 'comms verified'. Still, we have a laugh. For such an accomplished underwater engineer I was surprised when Lee put his iPhone through the washing machine.... should have put it in the dryer afterwards I reckon. Anyway, I am very pleased that the name Mr Bobby seems to have stuck and that Mr. Bottom hasn't, which means the name for the lander formally known as Jonah is still up for grabs.
I was sent all the entries late last night and have been giving it some thought. I haven't quite decided yet, I think I'll announce it tomorrow.
Although my ideas do not count I quite liked 'dirty frank', I think it looks like a dirty frank. I also liked Frusciante after the funky monk john. But who am I to decide?
Whilst perusing the entries (which are still coming in from folks on the ship) I noticed one anonymous entry from someone on cloud 9. They suggested "Bilijo" and stated "the significance of which will not elude you for one nano second I'm sure". Nano seconds?! I have been thinking about it for over 9 hours now and I still have absolutely no idea what this is or who it is from. Very mysterious, I have a feeling that it might be from Ashley in NZ, but I could be wrong.
We have had lengthy discussions about what a 'Bilijo' might be; we assume it is some kind of rude South American word. Other potentials were 'Trixie' but unfortunately the lander is not a poodle-dog, and there was Aby, which is too close my 1-year old nieces name (it doesn't seem right deploying Abby off a ship). I have had a few entries from Justin, but him being a walking talking double entendre I cannot share any of those with you, very imaginative though.
So by this time tomorrow the lander (with no name) will have a name and with any luck be sitting pretty at 7000metres.
Posted on 11 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
So our 'afternoon deployment' turned into a '1:30 a.m. the following morning deployment', and it started disastrously when the camera decided not to work when it was tested. There was about an hour of concern before the faulty connection was discovered and the camera set to work again. We were back on track.
This is the 7000m deployment, the second deepest, and Milly, one of the girls on board, has requested some 7000m souvenirs, including some Gummy Bears, a Styrofoam cup, a fish necklace that belonged to her grandmother, and some Marmite. If it comes back intact, I'm pretty sure there could be a market in Hadal Marmite, or other hadal condiments for that matter.
In other news, we have a new friend on board. A hawk moth, which Milly has named 'James', fell out of the sky yesterday evening and stayed overnight in one of the labs downstairs. Unfortunately for James (and those working in that particular lab), he was fed a sucrose solution overnight which resulted in some gastro-intestinal upset, causing a bit of a mess on the workbench. Apparently pure sucrose is not good for moths... you live and learn.
Posted on 11 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
I got an email this morning from Toyo with the sad news that our good friend and colleague Owen McPherson died last night. I am devastated, he was a top bloke and good friend alright; a big heart and wee moustache. I will miss our witty banter in the mornings and Oceanlab won't be the same without him.
It seems inappropriate to post any silly blogs today, back tomorrow.
Posted on 10 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Not much happened today as we are simply steaming south. I still appear to have a big smug grin on my face after our results yesterday.
This cruise seems to be morphing into perhaps one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Everyday there seems to be something out of the ordinary. Most of the surreal moments have something to do with Kota but we'll get to him later. Today's moments involved sniffing birds.
There are at times a happy bunch of storm petrels flying around the ship. These birds are stupid birds. Julian, being a professor in biology knows all sorts of things about biology. Today he informed me that storm petrels are not only so daft you can simply pick them up but they are the only birds that actually smell nice. I assume he has sniffed a lot of birds in his time to be able to declare such science fact.
'So there you go, if you're bored and you see a storm petrel, pick it up and give it a sniff, you'll be pleasantly surprised.'
Alan Jamieson
So, whilst pacing up and down the deck practising my over-confident smug but rather silly walk I came across a little storm petrel. Right enough, I just picked it up, pulled out a wing and sniffed it. Lo and behold it does have quite a unique smell. I wouldn't say it was 'nice', but rather a manky talcum powdered baby smell. So there you go, if you're bored and you see a storm petrel, pick it up and give it a sniff, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Now, I feel I have to mention my new found HADEEP team. Kota and Niamh have been excellent this trip, I cannot fault either of them. Having Niamh on board has been excellent, I might be a lot of things but an amphipod taxonomist I am not. It's nice to have someone on board who knows an Abyssorchomene from an Orchomene or a Eurythenes from a Hirondellea.
Kota's job is to make sure that things never get boring, especially between 5am and 8am. His job is to make sure that every situation turns out slightly surreal if not totally bizarre. He has an amazing cat-like ability to roll into a ball and sleep on any flat surface regardless of sea state.
His animal impressions are also very good; he does a great scorpion and his cobras are entertaining too. Using a CO2 fire extinguisher like and old style two-piece telephone is also very funny at 5am. Walking out on deck early one morning I found him lying quietly on his stomach in the middle of the deck having a staring competition with a seabird. He is also very good at simultaneously wiggling his ears and nostils. Yip, good fun is our Kota.
So here we are, steam steam steam, south south south. (No seabirds were harmed during this blog)
Posted on 9 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
Today was quite a boring one for us lander folk. We spent much of the day steaming south as we have a lot of ground to cover before the next station - something like 20 degrees of latitude. Tomorrow will apparently be the same. On the plus side, no lander deployments means no traps to be baited.
'I'll be quite glad if I never see tuna again for as long as I live.'
Alan bought $100 worth of fresh tuna in Guayaquil which is presently sitting in a freezer downstairs waiting to be chopped up and fed to the amphipods. Kota got very excited when he saw all the tuna coming on board, but that very quickly turned to disappointment when he realised that we weren't going to be allowed to eat any of it!
One of my jobs is to chop up the thawed fish and bait the traps with it. I'll be quite glad if I never see tuna again for as long as I live. If I were a superhero right now, I would be tuna girl. My superpower: to overcome any foe with the stench of tuna emanating from every pore.
No matter how well you scrub your hands after handling it, the fishy smell just lingers. I'm convinced my bunk is starting to smell of tuna as well. Luckily my room-mate is a fish taxonomist so I'm hoping she is immune to the smell already.
Posted on 9 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
I have no idea what day of the week it is anymore (my computer tells me that it is Wednesday) so I've decided to start referring to the days by the events that occur. Today, for example, is Origami Ninja-star Day.
I will remember this because Kota has spent much of the afternoon patiently trying to teach me how to make origami ninja stars. Apparently my calling is not in the paper-object making industry. I will stick to taxonomy, for the moment at least.
Good news on the lander-front. We will deploy it tomorrow afternoon and recover it the following afternoon. This means no more 5am starts for the foreseeable future!
Posted on 9 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
What a day. The lander (with no name) was released at 5am and on board by 0830. The recovery was as smooth as an air-brushed cover girl's complexion. The first immediate result was seeing a large gastropod in one of the traps.
We caught these once before off Japan. They look exactly like your normal garden snail but their shells are very soft. It turns out we got three. We had them photographed and preserved in ethanol for DNA analysis and one in formalin so we can have someone look at them under SEM (a scanning electron microscope) to see just how they develop these soft shells. We also got a few more amphipods and are now deep enough to recover the hadal species Hirondellea.
'They are quite beautiful in an ugly fish kind of way.'
Alan Jamieson
Now to the good bit. We were starting to formulate a theory that the abyssal fish species decrease in numbers rapidly at around 5000m or so and hadal fish don't start turning up until 7000m. This was my whole theory of the abyssal-hadal boundary 'no man's land' at around 6000m.
Well today well and truly knocked that one on the head. Today we filmed possibly more fish on this one deployment than all the other deployments put together. That's right, the images were FULL. We took over 1000 photos on the bottom and after about 2 hours the feeding frenzy gets so out of control there are hundreds of shots were you cannot even see the seafloor, 18 hours into the feeding frenzy they were still going strong. Truly amazing and to think this is at 6200m....
But what fish are they? Liparidae or ophidiidae? That is the question. I don't think these are snailfish, in fact I am almost positive they are ophidiids (or cusk-eels). They range in size from 15cm to possibly 75cm. They have a very similar texture and colour to the snailfish in that they are raw pinky fleshly-like with a blue tint in the fins. They have distinctive eyes and barbells under their chins. They are quite beautiful in an ugly fish kind of way.
So, what a result. I can't stress just how pleased I was with this result. Toyo and I with others recently published a paper reappraising hadal fish. Seems like already we need to reappraise that reappraisal. I conversed with a few fish taxonomists on board to see if they could shed any light on what these fish are and none of them know. Helpful. It could be a new species of course which is quite probable at these depths but it is certainly an extremely rare fish which are incredibly abundant in these here parts.
So things are going extremely well, we now have the 4600, 5300 and 6200m dives under our belts. The problem is this is a transit cruise which means we have a lot of ground to cover. We are still only 6 degrees south and we need to heading to Coquimbo and Valparaiso and more importantly for me, the Tricky Dicky Deep bit. So without further ado, the Fahrtlieter gave the command to steam for 48 hours straight down the coast of Peru where on our arrival on Thursday morning we will deploy to ~7000m.
Posted on 8 September 2010 | Comments (1)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
On deck at 5am again this morning to release the lander and wait during its 3 hour ascent to the surface. Kota provided the early morning entertainment in the form of various animal impressions (Alan has a great photo of Kota the scorpion).
'There was shot after shot of masses of fish congregating around the bait. This was good stuff!'
The lander was on deck by 9 o'clock and we all went about our various jobs. Alan downloaded the photos and I went about sorting what came up in the traps. The amphipod selection was a bit poor this time but we did succeed in trapping come bonus soft-shelled snails. The pictures from the camera were incredible though. There was shot after shot of masses of fish congregating around the bait. This was good stuff!
This evening, Willi, one of the scientists on board, celebrated his birthday (he wouldn't say which one). The tradition in Germany is for the person whose birthday it is to supply the cake and buy the drinks for everyone else. This seems like a harsh deal for the person in question, but I'm willing to go along with it for now!
Posted on 8 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
This morning at an ungodly hour we threw the lander (with no name) down to 6200m. Once that was in we got on with a more pressing matter. On the Sonne there is a tradition that every Sunday morning you have to 'go to church' or in German 'Gottesdienst'.
This involved the scientific party all gathering on the deck at 10 am. Each person has to weight themselves on a spring balance and then drink a lot of beer supplied by the Fahrtleiter. Why or what exactly this is all about is almost certainly lost on most of us, but we do our best for the greater good.
'By the evening I had no idea when I was. But what, after all, are Sundays for if not to drink to beer in the mornings on a German science vessel off the coast of Peru?'
So, the recently married Kota is under strict instructions from his new wife to 'not get fat'. A Japanese guy on a German vessel has the opposite effect of a Scottish guy on a Japanese vessel. In Japan I normally come back a stone lighter and with monkey-like strength whereas a Japanese guy on German boat will pile on the pounds.
According to the Sonne scales, Kota has so far put on 1kg per day since getting on. That doesn't bode well as he has another 2 weeks to go yet. That's a lot of honey in Pooh-san's tummy alright. I also seemed to be very heavy but I am still carrying a few paternity pounds.
So the whole Gottesdienst incident tore the very fabric of what I like to call the ship-time continuum. The ship-time continuum is a sea going phenomenon whereby some days are almost infinite in length and others can disappear in the blink of an eye, others can remain 24 hours long but warp so much they appear to run backwards. As you can imagine the results of going to church can be very confusing on the body.
Having completed 5 hours of work by breakfast, which comprised too many bottles of beer, followed by a long nap that stretched until the Fahrtlieters snifter time, by the evening I had no idea when I was. But what, after all, are Sundays for if not to drink to beer in the mornings on a German science vessel off the coast of Peru?
With 23.7% of my brain now turned to sausage I called it a day in the loosest sense of the word and crashed in the hope that tomorrow's recovery will herald something new and exciting.
Posted on 7 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
The lander went in without incident at 8am again this morning. It is still technically nameless but we have temporarily taken to calling it Mr Bottom, as there is a rival lander on board whose function it is to stay suspended at mid-water depths and so we are calling that one Mr Bobby (for the moment - its name seems to change every couple of days), because it bobs up and down in the water.
Mr Bottom will stay down at 6000m until tomorrow morning so hopefully we will get lots of good images and trap a wealth of specimens within that time. At 6000m we should start seeing a difference in the species composition compared to shallower depths as the extreme pressure begins to take its toll on some species.
Today is Sunday, and apparently on Sundays there is a tradition aboard the Sonne which they call 'going to church' (at least that is the rough translation from the German phrase). Gong to church on the Sonne is a very strange experience as it involves everybody congregating on deck as a weight balance is bought out and one by one everybody lines up and has to weigh themselves, after which you are given a bottle of beer and some strange German liqueur that tastes like cough medicine. Then it's time for dinner! There is no apparent reason for this custom and nobody can tell you when or why it started, but I like it!
Sunday meals are also a bit special on the Sonne. (Actually every meal is a bit special. They do table service, which seems a bit much for a research vessel). Harry, the chief steward, was wearing a bow tie when he served us breakfast at 7.30 this morning, and at dinner (11:30am every day - also quite strange) the fancy Sunday tablecloths were brought out. I could get used to this kind of treatment!
Just after dinner, some whales were spotted off the starboard side. Of course I missed the whole thing, but I was assured they breached at least 4 times while I had my back turned. Typical.
Posted on 7 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Today marks exactly 10 years in the deep-sea business. And what better a day to spend such a milestone in my career. We pulled up the lander (with no name) by 9am and again it was stuffed full of exciting photos and specimens. This is of course shallower than I care to admit, a meagre 4602m. The good thing is that we got 1223 images spanning over 20 hours on the bottom.
The most conspicuous find were the gnarly scavenging grenadiers, they turned up quickly and in large numbers as you would expect. There were however a few surprises, mainly brittlestars, two small dark blue snailfish that were in the last dive, and something rather large. Yes, we photographed a fish which was all blue with a head the size of a football. Never seen anything like it.
'We photographed a fish which was all blue with a head the size of a football. Never seen anything like it.'
Alan Jamieson
Unfortunately it was just the front of the head so getting a positive ID will be difficult. In my unqualified opinion it might be either a Psychrotulid or something similar, OR, and I'm sticking my neck out a bit here, an absolutely massive snailfish. I have shown the image to various fish taxonomists on board and they have no idea either, mmm, something to scratch ones chin over for a while.
HADEEP lander on deck.
The traps were good too, more Eurythenes from way off the bottom. We finally after three years of trying managed to recover one of the decapods we keep seeing in the photos. A small one mind you but a decapod none the less. The specimen was sent downstairs to the Partridge Lab for photographing and will be sent to an expert on our return to figure out if it is what we think it is. My only concern is that I think there is chance that this might not be the decapod we are looking for... Anway, come the evening there was another pelagic trawl on board full of all sorts of exciting mid-water fishes from 1000m down.
Once the taxonomic vultures had scavenged their samples the HADEEP team swooped in and removed the amphipods from the left overs. What was interesting is that we found a specimen of Eurythenes which appears to be exactly the same as those caught from the lander (with no name) at 4600 and 5300m.
What was it doing at 1000m, which at this point was 3500m above the seafloor? If they are the same then that really is an impressive bathymetric range. What is also impressive is that it survived the 1000m decompression to the surface. What is more impressive still is that it survived the night in Julian's fridge as well.
The last trawl was cancelled because those pesky sea lions decided to dive the nets and tear big holes in them. The sea lions are no longer our friends.
So, it was a very long but enjoyable day, very productive though and frankly it was all just a bit deep-sea.
Posted on 6 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Up at 5am again today. By 0823 the lander (with no name) was descending happily to the abyssal plains off the north coast of Peru. The depth should be something like 4500m. It always feels a little wrong to be putting a 10,000m lander to 4500m but there simply isn't any deep water round these here parts until we get further south. So with the lander in early and not due for recovery until tomorrow, today is a day off, so what else is going on?
Well, Justin and his boys have brought with them a low light camera which is suspended 1000m under a surface buoy to look for mid-water animals and bioluminescence. A very nice bit of gear it must be said.
On the first day it was referred to as MEDUSA II, the second day it was 'Justin's lander', however given that it doesn't land it then became known as the 'floater' but last night after watching it bob up and down on the surface from Fahrtlieter's porthole it was decided that Mr. Bobby was a better name. Naming these things is difficult which is why I have given up trying to name the lander formally known as Jonah, hence the competition.
I think I'll run the lander naming competition on the ship too, it has already been suggested that if Justin's gear is called Mr. Bobby then mine should be Mr. Bottom. I'm not sure how well 'Mr. Bottom' (because it actually lands on the bottom) would be received in a credible peer-reviewed scientific journal.
The other thing to note right now is that after just two deployments our HADEEP team had managed to create something of significant filth. Let me explain. Despite all this high tech stuff we are still at the mercy of some very low-tech tuna carcasses. Usually we slip a little mackerel in front of the camera but given that all we could buy on our Ecuadorian fish market escapade were enormous tunas, preparing the bait is a veritable bloodbath.
Niamh and Kota can be found prior to launch elbow deep in a stainless sink hacking the things to bits. As a result of using dribbly fish giblets as bait it tends to stain the deck with blood so I lie a cloth under it to soak it up and keep the bosun happy. Even though we are well equipped for many eventualities, I have ran out of cloths and seizing wire which means we have to re-use them each time. Now we are the proud owners of what is called the 'Tuna Shroud'. As you can imagine it something quite, quite special.
Posted on 5 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Niamh Kilgallen
Niamh Kilgallen
So it's day 5 already and my blogging productivity has been a bit lax. My excuse is that every time I go into my cabin to do some writing I end up dozing off and having a nice nap for myself. I blame the seasickness pills. They make you really drowsy. On the plus side they seem to be working. So far it's Niamh 1: seasickness nil! Though it was a bit touch and go yesterday afternoon. Mental note to self: avoid microscope work while steaming at 8 knots.
My job on this cruise is to identify the amphipod loot that we recover from the baited traps attached to the lander, which we have successfully deployed (and more importantly recovered) twice now. This time the design of the traps is a little different to previous cruises, as we have attached some funnel traps to the floats which sit vertically above the lander frame in the water column, as well as to the feet of the lander itself along with a small fish trap.
The highest trap sits at 90m above the sea floor and we are hoping to catch some big animals in there. So far we haven't been disappointed. Both deployments have caught two amphipods about 5 cms long in this top trap. On the last cruise in the Kermadec Trench they caught a monster - 12cms long - and I'm feeling competitive.
As this is my first cruise with the HADEEP gang, I'm making it my personal mission to beat that record. I want to be invited back!
Since I have a lot to catch up on, I'll give you the abridged version of events so far. Day 1 was pretty much spent getting the gear in order and assembling things for later use. On day 2 in the afternoon we deployed the lander and the wait was on. Recovery was planned for 5am the next morning.
Quite conveniently (though I maintain completely accidentally) I managed to set my alarm for the wrong time and woke up an hour late, just in time to grab some breakfast and wait, coffee in hand, until the orange flag that marks the lander was spotted bobbing in the water and was picked up. The afternoon was spent sorting and photographing amphipods, and in the evening Sarah, one of the other scientists on board, and I tried our hand at fishing for squid using a spinner attached to some fishing line.
At night the squid are attracted by the lights on the boat so there are plenty about just under the surface. Unfortunately our catch rate was a paltry 0. As it turned out our fishing abilities were completely outshone by a sea lion that had been following the ship all day. He would pop up every now and again a little bit off the starboard side and when any squid swam past he would wreck havoc.
As the evening went on he started popping up closer and closer to the ship each time. I'm sure he was just showing off in the end. Other creatures showing an interest in the ship were various sea birds, including a storm petrel which stunned itself by flying straight into the orange hard-hat of one of the scientists on deck.
Apparently storm petrels are not the brightest of birds, as they seem to fly into objects on the ship quite regularly.
I think it was on day 4 that Alan realised this wasn't going to be quite the sunshine cruise that he thought he had signed up for. Apparently it is actually colder in Valparaiso, where we are heading, than it is in Aberdeen at the moment, and Alan has a selection of t-shirts and no jumpers! And it was pretty nippy on deck at 6am in the morning when we were preparing the lander for its second deployment. I managed to get up on time for this one. The nice thing about deploying this early is that by 8.30am we were finished work for the day. If only the real world was like this!
The lander was recovered at 8.30am this morning. This time our fish trap was more successful than the last time. Not that we've actually caught any fish, but there were two small decapods - shrimps - entangled in the mesh inside. A first for us, and a very important first! Now we can get a reliable identification on the red shrimp that keep swimming by in front of the camera.
Its now 9 in the evening and tomorrow is another 6am start. Tomorrow the lander goes to 6000m for the first time on this cruise. Now things are getting interesting! So for me I think it's time for bed.
Posted on 5 September 2010 | Comments (1)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
'Twas an early start today alright, out on deck for 5am. I had a quick natter with the lander (with no name) and shortly after breakfast it was on deck stuffed full of some lovely images and amphipod samples. The exact depth was 5329m at roughly 4 deg South by 81 deg West.
The photos are perhaps the most exciting ones we have taken yet. The seafloor here is a nice browny red colour with loads of epifauna action on the go. We managed to get images of five different fish species - an ophidiid (cusk-eel), a liparid (snailfish), a zoarcid (eel-pout), a macrourid (grenadier) and another interesting one which I can't remember the name of.
'It's always nice to see the voracious deep-sea community turning up for a feed.'
Alan Jamieson
What was also nice was seeing a whole bunch of large gastropods slime their way in and around the bait. There were also lots of little shrimp, our old pals the penaeids and a few other odd little critters. A very good deployment all round. It's always nice to see the voracious deep-sea community turning up for a feed.
One other thing to note was the macrourid - it was huge. Only its head was visible it was that big, I guess it was well over a metre long. It made an exciting appearance towards the end and basically rammed its head into the bait wreaking havoc with the other fish and gastopods, but I guess if you head is an order of magnitude bigger than the entire body of anyone else around, then who is going to stop you?
We managed to trap quite a few amphipods as well, in particular some large Eurythenes from as high off the bottom as 90 metres. I of course had Julian and Milly photograph them for me (for free). It's a shame I can't post these images on this website but if I email them the ship's communications system will almost certainly implode; you'll just have to wait.
The only down side of today was accidentally lowering a 45kg weight onto the end of my finger (I've found on my travels that human fingers are amazingly robust) but I was later compensated by a very bizarre evening watching very large sea lions swim around the ship hunting squid. Never seen wild sea lions before; they looked somewhat unfulfilled without a beach ball.
Posted on 4 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Today was a busy day, all the gear was serviced and the finishing touches were made to the lander (with no name). It is set up exactly the same as before but this time we have added a few things. We now have a small fish trap on one leg courtesy of Toyo-san (bow), a closable 'dark' trap with I will get to later and whole array of vertical amphipod traps at 2, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 90 metres above the bottom. Our plan is to investigate the vertical structure of amphipod populations at each site rather than just those on the bottom.
The dark trap is designed to close at depth therefore the amphipods are recovered to the surface without being exposed to sunlight. This is so that Julian and Jochen can pull their eyes out to study exactly how their visual systems work. Amphipods have weird eyes, so this is a good thing and besides I am happy to donate samples to a worthy scientific cause:
HADEEP just keeps giving without thought of reward (although I may charge them $10 per amphipod and an additional £1 per eye).
At 4pm we deployed the lander (with no name) to 5000m, not exactly beyond the abyss but nearly. It is in the trench axis but at the shallow end.
The 6000 - 8000m sites are further south than here so for the time being we are going abyssal. The deployment went smoothly. On this ship we deploy the lander backwards, i.e. lander first, which I am starting to think is a good idea for every ship, a lot less hassle and a lot safer in my opinion. Anyway it went out well, fingers crossed.
One other thing to note is that I have been invited to attend the ship's 5 o'clock club, whereby all the senior scientists gather on the Chief Scientist's cabin for a wee snifter before dinner. It is by invitation only to the more senior scientists and is therefore an honour. I would like to add that even if I am no longer in my 20's I am are certainly not senior, but the snifters are well received.
The term 'cruise leader' in German is 'Fahrtleiter' which for us Pommes, Aussies and Yanks is a constant source of amusement. Still funny after all these years....
Posted on 3 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
I have a three month old boy at home now, so with a heart heavier that I ever thought possible we left Ecuador and sailed south. So with all thoughts of home temporarily compressed we got on with the matter in hand.
Jochen told us to be ready to reach down and kiss the forehead of Hades himself within 24 hours. Easy.
Now this is where the other people on the ship come in. I decided early on that our scientific party are a great bunch; a mixture of old friends and new, all of them very professional and nobody takes themselves too seriously. This gives me the advantage to exploit their good nature and assimilate each and every one of them into HADEEP, i.e. working for me.
Asides for Niamh and Kota, by lunch time I had half the ship working for me. For example I had Prof. Julian Partridge and his student Milly checking my floats and Sarah from North Carolina making amphipod traps.
Kazuya however was very quick to defect and almost immediately joined the Geophysics group, we felt shunned. However, his resistance to HADEEP assimilation was futile: the Geophysics group are using multi-beam to map the trenches and I have them scanning our deployment sites to choose a good location, so in the end, in a roundabout way he is still working for me.
Over the years Toyo and I have amassed a plethora of coffee making paraphernalia during our travels with Alfie (RIP) and the lander (with no name). Germans cannot make coffee - if you leave it long enough it will dissolve porcelain mugs. Therefore I had ignored the advice on avoiding choke-hold attacks and ventured off the beaten track to a 'shop' in Guayaquil that sold 'stuff'.
I managed to score a couple of jars of coffee which I can now use as bribes in exchange for labour, or, as we are in South America, US dollars. Drinkable coffee is now available in our lab at $1 per cup (bring your own cup).
Posted on 2 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
My mother once said, "if you have nothing good to say then don't say anything at all". With that in mind I won't be talking about our time in Guayaquil; the humidity and the number of assault rifles and shotguns being paraded down the streets is on a par with Guam, however Guam is still top on my sweat-o-meter. The only interesting thing we saw was a park full of randy iguanas.
So, after the world's most ridiculous harbour security clearance I have ever seen (over three hours to get into the harbour) we finally found ourselves stood on the deck of the mighty Sonne. Once I had re-familiarised myself with the ship we all proceeded to wait an eternity for our equipment to turn up. The lander (with no name) has actually been in Guayaquil for 6 weeks now and still managed to find its way to the wrong harbour despite having paid perhaps the highest customs charges I have ever come across.
Our other little problem is that we needed bait. Baited cameras don't work too well without bait (we also still didn't have a camera). So I had made a few enquiries in our time here about where to buy tuna or mackerel for the lander (with no name). I quickly found out that Guayaquil is not on the ocean and is actually 46 kilometres up stream of a very large river, doh!
Therefore there was nowhere I could readily just go and get some. Having said that every problem leads to a surreal and frankly ludicrous solution. By 7pm, me and a top Aussie bloke called Justin Marshall found ourselves in the back of a van with an Ecuadorian agent sitting for an hour outside of a caged fish market surrounded by hordes of locals. Our agent fella had done some kind of research and asked us to wait.
We happily watched the kids play-fight on top of cars etc, as you do, and at 8pm the giant steel gates flung open and hoards of people flooded into the fish market. Our agent fella seemed to have scored us a deal with some other fella and after much negotiating and amongst the chaos we scored us 5 large tuna carcasses for next to nothing ($100).
We got back to stage 3 of the harbour security (the anti-narcotics dog sniffers) just in time to see Justin's gear nearly destroyed by the security chaps. My lander (with no name) was on board on our return.
A very entertaining evening all round and thankfully we managed to avoid any choke-hold assaults or violent crimes. I sat with the other guys on the boat and knowing that that was the maybe the last time I would be in Guayaquil we had a beer and breathed a sigh of relief. We are spending the night in the harbour on the ship and leaving first thing in the morning so you can bet your bottom dollar that the Sonne come out tomorrow.
Posted on 1 September 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
As avid fans of the Beyond the Abyss and HADEEP will know after the sad loss of Alfie last year our second lander, officially known as B, finally stepped up and pulled its nut and bolts together to deliver some world class science. But, as a result of its poor performance in the first few years it has been rather disparagingly known as 'Jonah' (relating to any person or thing regarded as bringing bad luck).
HADEEP lander on deck.
However, since managing a nice bathymetric transect of the abyssal-hadal boundary of the Kermadec Trench which included photographing the 'deepest fish in the southern hemisphere' we feel that it is now inappropriate to continue calling it Jonah.
So, what do we call it? We simply don't know, hence it is competition time! If you have any ideas on what to call this lander then please leave a comment on this website and the webmaster will shuttle them to the ship for us to judge. We will announce the winner on Wednesday the 8th. Please supply your name, the name for the lander name and a brief reason why (and please keep it clean).
HADEEP lander on deck.
There will be a small prize/souvenir for the winner (and possibly for the most ridiculous entry). Get your creative thinking caps on and embrace this opportunity to give a humble hadal-lander a name. For inspiration, here are a couple of photos.
Good luck – the HADEEP team.
Posted on 31 August 2010 | Comments (5)
Alan Jamieson
The origin of the name 'Peru-Chile Trench' is nowhere near as swashbucklingly interesting as the Kermadec Trench. It is named so because it runs down the west coast of South America between, you guessed it, Peru and Chile. It is also known as the Atacama Trench, which is as equally non-imaginative because it refers to the area that runs between Peru and Chile, known as Atacama.
Why this trench deserves two names is a mystery. This trench lies about 160km off the coast from 6o00'S, 81o50'W to 39o00'S, 75o00'W. The trench is approximately 5900km long, 64km wide and it covers an area of about 590,000km2. It is a topographically classic trench with V-shape cross section and is formed by tectonic subduction: the eastern edge of the Nazca Plate is being subducted under the South American Plate.
The Peru-Chile trench is an area of upwelling and is influenced by the El Nino phenomenon but it is not known if and how fluctuations of 'stuff on the surface' caused by El Nino affect the deep-sea community, and deep it is.
Map showing the location of the Peru-Chile trench.
It reaches a maximum depth of 8065 m in an area called Richards Deep or 'Tricky Dicky Deep' as I like to call it. Who tricky Dicky was, and why he had a 'deep' named after him is something my sleuthing has been unable to resolve. In fact I have been unable to find any interesting stories regarding this trench other than it was discovered by the RV Spencer F. Baird in 1958 (I assume Richard was onboard).
The plan at the moment (which is subject to many, many changes) is to deploy the hadal-lander from abyssal depths (<6000m) to Beyond the Abyss (>6000m) as many times as possible in the vicinity of the Richards deep and the other 'deep' known as Bartholomew Deep (something like 23.5°S to 25.5°S, See map).
The Bartholomew Deep is shallower than Richards Deep at a meagre 7154m. John George Bartholomew was a chap who worked with Sir John Murray on something to do with the legendary H.M.S. Challenger Expedition (1873-76). Apparently John M. named this deep bit after his mate John B which is touching, not like that Kermadec fellow who just named everything after himself!
So, what do we know about the fish of the Peru-Chile Trench? Well, not much. There are records of a zoarcids (eelpouts) called Lycenchelys antarctica (aka Lycenchelys atacamensis) from 5300-5320 m, so we may well see that one.
In the 1970's some baited camera work was done in this area which included some hadal depths (6767-7196m). They saw loads of amphipods as usual, some decapods but no fish. At the abyssal depths they saw macrourids (grenadiers) at 4609 and 4581m which is to be expected. In a nutshell we are looking at a blank canvas here which is always the best place to be.
Anyway, you can learn more about the ship at http://www.bgr.de/fs_sonne/ (but it's all in German).
So, with the formalities out of the way, let's get on with HADEEP cruise #7: Beyond the Abyss: South America.
PS: It seems 'swashbucklingly' is another new word.
Posted on 30 August 2010 | Comments (0)
Alan Jamieson
Alan Jamieson
Welcome to Beyond the Abyss: South America. So, this is HADEEP cruise number 7 and this will be trench number 6 for the project. This time we are on the German Research Vessel Sonne which was actually the ship we did the first HADEEP job on. This time we are on our way to the Peru-Chile Trench off the west coast of South America.
The team this time consist of yours truly, Dr. Niamh Kilgallen (an amphipod taxonomist from NIWA in New Zealand), Dr. Kota Kitazawa and Dr. Kazuya Naito from AORI in Tokyo. Kota is of course a veteran of the Kaharoa cruise last year and Kazuya is new member of AORI who I have not have pleasure of meeting yet. Toyo, sadly is not with us this time, he is busy 'interfering' with fish in the North Sea. North Sea or SE Pacific? Silly boy.
This cruise is under the illustrious leadership of Prof. Hans-Joachim Wagner, aka 'Jochen', who is a brain surgeon from the University of Tubingen's school of anatomy. The main purpose of the cruise is to fish for mid-water species with interesting eyes, brains and bits that glow (bioluminescence).
If this cruise is mainly for the anatomical studies and bioluminescence, what are HADEEP doing on board? The short answer is, Jochen is a top bloke and friend of Oceanlab and HADEEP and when he has a cruise that happens to be fishing over some very deep water he graciously invites us along to the party. What a guy (round of applause for Jochen).
On board are other brain-optic scientists from the UK, Australia, Germany and the US. I haven't met any of them right now but I'm sure they'll get a mention as time goes on. Our South American adventure starts in Guayaquil (Ecuador), a place I admit I had never heard of. Guayaquil, locally pronounced 'waja'kil', is apparently the biggest city in Ecuador, with a population of over 3.3 million. Founded in 1538 it was originally called Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil (Most Noble and Most Loyal City of St. James of Guayaquil), which was a bit of a mouthful and so it was shortened to Guayaquil. A very quick internet search on the city came up with this:
"There's been a high increase of crime in Guayaquil since 2009, especially violent crime. Guayaquil is well-known as Ecuador's most dangerous and violent city. Always be aware of your surroundings. Don't pay attention to anyone trying to speak to you on the streets. Avoid walking alone downtown at night, especially off Avenue 9 de Octubre or well-lit areas. Guayaquil is especially dangerous at night, so avoid walking on streets at night. Attacks have been reported where someone will distract the target so that the attacker can put a choke hold on the victim from behind and make the victim pass out in order to easily rob the person." [Excerpt from WikiTravel]
Oh dear, guess what street our hotel is on???, that's right; Ave 9 de Octubre - happy days, I'm sure they're just overreacting (however, that excerpt has been a closely guarded secret in my household...) Maybe the North Sea was the better option after all.
Anyway, assuming we are not victim of any choke-hold robberies, we will sail momentarily South to stop off in Peru to get rubber-stamped for working in Peruvian waters because we are on our way to study the hadal depths of the Peru-Chile Trench. How exciting. Once we are done we will be heading back into Valparaiso near Santiago in Chile coinciding with a weeklong party to celebrate 200 years of Chilean independence; no hotel for us then.
More on the actual science later...
Posted on 27 August 2010 | Comments (1)
