SOFeX Cruise Logbook

February 3, 2002: Day 30

SOFeX 2002
schedule (PDF)
January
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri  Sat
     1  2  3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    
February
           1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28    

The mighty SeaSoar crew (Burke Hales, Steve Pierce, and Dale Hubbard)

Jump to the log entry from the RV Melville.

REVELLE @ 2/3/02 05:50Z, 

-66 5.8392, -172 5.7948

So. Patch In Drifter @ 2/3/02 05:30Z, 

-66 9.354, -171 41.472

No. Patch In Drifter @ 2/1/02 18:45Z, 

-54 16.8, -169 59.22

No. Patch Out Drifter @ 2/1/02 18:45Z, 

-55 23.22, -172 37.32
Log Entry from the RV Revelle

1852 February 3, 2002,  At sea

Hi, on Super Bowl Eve (Rams - 30 to 13). I’m in sort of a football mindset today. Our science is really getting exciting. We can see the patch on almost all of our sensors and the signals seem to increase hourly.  REVELLE just crossed the South Patch towing SeaSoar and there’s a clear signal of carbon dioxide consumption. Pete Strutton’s surface CO2 system now shows a drop of almost 20 matm in the patch. It coincides beautifully with the SF6 tracer data and the variable fluorescence signal. And this is just the beginning! But, just as it’s getting going, we’ll pick up and leave the really neat stuff for MELVILLE to observe. I guess we’re the linemen and they’re the quarterbacks. Hey, it’s a team - no linemen, no Super Bowl.  

Speaking of the variable fluorescence, here’s the map that Sasha Tozzi created of Fv/Fm in the patch. Variable fluorescence is a measure of how well phytoplankton can use the light they absorb for photosynthesis. Higher values mean more of the light is used for photosysnthesis. The variable fluorescence coincides nicely with our map of the SF6 tracer that we showed yesterday. There’s a bunch of happy phytoplankton out there.  Feb2fvfm.gif (28056 bytes)
Note: image above is a thumbnail, so click on it to get a larger image.
But I think people are ready to go home.  Leah Bandstra is looking ready to go, although her SeaSoar is sailing across the patch in some pretty dynamic waters.  Others in the SeaSoar crew (Burke Hales, Steve Pierce, and Dale Hubbard) are feeling more relaxed.  That’s one big winch they have back there!

Well, that’s it for today.  Last In the Patch Station tomorrow - unless the NSF (the National Science Foundation) wants to give us another week. Hmmm...  Hey, you know what? I only mentioned NSF when I was thinking of asking for more days. But they have funded most of this expedition.  Thank you, thank you, thank you! No NSF and most of the very interesting basic research done in this country would never happen.

Ken J. 
Log Entry from the RV Melville