 Leg 1 Logbook - Laser Raman Spectroscopy
Day 16 – Pack it up, move it out…
July 22, 2009 0800 hours – In port, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Newport, OR. Today is the last day on the ship. We’ve packed up all our gear, it is being loaded into the truck as I write, and we’ll be on our way home soon. Since I have no science to report on today, I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight and thank all the folks who make our work possible. First, we need to acknowledge Captain Brian Ackerman and the ship’s crew. Without their diligence and quality support our science wouldn’t be going anywhere. In fact, we’d be standing at the dock wondering what to do! Next, we have to mention the ROV pilots—their excellent skills flying the vehicle and manipulating the tools with the robotic arms are essential to the success of our projects. And lastly, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the steward, Patrick Mitts, for keeping us well fed and happy. Thanks a lot guys and best of luck on future legs. We will see you back home in Moss Landing. 
Captain Brian Ackerman takes a phone call on the bridge of the R/V Western Flyer while the chief scientist, Peter Brewer, stands by waiting to discuss the plans for the day. 
Randy Prickett (with belly pack) and Eric Nelson operate the ROV as it is launched through the moon-pool.
Patrick Mitts cleans up the galley after another delicious and hearty meal. He keeps us all well-fed and happy.
Signing off from the moon pool of the Western Flyer beside ROV Doc Ricketts is the Leg 1 Science Team: Xin Zhang, Keith Hester, Peter Brewer, Peter Walz, Ed Peltzer, and John Ripmeester. And now for the answer to this week's mystery photo. Remember, we are chemists, not biologists. The fish name is Icthyus plugemupticus. Its natural habitiat is in the midwater and it has the unusual behavior of hovering near ROVs and backing into tight spots that are difficult to escape from. (Okay, we don't really have the correct name for this fish, so we've been referring to it by a name to reflect its function on our cruise.) 
A small fish somehow managed to back itself into the intake port on one of the oxygen sensors on the ROV. Clearly this did not go well for the fish, and it didn't help our oxygen data on this dive either. Alas, the pilots discovered this too late to do the fish any good.
—Ed Peltzer
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Equipment
 R/V Western FlyerThe R/V Western Flyer is a small water-plane area twin hull (SWATH) oceanographic research vessel measuring 35.6 meters long and 16.2 meters wide. It was designed and constructed for MBARI to serve as the support vessel for ROV operations. Her missions include the Monterey Bay as well as extended cruises to Hawaii, Gulf of California and the Pacific Northwest.
ROV Doc Ricketts is MBARI's next generation ROV. The system breaks new ground in providing an integrated unmanned submersible research platform, with many powerful features providing efficient, reliable and precise sampling and data collection in a wide range of missions.
By bouncing a specially tuned laser beam off of almost any object or substance—solid, liquid, or gas—a laser Raman spectrometer can provide information about that object's chemical composition and molecular structure.
A push-core looks like a clear plastic tube with a rubber handle on one end. Just as its name implies, the push core is pushed down into loose sediment using ROV Tiburon's manipulator arm. As the sediment fills up the core, water exits out the top through one-way valves. When the core is pulled up again, these valves close, which (most of the time) keeps the sediment from sliding out of the core tube. When we bring these cores back to the surface, we typically look for living animals and organic material in the sediments.
Vibracoring is a common technique used to obtain samples from water-saturated sediment. These corers work by attaching a motor that induces high frequency vibrations in the core liner that in turn liquefies the sediment directly around the core cutter, enabling it to pass through the sediment with little resistance.
Carbon dioxide is a liquid at the temperatures and pressures on the seafloor where hydrates are known to occur. Because of this, one cannot simply take down a tank of gas and expect to be able to release it at depth. Instead, the CO2 piston accumulator is used to deliver precise volumes of liquid CO,2 to experiments on the seafloor. The valves are operated hydraulically by remote control and hydraulic pressure is used to expel the liquid CO2 and deliver it to the experiments.
MBARI's heat-flow probe is mounted on the side of the ROV Doc Ricketts inside the vertical stainless steel box. This both protects the delicate probe and provide the track so that the probe can be inserted into the sediment along a totally straight path. The probe contains five high precision platinum sensors which are used to measure the vertical temperature gradient in the sediments. This gradient along with some knowledge of the heat capacity of the sediment allows scientists to calculate the rate of heat loss from the sediments into the ocean. Research Team
Peter has taken part in more than 30 deep-sea cruises, and has served as chief scientist on major expeditions and on more than 90 ROV dives with MBARI ships and vehicles. His research interests include the ocean geochemistry of the greenhouse gases. He has devised novel techniques both for measurement and for extracting the oceanic signatures of global change. At MBARI his current interests include the geochemistry of gas hydrates, and the evolution of the oceanic fossil fuel CO2 signal. He has developed novel techniques for deep ocean laser Raman spectroscopy, and for testing the principles and impacts of deep ocean CO2 injection.
Ed is an ocean chemist who has been with MBARI since 1997. He has been involved in developing instrumentation and analytical techniques to study the composition of gases in gas hydrates and deep-sea vents. He has also collaborated on the development of new instrumentation for the measurement of temperature and pH from an ROV. As the group's project manager, Ed is also responsible for expedition planning and logistics.
Peter has worked as a research technician for a variety of scientists at MBARI. Most recently he has supported the research efforts of Dr. Peter Brewer and his interests in the ocean chemistry of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. Peter assists with the design, testing and deployment of the ocean going science hardware and works closely with the marine operations group to integrate new equipment to work with MBARI's ROV's.
Xin Zhang is a Ph.D. student from the Ocean University of China and is now studying at MBARI with Peter Brewer and Bill Kirkwood. He has been involved in the development of a Deep-Sea Raman Probe for the measurement of sediment pore water geochemistry. In this expedition, he will focus on obtaining the in situ pore water Raman spectra and the collection of pore water samples for subsequent shipboard analyses by ion and gas chromatography.
Keith is currently an associate engineer with ConocoPhillips focused on natural gas hydrates. Keith received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in 2007. This was followed by a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute with Dr. Peter Brewer. His research interests include the use of carbon dioxide to replace methane in natural hydrates.
John has been a staff member at the NRC since 1974, first with the Division of Chemistry, then with the Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences upon its establishment in 1991. His research focuses on the chemical applications of solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the development of multi-technique approaches to the characterization of materials, supramolecular chemistry, porous materials, clathrates, gas hydrates, and other guest-host materials. He has nearly 500 publications and six patents and is often an invited speaker at special events. |
