Dive #34 – Daikoku Seamount – FK161129 – SuBastian (Dive 1)
Date: 12/2/2016
Location: Daikoku Seamount (21.3°N)
Depth: 410 m
Work Completed: Look at the animals and trying to understand the geologic and chemical basis of hot vents.
Dive #35 – Daikoku Seamount – FK161129 – SuBastian (Dive 2)
Date: 12/3/2016
Location: Daikoku Seamount (21.3°N)
Depth: 410 m
Work Completed: Collected more sulfur samples and explored the region.
Dive #36 – Chamorro Seamount – FK161129 – SuBastian (Dive 3)
Date: 12/4/2016
Location: Chamorro Seamount (20.8°N)
Depth: 410 m
Work Completed: Sampling of fluids and microbes, animals, sulfides, lavas.
Other: Okeanos dove this in the summer and discovered some new vents. Another hydrothermally active Mariana arc volcano with a bunch of small sulfide chimneys on bare lava rock with shimmering clear vent fluids. Vent animals included “hairy snails” and shrimp. No molten sulfur on the bottom, no billowing white plumes, no “pit of death”.
Dive #37 – Alice Springs – FK161129 – SuBastian (Dive 4)
Date: 12/5/2016
Location: Alice Springs (18.2°N)
Depth: 3900 m
Work Completed: Located and sampled fluids, snails, worms, crabs, rocks and sulfides to better understand this deep ocean ecosystem.
Other: First dive of this expedition in the deeper back-arc basin at Alice Springs.
Dive #38 – Alice Springs – FK161129 – SuBastian (Dive 5)
Date: 12/6/2016
Location: Alice Springs (18.2°N) (BACK ARC)
Depth: 3900 m
Work Completed:
Other: Dive was aborted due to INS failure.
Dive #39 – Alice Springs – FK161129 – SuBastian (Dive 6)
Date: 12/6/2016
Location: Alice Springs (18.2°N) (BACK ARC)
Depth: 3900 m
Work Completed: Similar to yesterday’s dive in the deeper back-arc basin at Alice Springs, except looking for higher temperatures. Locate and sampled fluids, snails, worms, crabs, rocks and sulfides to better understand this deep ocean ecosystem. Should be similar to today’s dive (although we’re looking for higher temperatures). Snail with a temperature logger in it.
Dive #40 – Alice Springs – Burke Vent Field -FK161129 – SuBastian (Dive 7)
Date: 12/7/2016
Location: Alice Springs – Burke Vent Field (BACK ARC)
Dive #41 – New vent site at 17N (unnamed) – FK161129 – SuBastian
Date: 12/8/2016
Location: (17°N)
Depth: 3,400 m
Work Completed: temperature samples, exploration, shrimp samples
Other: This is the first of the 3 new hydrothermal vent sites discovered last year on Falkor. This site has a series of active chimneys with large biological communities. Okeanos Explorer dove here in the spring and found black smoker chimneys.
FK161129 – SuBastian – Dive #42 – New vent site (Dive 9)
Date: 12/9/2016
Location: (17°N)
Depth: 3,400 m
Dive #43 – New vent site at 17N (unnamed) – FK161129 – SuBastian
Date: 12/10/2016
Location: (17°N)
Depth: 3,280 m
Work Completed: Temperature samples, exploration
Other: This dive will start 1 km north of the chimneys that we have been diving on. The science team will search around a breached volcanic cone that had some evidence of venting from our AUV Sentry dive last year. We will do some sampling at the chimneys where we hope to get high and low temperature vent fluids.
Dive #44 – New vent site at 17N (unnamed) – FK161129 – SuBastian
Date: 12/11/2016
Location: (17°N)
Depth: 3,280 m
Work Completed: Temperature samples, exploration
Other: Our 4th dive today at the 17°N vent field, which we have decided to call the Hafa Adai Vent field. Dive will start at the still unexplored eastern extent of the vent field, then move to the western end to the smoker chimney we called Two Towers, then move to the Voodoo Cone in the center of the vent field for the rest of the dive (where we recover the Hula Temperature Array at the end of the dive). That Voodoo Cone has gotten more and more intriguing over the last few days as we’ve discovered that it is composed of blocks of sulfide, not lava as we had been assuming, meaning there was some sort of hydrothermal explosion there.
Dive #45 – New lava flow site at 15.4N – FK161129 – SuBastian
Date: 12/12/2016
Location: New lava flow site at 15.4
Depth: 4060m-~4550m
Work completed: This area had recent lava flows, forming lava pillows. ROV SuBastian surveyed the area and discovered a vertical lava flow. Many samples of the lava were collected for analysis. The team surveyed the biological life and collected some water samples. These sites are much cooler and do not host the same level of life as the hydrothermal vents; the team saw some crabs and lobsters, a sea cucumber, brittle stars, and a few anemones. The dive ended early before moving to the Southern site due to high winds.
Dive #47 – New vent site 15.5 (unnamed) – FK161129 – SuBastian
Date: 12/15/2016
Location: New lava flow site at 15.4
Depth: 3900m
Other: Diving on a brand new site 3900m deep in the Mariana Back-arc. We have seen plume signals indicating hydrothermal activity, now we have to find where they are coming from. Keep your eyes peeled for a ‘breadcrumb trail’ of vent animals, shrimp, squat lobsters, crabs and snails which will lead us to the hydrothermal vents.
