Expedition 385 Begins!

Expedition 385 Begins!

Everything started on Saturday, September 15, when the famous JOIDES Resolution arrived to San Diego around 3 p.m.

Tobias Höfig, expedition project manager of Expedition 385, other scientists and I gathered on the international Pier to witness the arrival of the majestous ship. We were quite excited to meet out home for the next two months.

 

The next day, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography hosted a Guaymas Basin Expedition symposium where scientists from the first deep-drilling Guaymas Expedition in 1978/79 [DSDP Expedition 64] met with the scientists who are now returning to the famous location.

 

Although the JR was on port, the next few days were full of meetings, presentations, workshops and some time to get to know each other. In the meant time, the technical staff and crew wee busy loading equipment and resupplying the ship for our expedition.

Then, on the morning of Sunday, September 22, the JOIDES Resolution departed San Diego, with 33 scientist from nine countries onboard. It was an exciting moment for all of us.

 

The transit was very smooth. We saw dolphins, turtles, flying fish and birds.

 

While the scientists were training, getting acquainted with the equipment and drafting their methodologies, the Expedition 385 was already making headlines. With three Mexican scientist on board, the media was expectant of this adventure.

 

On the afternoon of September 26, The JR arrived to the first site of our expedition. The weather was warm and the scenery was beautiful. We can see Isla Tortuga, which is a volcanic island with a large caldera in the middle.

 

The crew started lowering the drilling pipe immediately and now we’re expecting our first core in the early morning. Everybody is expectant, excited and nervous. We’ll see what secrets Guaymas’ hydrothermal sea floor has in store for us.

 

26
Sep 2019
By Rodrigo Pérez OrtegaDrilling, Expeditions, Guaymas Basin1 Comment
Author:
Rodrigo Pérez Ortega
About:
Rodrigo Pérez Ortega is the Outreach Officer of Exp 385. He's an award-winning science journalist based in Washington, D.C. His work has been published in Nature, The New York Times, Science News, Eos, Knowable, and Mongabay, among others. He holds a master's in Science Communication from UC Santa Cruz and a bachelor's in biomedical science from UNAM.
More articles by: Rodrigo Pérez Ortega

1 Comment

  1. Hi, Rodrigo! How is Kelvin? Is he enjoying his first expedition on the JR? Has he been helping Andreas and the others on the cat walk and in the labs? Hopefully you’ll send/post some photographic evidence of their UNC Chapel Hill spirit at work! 🙂 Hope all is well in the Guaymas Basin! We can’t wait to hear more about it all soon. I’m sure there are amazing discoveries to come.
    Thanks! 🙂

    Reply

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