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March 17, 2003: Leg 3, Day #6
Today's update on our expedition is provided by Rob
Sherlock. After Rob finished writing, the winds climbed to
greater than 45 knots, but the R/V
Western Flyer sailed on and kept working. Guaymas Basin
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looks like the eelpout, Melanostigma
pammelas, common in Monterey Bay, but which we don’t believe has
been found here. We’re not sure, and so we stare, wont to look at all of
them. Following the more is better philosophy, we
planned two dives today. We scheduled 4 hours to reach the bottom 1,968
meters below, two hours to search for missing equipment and exploring the
benthic boundary layer and three hours to ascend to the surface, making
collections if we have empty samplers. That puts us on the surface by
15:30 Mountain Standard time. After unloading ROV Tiburon’s
samplers, the plan is to dive again, dropping like the benthic elevator to
1,000 meters. There we will begin bioluminescent transects using Edie
Widder’s ISIT (Intensified Silicon Intensified Tube…from the
department of redundancy department) camera. Similar to transects that we in the Robison
lab have been running for about 10 years, hers do differ in that she
quantifies bioluminescence. Where we light our transects with 4 beams that
make those annoyingly bright halogens on your neighbor’s Miata look like
candles, Edie’s transects are done in the dark. The black screen we
watch her camera on is punctuated by brief, but often brilliant,
luminescence. At 50 meters, we will follow dark transects with lighted
ones to see who is up in the shallow waters. That these surface waters are
rich in terms of abundance and diversity is no surprise since oxygen
levels drop off so quickly throughout the Gulf. These are depths Bill
Hamner is keen to explore. After transecting we will trawl, or so goes
the plan. Post dive:
Organismal abundance and diversity differed
noticeably from yesterday to today. Where yesterday we observed several
species of medusa, ctenophore, and sea cucumber in the benthic boundary
layer, today we saw fewer species at the same depths. Within the benthic
boundary layer the lobate ctenophore, Bathocyroe
sp. was easily the most abundant animal both days, however we saw fewer
today. Correlation should not be mistaken for causation, and a sample size
of two is too few. Still, in searching for patterns, it’s a start, and
we have many more dives to go! Unfortunately, we were unable to make our
second dive today. The compass on Tiburon’s tether broke. It is what the pilots use to count turns in
the ROV’s tether. On retrieval a turn can quickly become a kink, so
without a turn counter, we don’t dive. On the plus side, the extra time
has allowed us to put the trawl in the water early and given me a chance
to write a long-winded update. Although our purpose here has nothing to do with the expedition of Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck, a journey that took place over 60 years ago, I confess that it is difficult not to keep them in mind. Toward the end of his log entry for March 17, 1940, John Steinbeck, disdainful of biologists who want to change an organism’s name essentially because it lacked political correctness writes: “At least we retain our vulgar sense of wonder. We are no better than the animals; in fact in a lot of ways, aren’t as good.” Our boat bears the same name as theirs. We sail the same sea. Even some of our emotions must have been similar—the thrill of potential discovery dampened by the fear of war. I am thankful that we, too, can find wonder in the creatures here and marvel even in the lowly buttworm. |