At sea with Katie Bennett, past GK12 fellow

Launching the MOCNESS

Out in the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded by an expanse of featureless water, we describe our location using unseen features that lay far beneath the ocean’s surface. Today we are anchored at Brine Pool, which is the spot thousands of feet below sea level where Miss Burris made her submersible dive this morning. We’ll steam all night, and tomorrow we’ll be at Bush Hill (a hill in the middle of the ocean!), but the view from the ship’s decks won’t change a bit.

Getting the MOCNESS ready

Yesterday afternoon we did a MOCNESS (Multiple Opening Closing Nets Environmental System) tow. We deployed nine big nets at once. Each net has a trap door and we use a computer to shut them at different depths. We sent the nets almost 2000 feet down. Every three hundred feet we would shut a trap door on one net, so that no new animals could get in. In this way, we can figure out exactly what kinds of zooplankton (remember, zooplankton=animal plankton) are found at different depths. Towing through thousands of feet of water means a lot of plankton are captured. read more »

On the Boat with Greg Gavelis, aka Mr. Biology Dude (Highland Elementary)

OIl platform off the starboard bow

This morning we awoke to a huge breakfast of sausages, eggs, toast, hashbrowns, bagels and lox. It was a good thing no one went swimming because they would have sunk right to the bottom. Kristina Sawyer and Craig Young then set out in the sub on a trip to the largest tubeworm city known on earth. Their goal: to find iceworms, mussels, and a strange substance called methane hydrate, which, when lit with a spark, can create fire and water at the same time. If seen underwater, it looks like big chunks of yellow ice, and is often surrounded by all types of strange creatures. Methane hydrate serves as food for the bacteria, which are themselves food for many of the animals that lurk at the bottom of the pitch black sea.

Meanwhile, on deck, the rest of us learned how to operate the MOCNESS. Its name is a fancy acronym which I have forgotten, but it doesn’t matter because the crew simply calls it “the beast.” read more »

Diving with Kristina Sawyer (Hillcrest Elementary)

Chief scientist Craig Young in the sub

Hello to everyone from oil plot # 324 about 100 miles off the coast of Louisiana. We learned that the ocean floor is divided into 3 mile by 3 mile numbered plots that oil companies can purchase to drill for oil, and today I will dive on plot # 324, which also happens to be an area with a huge patch of cold seep tubeworms where scientist have been doing underwater experiments for over 15 years!

This morning has definitely been my favorite of the cruise so far! I got up at 6am so I could head out on deck and watch the sun come up behind the ship, as we steamed westward. I then came back inside to the ship’s galley (kitchen, one of my favorite places!) and had an amazing veggie omelet. I don’t eat meat, but the chef on board keeps making me these amazing vegetarian meals. Then we had a quick meeting at 8am to talk about the upcoming sub dive- the one I was going on! read more »

Diving with Myndee McNeill (Millicoma Middle School)

Mud volcano surrounded by mussels

I was already super-excited to ride in the submarine, but when we were told to look for mud volcanoes and radioactive towers of barite (which is a special kind of salt), I got even more excited! There are few things on earth as exciting as submarines, volcanoes, and radioactivity, but this trip put them all together!

The sub was moved quickly and smoothly from the deck into the water. I didn’t even notice when we entered the water, because I was paying too much attention to the pilot telling me about all of the scary things that might happen to us underwater. As we started dropping down through the water, it changed from a blue-green color to total darkness. That’s when the light show started: we could see little pops and flashes of light from the bioluminescent animals! There were some large bioluminescent jellyfish, and siphonophores that looked like intricate necklaces with a few glowing beads. They moved from the bottom to the top of the window, so it looked like we were flying through outer space, with stars and strange-shaped UFOs speeding past us. My very favorite experience was when we reached the bottom. It was so awesome to be on the sea floor, with the whole ocean on top of us! read more »

On the ship with Zair Burris (Bunker Hill, Blossom Gulch and Madison Schools)

animals brought back in the biobox

If you have ever been on a boat before, its rocking back and forth is great when you’re trying to fall asleep, but when you’re just walking around on deck it can be quite the challenge (especially with buckets in hand). I lose my balance in the middle of a step and start falling one way, but just at the last moment, the boat rocks the other way, and I’m saved for an instant before I start falling the opposite direction. I’m not the only one or thing that is in danger of falling over because of the ships’ rocking- everything in a room tilts or slides or rolls away. That’s why almost everything is tied down (microscopes, chairs, coffee pots). I tried to open the refrigerator this morning and after tugging and tugging on the handle I realized it was latched shut so the door wouldn’t come flying open! read more »

On the ship with Josh Lord (Ocean Crest, Harbor Lights and Driftwood Schools)

The recovered lander!

Today we did the first of the dives with the submersible! Richard Emlet from OIMB was the main scientist and Kira Triebergs the first GK-12 fellow to go down in the submersible. We got up bright and early for a pre-dive meeting, to discuss what the submersible crew was going to do. We had a special item added to this morning’s dive agenda: the submersible was going to attempt to rescue a lander (a 12 foot tall piece of sampling equipment) that a previous research team was not able to pick up from the ocean floor.  It was really cool watching the submersible being lowered by a crane into the water, with the pilot and scientist barely visible through the glass sphere. Half an hour after they went down, they radioed up that they had released the weights from the lander and it was floating to the top, successfully rescued! The boat crew lifted the lander out of the water with a crane. We looked at some really interesting things that were growing on it, since it had been down in the ocean for a year. read more »

Diving with Kira Triebergs (North Bay and Lighthouse Schools)

First sub launch Saturday!

In my head, I count down as we are lowered into the ocean… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and BLAST OFF—except instead of being launched into outer space to a foreign world in the sky, we descend through churning waves into a serene, smooth, blue sea. I can’t help but feel like I am an astronaut heading to the moon. As I peer through the tiny porthole in the back compartment of the submarine, I can feel butterflies in my stomach. My very first deep-sea adventure has begun! read more »

The ship and its crew headed to sea Friday night around 8:00 PM central time, just after a tour of the submersible and its capabilities. While the team got a well-earned sleep, the ship steamed toward the first dive site. The seas are calm and the weather is partly cloudy with patchy rain. Everything is going great so far!

AND THEY’RE OFF! Last evening (Thursday) students and faculty from OIMB filled most of the small plane leaving the local airport to connect to their night flight to Mississippi!  Do you think they got much sleep?  Today the scientific party joins the ship, the RV Seward Johnson, in Gulfport. They’ll spend the day setting up the on-board lab and getting gear in order. Then early this evening the ship wil depart!  Check back for pictures and news of how it is going!