Chikyu cruise, day 9

Today the first core was made, not my little sediment push cores of a few centimetres, this time they are making a “real” one, going down 100 m or more into the rock. People were quite excited.

However, the area is very restricted for security reasons.

 

 

The first person to go near the core needs to wear full oxygen mask to check the level of toxic gases (radioactivity was measured directly at the bottom before coring, because hydrothermal vents have often quite some natural radioactivity). Then when he gives the ok sign, then other people can approach and start processing the core.

This is the part that actually cores into the rock. 

It is not very sharp but it is very efficient.

Then the core is cut into smaller section, more easy to process.

After this step the core will be cut into two parts, one part will be untouched and kept a reference, and the scientists will work on the other half. Tomorrow I will try to sneak into the lab and take a few pictures of the core processing. But only if I am not too seasick as the swell of the typhoon number 10 is slowly reaching us, and the captain plans that tomorrow afternoon will be some serious shaking... 

 

In the meantime, I think I should get some food into my belly to keep it stable in the rough sea...

Chikyu cruise, days 3,4,5 ... 8

Well so much for updating the blog everyday...

Overall it is a great experience to be on such a ship, a certainly quite a unique one for a biologist. Maybe, like me, when you were small and you had your small shovel in the hand, you were dreaming of digging a hole so deep you could reach the magma (usually this step comes after an adult explains you that you cannot dig your hole until you reach the other end of the planet because there is some very hot magma inside the earth). Well now I am on a ship that can do exactly that (well at least in theory as there are still a few technical problems). In theory, this ship can reach the inside of the Earth that is 10 km under. So for example, if the water is 1000 m deep, then it can dig a hole 9 km into the sea bottom!

The derrick on the ship reaches the 

height of 130 m above the sea.

In this cruise we do not go too several kilometers below seafloor but we try to make several holes in an hydrothermal vent field (like a field of hot water springs) to understand better how things work inside of the rocks. Instead of going deep, we put some very sensitive sensors on the drilling head to measure many parameters directly while drilling. But because those sensors are fragile, if the temperature is too high we need to stop drilling.
So far despite the troubles with the ROV, we could drill a few holes, and I could even get some samples for my research, so from now on, whatever happens, at least I will not come back with empty hands.
I really appreciate those samples because it is actually really not that easy to manipulate a ROV. I like to imagine that the ROVs we use are some kind of mini ancestral deep-sea Goldorak (which I just learned from Wikipedia that it is the French name of "ＵＦＯロボ グレンダイザー") but clearly the anime robot looked easier to manipulate.
As the pilots are not used to make this kind of sampling, it is quite an adventure. Especially when we find sediments, often it is more sand than some sticky mud, so if the cores are a bit shaken, then very easily all the sediments fall from the core and we can start again. As all of this takes a lot of times, the geologists and other researchers do not like so much our ROV operation as they feel it is a waste of time and they would rather drill more holes. But with many scientists on board it is all about compromises to make everybody happy.

As I said in the previous post, work is 

done 24h/24h on board

So scientists also need to be on duty 

24h/24h in case samples or data arrive.

But now my shift is over and it is time to go the gym and then to go to bed...

Field survey in Kanagawa

While Frederic is enjoying his cruise, I went out to my field survey in Kanagawa.
Unfortunately, I was so busy diving, collecting, and fixing specimens... had no time to take photos.
Anyways, the survey went well!
To proove that the place was nice, I paste a photo taken last time.

Beautiful sunset with Mt. Fuji.

Chikyu cruise, day 2

As it happens too often in deep-sea research, today’s theme was “technical problems” (but fortunately nothing big). A test dive for the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) was planned between 2h30 and 5h30 in the morning. During this dive I hoped we could get some extra sediments for my research. Unfortunately when I arrived in the lab at 5h, the only thing waiting for me was the information that the dive was cancelled due to “technical problems”.

 The ROV being fixed...

Well in this case, there is not much else to do than go to the breakfast and start an early day of computer work hoping the ROV will get fixed soon. Because we are on a really tight schedule for the drilling (the main objective of this cruise), we decided to skip the test dive and prepare for drilling. And guess what, after a first preparation dive there was a… “technical problem”. However, things now seems fixed as at the time I am writing this blog, the ROV is back down and the driller is now looking where they want to drill. I have no idea about drilling, but it looks either quite difficult to aim, or they are very picky on the location, but at least something is going on.

We can follow the operation "live" from the office room where we spend most of our time when not busy with samples or preparation of the sampling.

As I said previously, when you wake up before 5h00 to just realise that you could have actually slept longer, going for breakfast is a good way to at least get some kind of elementary satisfaction. And on the Chikyu, the meals are great. Because the work is going on 24/24 there are 4 meal times per day (5h-7h, 11h-13h, 17h-19h and 23h-01h). And as there are many people working on this ship, it is buffet style! And quite international food to accommodate the tastes the crew coming from many different countries. Actually it is very different from the other Japanese research ships because here the main language is English among the crew (and I really appreciate that).

So let's see what the food looks like...

Let's start by a bit of salad

Then a bit of meat or fish depending how hard was your work. On a ship, often scientists need to be careful, because meals are made for the crew and technicians who do physically hard work and need lots of calories...

The choice of side dishes is as good as in a nice hotel!

Actually, here the diner time of someone is the breakfast time of someone else, so at any time you also have a choice of bread, cereals and yoghurt for those who start their shift.

For me, maybe the most dangerous is this shelf with a lot of nice cakes! 

(Actually for me absolutely all this food is dangerous as I want to try everything)

And in case you had the mental strength to ignore the dessert shelf, this self service ice cream will break your last bit of resistance. But it really is good ice cream!

Well actually now it is meal time! So time for me to stop writing and refill all the calories I burned while writing this blog. And maybe tomorrow I should introduce you to the gym we have on board...

Chikyu cruise day 1

Today I boarded on the Research vessel Chikyu for a drilling cruise to my hydrothermal vent site. It is quite rare for biologists to board on this drilling ship because its purpose is mainly… drilling! And this activity interests mainly geologists. But in this cruise, before the drilling we will make a biological survey and now I discovered this very fancy ship and I will try to share my experience in the next posts.
So let’s start by the beginning: what is the Chikyu? Simply it is a gigantic ship (over 200 m long) made for drilling deep into the seafloor.

Because the ship is so big, it could not enter in the port in Nago, so we had to use a small tugboat to reach it.

From far it does not look so big...

But getting closer then we realise it is a BIG ship...

To give an idea of the size, the arrow points at one person standing on the helipad

In the coming days, I will try to find a few minutes to show you the inside of this unique ship and our research progress...

Coral spawning season!

The lab entered its most busy period.
Indeed last week the corals spawned and now everybody is busy with raising baby corals and doing all kinds of experiments on these little guys. Now students are taking care of several thousands of babies. It does actually takes a lot of time and energy as so many little guys kept in some plastic buckets need quite frequent cleaning and water change.
My own research is not focused on this aspect of coral biology (this is maybe why I am the one with still energy to write the blog), but I actually appreciated helping out to get in-situ samples at various times of the night. Diving at night is always magical as all kind of critters come out while the day guys are sleeping.
Here are a few pictures of nice encounters before or after sampling.

Acropora spawning, each polyp releases bundles of mixed eggs and sperm.
The timing is very synchronised within a species to allow eggs and sperm
from different colonies to meet and produce cute baby corals.

Many shrimps and crabs are enjoying the protection of the corals.

Some fishes also like to live on the coral branches,
I wonder if they enjoy the polyp tentacles tickling their belly...

A little cuttlefish seems to play hide and seek with algae balls

But the champion at hide and seek was this little sole.
I could almost hear it say "I can see you but you cannot see me!"

Preparation for next spawn season

次のサンゴの産卵、研究に備えて、サンゴの幼生を定着させるためのタイルを瀬底研究所前に沈めてきました。
2ヶ月ほど沈めると、サンゴの幼生が定着しやすくなるそうです。
新年度の研究準備が徐々に始まった感じです。

For the next spawning season and experiment, we put 300 tiles in the ocean in front of Sesoko station.
New fiscal year has started.

潜る前まであいにくの雨。
unfortunately not good weather...

浅瀬にブロックで括り付けて300枚のタイルを沈めました。
in the shallows 300 tiles fixed with blocks.