Update after a week

It is now Thursday 11/17, and we have completed 10 dredges. At this point I think I can safely safe that I’ve had my fill of dredging, for life. We’ve seen some interesting rocks, but you can only get excited about black lava rocks with varying amount of crystal and bubble content for so long. The most unique rocks that we recovered were almost pure sulfur. We actually dredged over a molten sulfur pond, which we could see stuck to the outside of the dredge bag. We also saw samples that appeared to be from the surface of the sulfur pond which had frozen “ripples.” There were also some really cool sulfur crystals, which I grabbed some take home samples of, as well as some sulfur spherules (basically small round globs of sulfur). Beyond that, most of the dredges after the first three, which were largely pumice, have been boninite lavas. To the non-geologist, they basically look like dark gray to black lava rock, and you really have to be a geochemist or petrologist to get excited about the variety within those. The most interesting examples of those rocks were some with very large crystals of olivine and pyroxenes, which I also grabbed some personal samples of. The only metal sulfides we have found, which is what Nautilus is interested in, were a couple tiny pieces with even tinier crystals of pyrite (fool’s gold), which is iron sulfide. Even though they have been trying to target the hydrothermal sites where the metal sulfides should be found, it is very difficult to target a specific area of seafloor with the dredge. We also dredged up a few deep sea creatures, including fragments of mussels, shrimp, coral, a crab, and even an eel-like fish. Thankfully we didn’t massacre too much life (only 7 or 8 creatures total), it is definitely an ethical issue that the non-Nautilus scientists are concerned about. We are freezing all of the life we find to give to a biologist for analysis. The process of deploying and retrieving the dredge, getting the samples out of the bag and organizing them in the lab has definitely lost its luster at this point. I end up absolutely drenched with sweat after every dredge, especially during the day, so I’ve had to get used to feeling disgusting most of the time. My personal favorite part, which the crew and other scientists gladly let me take care of, is beating the crap out of the dredge bag with a sledge hammer to knock all of the samples loose. It’s a nice aggression release and a pretty good workout too. It’s also fun working with Ken, who has a never-ending supply of stories about past cruise experiences and people that he has worked with, as well as gossip on people in the department. He is not one to hold his opinions back, and is a good source of entertainment and information about rocks and all things geochemical. One annoying part about the dredging is that we are doing a LOT more of it than we initially were supposed to be doing. The initial plan was to do ~1 dredge per 24 hours, which would be a pretty relaxed schedule and would give us plenty of time to process and analyze the samples between dredges, as well as plenty of time to sleep. Instead we have been doing at least 2 dredges per 24 hours, and the schedule has not been regular at all. They tried to get us to do 3 yesterday, which would have given us a window of about 5 hours to sleep, but we drew the line at that. Part of the problem is that they have been having pretty much non-stop issues with the AUV. It has been routinely coming up to the surface before finishing its survey, which means that they have extra time to fill, and that means we get to fill the time with dredging. It has also had problems with the battery not lasting long enough, and the latest thing is the multibeam bathymetry system went out, which is the primary mapping instrument that they wanted to use. Also, the AUV people have complained their way into getting a shorter shift, and the TowCam people have refused to work more than 12 hours in a day, so since I guess we are the bottom of the hierarchy, we get stuck filling the time with dredging. We have held the line at two dredges a day, but it is frustrating for all of us involved with the dredging that we are being treated as the low end of the totem pole. It is also frustrating that the schedule changes all the time, usually due to problems with the AUV or TowCam, and often without much warning. For instance, this morning, the schedule was filled up (with no dredging) until at least noon, so we figured we’d be dredging by 1 or 2 pm at the earliest. Instead, at about 9:30 am, someone came into my room to tell me we were about to start dredging. Thankfully, I had gotten enough sleep already, but it was pretty annoying regardless. Just about everyone is getting frustrated with Peter, the head of the Nautilus operation, partially because of the last minute scheduling changes and also because he is not providing the crew with timely and adequate information about where the various operations are going to be located. With all of that said, it’s impossible to expect that everything is going to go smoothly, so we’re making it work. At least the food is still delicious.

Sulfur!!! The ones with the ripples are from the top of the molten sulfur lake, the large ones on top have some nice crystals, and the tiny grayish ones on bottom are the spherules

A relatively fresh piece of boninite with a nice big clinopyroxene crystal in the middle.