Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount Seismic Experiment

Jingxuan and Jake recover an OBS At 4:15 am local time today, we emitted the final sound pulse from our seismic source, marking the end of seismic data collection for our cruise.    We’ll spend the next ~6 hours picking up our seismic gear, and then we will begin steaming towards Honolulu.     It’s been an epic, 40-day-long voyage.   We deployed and recovered 70 ocean bottom seismometers for our experiment in water depths as great as ~3.4 miles, picked up 12 OBS deployed for a separate rapid response effort to the activity at Kilauea, and acquired data on over 2000 miles of track lines.   Preliminary onboard processing has already revealed interesting and important geological structures beneath the seafloor that will tell us both about fundamental earth processes that built the Hawaiian Islands and about geohazards for this region.   Although we have been out here for a long time and have collected a really amazing dataset, I still couldn’t help but feel a little melancholy when

The first thing that often comes to mind on what is needed to collect scientific data in the oceans is the kit. The ship. The streamer. The seismic source. The ocean bottom seismometers.   And we certainly need all of those things to do our science. But far and away, the most important thing is the people.   It would not be possible for the scientific community to make important and innovative observations in the oceans without the expertise, professionalism and commitment of the technical staff and crew of our marine facilities.    The people are unquestionably the most valuable and irreplaceable part of marine scientific endeavors. The marine seismic community has greatly benefitted from the knowledge and dedication of the technical and administrative staff and crew of the R/V Marcus G. Langseth and the ocean bottom seismometer teams from Scripps, WHOI and LDEO.   These people make it work. The Langseth technical staff celebrating Dave's 10th work anniversary.

We have spent the last 19 days traveling almost 2000 miles at the leisurely speed of 7 miles an hour, trailing a seismic streamer almost the length of Manhattan and collecting beautiful seismic data.   More soon on that!   But yesterday we wrapped up data collection, and started reeling in the seismic streamer as we watched the sun rise over the Big Island.   It took only ~11 hours to retrieve all of our seismic reflection gear - speedy!   Now we just need to pick up the 70 ocean bottom seismometers that we left on the seafloor…   Todd, Dan and Seis pulling in the streamer at dawn. I swear the lovely background is not fake. Seismic streamer with 'bird' for depth control, returning to the ship. Sunrise over the Big Island in the background. Donna Shillington - LDEO