Teresa Greely's blog

This will be the final blog for expedition 340. We began the journey filled with anticipation, setting out to gain a better understanding of the constructive and destructive history of volcanoes in the Lesser Antilles, as well as the fate and impact of large volumes of volcanic debris settling in the seafloor over millions of years.

Mission Accomplished! The 340 science expedition has been completed. A total of 434 cores were retrieved with almost 2400 meters recovered from the seafloor. Delighted to report that the scientific objectives of the expedition were accomplished and the cores were beautiful to see as each arrived from the depths of the seafloor.

This blog contribution was provided by 340 Curator, Gemma Barrett. Read on to view YouTube videos that show the final 340 cores being split into two halves. Here's Gemma. "Splitting the cores is a crucial step in processing the cores within the labs.

This blog was composed by Thomas Gorgas, a 340 Research Specialist in the Physical Properties area of the Core Lab. Enjoy Thomas' contribution.

This week we welcomed students from South Africa aboard the JR, we think that these were the first students to virtually sail from South Africa. A wave of thanks to teacher Frans Kalp and his high school students from Ligbron Academy of Technology in Ermelo South Africa for joining us on the JR.

The ocean is often what connects our sciences and our cultures. Scientists aboard Expedition 340 represent 10 nations, including China, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and United States.

On the JR located one deck below the Core Lab on the F-deck is the Geochemistry Lab. Here is where four inorganic geochemists and technicians analyze the deep sea cores to determine the chemical properties of the rocks and sediments. Similar to the physical properties team, the geochemistry team conducts a number of measurements to characterize the material recovered from the seafloor.

When a core has been recovered and processed by a curator and core technicians, the next steps are imaging and visual description of the split core (archived half). All distinguishing features must be recorded from the archived core half by observing and sketching what is visible.

Science is not always predictable. On the JR challenges and solutions are part of the daily experience.  Throughout Expedition 340 challenges have arisen as part of the exploration of drilling in new locations along the seafloor. Even after much preliminary data is gathered and interpreted (seismic profiles, shallow cores) until the drilling begins we are not 100% sure what to expect.

Science results as reported by 340 Staff Scientist, Nicole Stroncik. Week 5 started in the middle of our logging operations on Hole U1399C (CARI-08B), a dedicated logging hole, and ended in the middle of our coring operations on Site U1400 (CARI-07C) west of Martinique. Logging of Hole U1399C was conducted quite successfully.