Oct. 26: A Great Day for Science

Today we had calm seas and a repaired Jason to bolster our spirits on Jason dive 667. Jason was launched at 2000 hours on October 25 and returned with plenty of samples for everyone at 1630 hours today.

One of the more interesting chimneys we saw at Snake Pit was 24 meters tall, and it had several moose-like antlers below the hot black smoker at the top. This is why the chimney is called the Moose Site.

All Jason and science equipment worked well. After the tether problem on the previous dive, it was great to see how the Jason’s group huge efforts led to such a successful outcome today. We decided to return to TAG for more detailed sampling as the weather window looks good through mid-day Sunday then gets poorer. We are looking at the short- and long-term weather to maximize Jason bottom time at TAG before we need to return home.

We are paying close attention to Hurricane Sandy and the western front coming together this weekend at the mid-Atlantic coast of the USA. We hope you all stay safe.

The cruise participants made a satellite phone call to Cape Henlopen High School on Friday morning, October 26 at 0900 East Coast time. More than one hundred students attended. Captain Kent Sheasley, expedition leader Tito Collasius, Amy Gartman, Bill Geppert and George Luther answered the students’ questions about Jason, Knorr, the weather and science. In this photo, Bill Geppert sits near the speaker phone in the radio operations room as Captain Sheasley answers questions from students. One student asked how hurricanes in one part of the Atlantic Ocean can affect the rest of it.

Based on the feedback we received the call was a great success. We will do another call from the Knorr on November 2 at the same time.