Crustal Death and Rebirth in the Ring of Fire

So…back to reality? An IODP cruise has aspects of what I suspect being institutionalized might be like. Chad, the curator on our expedition (who sails 2 months on – 2 months off all year) calls this blurry transitional period when you have disembarked the JOIDES Resolution (JR) but have not quite found your life again the time of decompression.

It’s a good term. It’s like deflating and struggling to breath in your old (normal?) life.

As I write this, I have been off the JR for 1 week. During my (ongoing) decompression, I spent a surreal two days in Taipei and completed my long journey back to the UK, including a bizarre stopover in protest-riddled Hong Kong.

We were 62 days at sea; when port calls are included, this adds up to about 9 weeks of intense scientific discovery and interaction with your colleagues. So what is the best thing about being back? The first thing that pops to mind is the sheer liberation of running (and actually getting somewhere) outdoors during sunrise. After 8 weeks of that JR treadmill, it was an almost religious experience. So is the consumption of bananas. I just ate another one.

What is the hardest adjustment (thus far)? Somehow little everyday things seem disproportionately challenging. For example, after having every meal provided (read: dictated) for 8 weeks, I found grocery shopping to be overwhelming. So much choice! So many people! And all those loud children running around – yikes – I couldn’t wait to get out of there. To my extreme embarrassment, I also forgot my PIN when making purchases. I hadn’t used it in so long, that when the time came to enter it I drew a complete blank. Try explaining that kind of absentmindedness to an unimpressed Sainsbury’s worker.

And what did I (eventually) buy, in addition to my weight in bananas, blueberries and raspberries…well…some things I had on the ship. How twisted is that! Creativity is required to keep things gastronomically interesting onboard the JR. I was very fond of one particularly imaginative drink that I was introduced to by our extremely talkative structural geologist. So I bought the ingredients to make my own ‘improved’ version (see picture – I cannot give away the secrets of the recipe).

It was alright, but the UK version felt a little like that indigenous liquor we have all brought home from holiday that was so amazing ‘when in Rome’. Was it the lack of super-cheap American-style ‘Quick’ chocolate powder that let it down? Maybe it wasn’t the contents of the JR version that made it so good. Perhaps it was the company and the not-always-geologically-based banter around our 3am ‘cookie break’ table where the drink was habitually consumed that gave me my unnatural craving for it back in the UK.

Expedition 352 was very scientifically successful, so much so that an embargo has been placed on the preliminary report to enable us to go for a high profile publication from our initial results. Normally, the preliminary report is published immediately after the expedition ends, but we have been granted a 2 month grace period to get our act together. So stay tuned! As soon as all the gory scientific details are ready for public consumption – I’ll let you have them on this blog – hopefully in an easily digestible form.

Finally, I should try and explain my drastic decrease in blog frequency during the expedition. I can only say that it got busy (the rocks kept on coming), it became logistically challenging (internet access was…sporadic) it got crazy (cabin fever and the dreaded ‘Week 6’ came a week late and lasted a further two), but most importantly, it got good.

Why spend time in the computer dungeon (it really is at the bottom of the boat with no windows and is marked ‘Dungeon’) in the vain hope of connecting to the internet – or an even more distant aspiration of uploading pictures – when you could instead be searching for the mantle in seismic cross-sections, stammering French words, partaking in some lighthearted core description (aphyric, basalt, lava) or simply enjoying the sunrise with a fantastic group of people.

Expedition 352 – I miss you already.

5. 10. 2014.

 

Read Decompression in full

It has been a while since my last entry. What has happened in the interim? Well, scientifically, quite a bit, and you can catch some highlights on the JOIDES Resolution facebook page.

As for the day-to-day business of living, I have to report that my goal of taking a picture of every sunrise has failed. Not so much in that I missed one, but in that the novelty of stunning open ocean sunrises has (predictably) diminished. And there was rain once. The core lab was briefly invaded by a shark (sadly not in a tornado), but he was easily defeated.

In lew of fending off fearsome fish, sunrise anticipation and photographic organization thereafter….and science…what else is there to pass the time? The JOIDES Resolution houses 113 residents: 50 Scientists and IODP Technical staff plus 48 personal responsible for operations and drilling and a catering crew of 15. It is these last 15 that have introduced one of their favorite pastimes: pocket pool.

Pool…on a ship? How does that work? A very good (if obvious) question. The crew has devised a one-of-a-kind ingenious ‘pool’ table. I can only describe “pocket pool” as a mixture of pool + air hockey + pinball. Every cruise this particular crew sails on has a pocket pool tournament…which I entered.

I am very glad I had a quick practice before my match.

It looks like pool. The rules are essential those of normal pool. A pool cue is used. That is, however, where the similarities end. The “balls” are smallish air-hockey style disks that grip the wooden (and admirably flat) table. The cue ball is a hockey-puck sized disk.

First and foremost pocket pool is fast. Too much weight on the shot and the pinball phenomenom fully takes over. Second, the pockets (only corners – no side pockets) are unforgiving. Perfect angles are required.

I played my best of 3 games in the first round of the tournament. I lost 2-0 against Glenn, the lead steward, but I think I conducted myself with some measure of dignity, even making a shot that resulted in surprised murmors of approval from veterans crew players (everyone has a bit of dumb luck). And all this after my 12 hour shift. A decent accomplishment.

A final special mention for my shipmate Claire, a paleomagnetist with whom I have sailed before. She provided a chocolate treat every time I sunk a…disk. However, I certainly was not full after the match so my training must continue. I wonder if she will yield similar treats for my well-honed skills of ‘sit’ and ‘speak’. I have 5 weeks left to convince her.

22 August 2014.

 [Many thanks to Marie Python for permission to use her action photos]

Read Where Cue Balls are Flat in full

Entry Three: Death by Nomenclature

Quick: tell me what the difference is between a diktytaxitic and hyalopilitic texture? No? Nesophitic vs. Intersertal? ….perhaps? Cumulate vs. Adcumulate? Ok – that was an easy one….

Let me back-up and preface this entry with my admittedly flimsy excuses. I had great undergraduate petrology classes – I remember these terms, I remember doing astonishingly well in my optical (thin sections of rocks) and petrology (just the rocks) classes. However, I realize that I actually am…..further on in my career and have taken a dark path into more geochemical realms.

Why am I bothering you with these terms? Well, in preparation for receiving rocks, the petrology group (rock-studiers for the un-initiated) have been compiling lists of terms that may be needed to describe recovered lavas. The idea behind this exercise is sound. We need to document as accurately and as completely as possible everything that is recovered. Sadly, this has necessitated some hard-core textural revision for this card-carrying isotope geochemist (those that study rock powders with little knowledge of what the rocks actually looked like, and are prone to grandiose statements of petrogenesis [how the rock formed] based on a few, somewhat obscure elemental isotope ratios….see my publication list).

However, I am happy to report that the petrologic shock is quickly wearing off and I am rediscovering the simple joy of rock examination. Funny – I do seem to recall that was the reason I became a geologist in the first place. Even more fortuitous is the great team of (proper) petrologists onboard who have tolerated my presence thus far (i.e. 2 weeks out of 8). Perhaps, with their help, I may even re-gain my petrologic form of youth.

Finally, just because the sunrise shift has the best sky shots – feast your eyes on yet another spectacular daybreak.

11^th August 2014

 

Read Death by Nomenclature in full

Entry Two: It’s all about timing

 Over the past few days,  my thoughts have been consumed with the perception of time.

But first things first. Many must be waiting with baited breath after my last informative portrayal of Japanese toilets…. so I have included a picture of their counterparts on the JR. A single button. No room for ambiguity. One every day life challenge is averted.

We boarded the JR on the 31st of July and departed Yokohama on the 4th of August. (see obligatory Yokohama bridge photo). Our JR-based port call seemed somewhat unending. When we were finally ready to depart many (including myself) felt as though we had been together for months! Do not misunderstand – this is not a negative feeling, just a surreal one.

The scientists and technical staff have got to know each other better during our 7 month (read: 4 day) JR-based port call in Yokohama. The first few days consisted of meetings, then a few more meetings, then some training, then meetings, and after that, just for a change, a few more meetings. In all seriousness, there is a vast amount of information to assimilate before we get onsite. Having been on this ride once before, I am feeling fairly confident about what I need to do, however memories of the heady mix of confusion/excitement of the first time round surface from time to time.

Walking the corridors of the JR, I feel as if I was here only months ago, not the 5 years it has actually been since my last IODP expedition. We are only mere days into Expedition 352 and already my ‘regular’ life seems a bit fuzzy, out-of-focus – as if it belongs to someone else. Again, not a negative thing. In fact, total immersion is one of the aspects of sailing IODP that I find very attractive. It is a rare environment that brings together scientists from disparate disciplines and unites them in a single set of aims. The combination of shared goals and removal of distractions creates the most exciting scientific environment I have ever encountered.

We are entering the work-horse phase. The meat of the sandwich. Up to this point, we have all been sleeping at (more or less) the same times. Yesterday/today/tonight (what day is it again?) is when we begin to ‘get on shift’. All scientists work 12 hour shifts every single day of our 55 days at sea. The ‘day’ shift runs 12pm-12am and the ‘night’ shift runs 12am-12pm. Certainly more appropriate terms would be ‘sunrise’ and ‘sunset’ shifts, but who I am to fly in the face of tradition. I am part of the sunrise shift (it’s my blog, I’ll call it what I want). My task – as I write this – is to stay awake for the next 12 hours. I was fortunate enough to be very ‘tired’ after our last night festivities in Yokohama and was, miraculously, able to sleep a straight 7 hours from 1pm-8pm yesterday (today??). I include photographic evidence of some measure of my success: the first sunrise of Expedition 352 taken around 4:50am.

What else is on our minds? Typhoons. Check out the JR website and our educator, Beth Christiansen’s blog for more information about some potentially troublesome beasts (joidesresolution.org). Our estimated time to our first drill site is about 28 hours at the time of writing. Core some 10-12 hours after that.

Finally, please do ask any questions you like in the comments section. I welcome all types and will certainly find the ‘time’ to answer them!

August 5th 2014

Read Timing in full

A BEGINNING

Over the next two months I will be blogging about sailing on the vessel JOIDES Resolution (JR) as a member of the science party on the Integrated Ocean Discovery Program’s (IODP) Expedition 352 to the Izu-Bonin-Mariana Forearc.

Phew. That’s a mouthful. Let’s try and make it simpler.

What is the “Integrated Ocean Discovery Program” (IODP)? The IODP is an international effort to explore the sediments and rocks that make up the ocean floor through scientific drilling. A vast number of nations participate, inviting applications from researchers on a competitive basis to sail on expeditions which generally last 8 weeks. The number of country berths on an expedition is proportional to the financial contribution of the country, with the two driving forces being the USA and Japan. Europeans are also involved, and on 352 there are three UK-based participants. I could never do justice to the many ways in which IODP research has transformed Earth Science and encourage a quick read through the ‘Exploring our Planet’ section of their website: http://www.iodp.org

What is the point of Expedition 352? I could parrot back our cruise objectives, which are found in our Scientific Prospectus available from the Expedition webpage: http://iodp.tamu.edu/scienceops/expeditions/izu_bonin_forearc.html. However, perhaps the title of this blog can be usefully employed instead.

Crustal Death and Rebirth in the Pacific Ring of Fire is a title with a lot going on. The main focus of Exp 352 is a process called subduction, where one tectonic plate collides and sinks beneath another. Subduction consumes the downgoing plate, thus resulting in some ‘crustal death’. Many are familiar with the term ‘Ring of Fire’ (as it relates to geology, not the Jonny Cash song). Geologically speaking, the Ring of Fire comprises explosive subduction-induced volcanoes rimming the Pacific Ocean, including those found in Japan and the west coast of the United States. These volcanoes create new crust to live and work on, thus the ‘rebirth’. What Exp 352 investigates how and why subduction starts. We hope to recover a geologic record of the first magmatic (lava) products of subduction in the Bonin forearc. We know subduction started around 50 million years ago in the region and determining the chemical make-up of these first lavas will help enormously to test competing models of how subduction starts.

Who am I? I am a lecturer in geology at Imperial’s department of Earth Science and Engineering: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.prytulak. I research igneous petrology (i.e. lavas and where they come from) and geochemistry (i.e the chemistry….of rocks). I sailed on the JOIDES Resolution in 2009 on IODP Exp. 324 to the Shatsky Rise – a “large igneous province” in the Pacific Ocean. This is my first attempt to ‘blog’, so expect some level of incompetence.

What is this blog about?

I am constantly impressed by the quality and dedication of our education officers, who sail with us, in communicating science to the public. For example, check out the initial post of 352’s education officer, Amy West: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/18/going-on-a-rock-cruise/

Thus instead of (poorly) re-inventing the wheel, I’ll stick with what I (should) know – the life of a science party member. I’ll convey how we go about meeting our expedition goals through recounting day-to-day experiences. And I’ll try not to be too dull. No promises.

Entry One

PORT CALL: Yokohama, Japan

“Port call” is where all wide-eyed scientists meet each other – many for the first time – to finish our logistical and mental preparations to sail.

The life of a science party member begins much the same as any international traveller. They are first responsible for navigating themselves to the point of departure. Not a major hurdle, since geologists are frequent travellers due to field-work and various international conferences. However, transporting 2 months worth of ‘stuff’ is less commonplace. My grand entrance into Japan, saw me armed with a massive suitcase and an indicated stay of ‘3 days’. Quite understandably, this resulted in a full luggage search. My ability to communicate ‘I am going on a boat from Yokohama for 2 months” was pointedly unsuccessful (later the word ‘ship’ proved much more useful). The very polite customs agent found no contraband other than my (unopened) 80 bags of Yorkshire Gold, which, thankfully, I was allowed to keep…because we would have had a real problem if not. I was then on my way from Tokyo Narita to Yokohama.

Yokohama is located about 80 minutes by train south of Narita airport. Anyone familiar with the city, will recognize my obligatory photo of the ferris wheel. I would also be remiss in a blog about everyday experiences not to include an instructive toilet photo. Every traveller must confront the puzzle: of how, exactly, to flush these things. Hit the wrong button, and many surprises can and will result.

Toilets aside, this trip I was met with a new and unexpected challenge. Upon arrival at my hotel, jet-lagged and bedraggled, all I wanted was to crash out for a brief time. Thinking in a surprisingly logical way, I surmised that the worst-case scenario for the next few hours would be to be disturbed. So my hunt began for the commonplace ‘do not disturb’ door sign which graces the interior of every European and north American hotel room I have ever been in. But where was it? Let me be clear, I had been travelling/awake for some 24 hours at this point. After a good 15 minutes of an increasingly frantic search, my (ill) logical state of mind concluded that it simply must have been forgotten from my room. Now the distasteful prospect loomed of re-emerging and trying to explain my issue to the hotel staff. The staff are wonderful, but are having some difficulty with my accents eclectic mix of Canadian-Bristolian-Londoner, which I’m told by English-speakers is….distinctive.

I mentally prepared myself for the task ahead, and just as I opened my door, something caught my tired eyes. A panel. A simple push of a button. A happy combination of relief and fatigue flooded me.

The science party boards the JOIDES Resolution tomorrow morning (July 31^st). Next post, I expect to provide an initial glimpse into cabin life, which, one hopes, will be less complicated.

30^th July 2014

 

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