The Answers Page!

Question: Did you feel the Tsunami wave the resulted from the Chilean Earthquake?

From: Multiple submissions

Answer:

Hello All,

First of all we are approximately 5310 NM from where the earthquake struck. I would suspect it may have been possible that we could have noticed some effect although it would not have been severe looking at the distance the Tsunami Waves would have to travel. In fact according to the Tsunami wave track time table we should have felt the effect some 3 hours ago and we felt nothing. Although we are having some fairly rough weather right now all the seas and swells are very much coming from our local weather system. Hope this helps.

Regards; Terry Skinner

Captain

JOIDES Resolution

Question: What do you do for fun other than pulling up core samples?

From: Leawood Middle School

Answers:

Take Pictures of Sea Birds - Simon George
Read Books - Helen Lever
Work out in the Ship's Gym - Martin Crundwell
Watch Movies - Maria Ciobanu

Question: What kinds of hypotheses do you have? Are they correct so far?

From: Leawood Middle School

Answer:

I hypothesized that the sediment would get less porous (less airspace in the sample) as we got deeper. At our first site, that was not correct. Porosity stayed almost the same throughout the entire hole. - Michelle Kominz

Question: This may be a little revolting, but what do you do with your waste and garbage? Do you hold it in a compartment, throw it in the sea... what do you do with it?

From: Leawood Middle School

Answer:

Paper and cardboard waste is burned in a furnace. The ashes are stored for disposal in port. All of the plastics - juice bottles etc. are stowed in the hold of the ship and are placed in recycling containers on land when we return to shore.

The waste from the toilets passes through a three stage system called a Marine Sanitation Device. First the waste is mixed with air, then it enters a container with good bacteria that eat the waste and break it down. The last phase is to chlorinate the liquid so that all the bacteria are killed. After this last step, the material goes over the side of the ship, and is certified to be non-harmful to any marine life.
Peter Cook - Camp Boss
Brian LeBlanc - Second Engineer

Question: What experiments do you conduct on the cores once you bring them up from the ocean floor?

From: Leawood Middle School

Answer:

Tests are done on the whole cores to test things like density, magnetic susceptibility and how fast heat moves through the core. After the cores are split, samples are taken for things like making microscope slides (smear slides). These are gathered by scraping a tiny bit of sediment with a toothpick and smearing it on a slide with a drop of water. This allows us to look at microfossils and things like what minerals are present in the sediment. Tests are also done to find out the volume and mass of the samples, and from this we can figure out density of the material. Many of these experiments will take place on land once we get home. Scientists will be gathering data from this expedition for a long time after it is over! - Michelle Kominz