Purpose: [Revised cruise track and participants. No science RHIB swap on day 1.] We will begin our expedition by diving on the whale sunk by SIO and will want to (1) to photomosaic the carcass with the standard mounted CoolPix and HD video; (2) to collect benthic organisms using the clam scoop and a fully loaded benthic suction sampler; (3) mount a push core quiver so that we can sample 2 to 3 replicate cores at distances of 0,1, 3 and 10 meters from each carcass. We plan to recover bones from the whalefall and place them in the bioboxes that close to retain as much cold bottom-water as possible. We would like to deploy 4 Niskins. We would also like to deploy the “Bone-Cam” (Erika Raymond’s tissue sampler- repurposed), where we deploy it at the beginning of the dive and leave it at the whale site to be recovered by SIO. The bone cam can be deployed off the fantail and will free-fall to the bottom. We may need to re-position it during the dive. At seep sites we plan to sample as we do for the whale falls and wont require any additional equipment changes. We also want to do two vertical (25 meters depth) tows with a zooplankton net while the ship is stationary during daylight hours and two at nighttime, this experiment will be repeated for 4 days. We also want to test a neuston net (surface) via a boom to hold it off the ship while the ship is moving slowly (~2 knots), during daytime hours and during night time hours, also to be repeated for 4 days. At the end of the dive operations we will then transit to the Santa Barbara dock to offload 10 scientists before transiting to Moss Landing, no later than 1800. Day-1: SIO fin whale: 32° 46.628' N and 117° 29.249' W at 850 m water depth Day-2: The San Diego Seep (Ben Grupe’s site) at : 32.90412 N; 117.78251’ W in 1075 then bounce dive to the Ridge Flank Site: 32.99732 N; 117.86125 W at ~1000 m. Day-3: Santa Monica basin: NW Mound at 33.99205N, -117.851078, then bounce dive to the Santa Monica Slope at 33.84343N, 118.6888W. Day-4: Peter’s Whale: 33.77048N, 119.52409W. Day-5: Santa Barbara Channel: 34.158917°; -119.998817° Deployment of Bone Cam: Day-1: SIO whale site deploy “bone cam” before launch of the ROV, SIO will recover the package.
Chief scientist: Bob Vrijenhoek
Scheduled start time: 5/18/2013 2:00:00 PM UTC
[5/18/2013 7:00:00 AM Pacific]
Scheduled end time: 5/25/2013 1:30:00 AM UTC
[5/24/2013 6:30:00 PM Pacific]
Equipment: The ROV should be equipped with: Push cores (16+ onboard), clam scoop, suction sampler (with large benthic carousel with various mesh sizes- including the 6 lids with 100 um mesh), deep drawer on sled (port side) with large biobox, and biotubes on front of drawer, and 4 Niskins on ROV. Please install the coolpix digital still camera in a downward facing position on the Doc Ricketts, possibly using the swing arm? Ideally we would need it mounted in such a way that it gets good lighting from the strobe with no shadows etc., using the 400W strobes if necessary. In theory we would like it to take images while the ROV is in motion such that we could be flying over a clam field, shooting images as we go which could be used quantitatively i.e., each image is essentially treated as a photo quadrat. Haz Mat materials ethanol (95%), formalin (37%), osmium tetroxide (4%), magnesium chloride, gluteraldehyde (25%) parformaldehyde (4%), and paraformaldehyde/gluteraldehyde, PBS buffer (10X). Liquid Nitrogen, All MSDSs will be stored in the holder in the dry lab.