Blogs

It's crazy to think that it's already been 7 days since we first got to The Shoulder. After 7 days of slow-going and rubble recovery...we're faced with another set of options: stay here, or go back to The Bench.

Yesterday the doctor snagged me on my way back to work after spending some time outside. As I was passing by his office, he shouted “Nicole! Nicole, you’re perfect. Come here for a second! I just need you to pretend to be my patient for a second.” I plopped my things down and said, “Alright, sure. What do I do?”

It’s getting to be that time where people on board get quite and become more introverted. There’s a lot of noise in people’s silent expressions.

Many of the schools that we are working with have adopted Expedition 345 and are using it throughout their teaching curriculum. One School, Brandling (UK), have made this replicate drawing of the JOIDES Resolution, Abbeyfields (UK) have linked it in with their materials topic, Ecole Bastide (France) and Bruce Monroe (USA) have studied the deep sea animals in the Hess Deep.

One of the most interesting things about this expedition is learning about the different cultures of people from all over the world. There is a real mix of nationalities on board, Europeans, Americans, Japanese to name a few.

When cores arrive in the lab from the drill floor, scientists and technicians study physical properties of the rocks (magnetism susceptibility for example).
Magmatic rocks contain ferromagnesian minerals (see previous enigma). During the cooling of magma, the rocks, with such minerals can 'fossilized' the magnetic field. Some rocks from the oceanic crust are very amazing.

We could not re-enter the funnel and the hole could not be found. SO..we are going to drill another. This means that all the pipes have to been brought up to the surface for the drill bit to be changed and then all the pipes have to be lowered back down again. This takes around 24hours.

The magma produced in the oceanic ridge, while cooling slowly, crystallizes in magmatic rocks.

The challenge for the petrologists on board the JR consists to discover the history of the oceanic crust genesis by the study of minerals in the magmatic rocks.

To resolve the enigma, it is necessary to recall the stages of the minerals crystallization.

Another day, another hole. We have moved 500m from our first  position, drilled a nice new hole and deployed a new free fall funnel (remember those)? Unfortunately its not as upright as we might have hoped.....Will we be able to re-enter the hole? Watch the space for the next thrilling installment!

I was standing outside last night watching the school of mahi mahi fish with Takashi, a Japanese scientist on board.