Now that we have begun our true transit to Hobart, CAPSTAN activities have largely switched from hands on sample collection to data processing and seminars touching on the breadth of marine science represented by the trainers. Over-the-side deployments have stopped, except for an occasional ARGO, but the mammal and bird watches faithfully continue during daylight hours!
An albatross visits the ship.
The students (hear more from them here) have now split into ‘specialty’ groups to work up their final reports (hydrochemistry, geophysics, sedimentology, plankton, and observations), with each final presentation being a group of 5 (one of each specialty).
Our student group of geophysics/acoustics specialists meet with Tom and Matt in the operations room to discuss their findings. We’ve filled in many holes on the bathymetric maps for the western edge of the Great Australian Bight on this trip!
The sediment group continues to pick their way through the rock dredge material and have just opened the first of the cores! Even though the students are mainly focused on their specialty, we’ll get all the students through the seds lab one more time to get practice with core logging.
On site, CAPSTAN trainer Tom and students celebrate a successful gravity core recovery! Photo credit: Jochen K.
Also added to the rotations in the next couple of days, the bridge-the control center for the ship! The crew have offered to have small groups of students rotate up to deck 6 to learn about the ship’s operations. I definitely plan on joining one of the rotations!
Ship’s navigational charts. Notice the ship’s position on the screen, right below the label ‘Southern Ocean’ and the glassy calm water out the bridge window looking over the bow.
The seas have been incredibly calm and the skies have cleared in time for some amazing sunsets- we even have been able to witness the legendary green flash! While some believe the green flash is strictly Hollywood lore or tall tales from sailors, it does exist (but not the Pirates of the Caribbean streak across the entire sky). The physics behind the occurrence are fascinating.
The legendary green flash! Only possible on nights when there is an uninterrupted view to the horizon and clear skies.
According to the Triton, the first reference of the green flash was in The Green Ray by Jules Verne in 1882. The green flash occurs only under very specific atmospheric conditions. Specifically, we require vertical gradients of temperature in the atmosphere (such as warm air over cold air) to change the refraction of the light through an “optical mirage.” Remember that the full spectrum of colored light is not visible at all times of the day (that is why the sun appears white overhead when all colors are visible and orange or red when low on the horizon and several of the wavelengths have disappeared). This is true because the red and orange end of the visible light spectrum have longer wavelengths while the blues and violets have shorter wavelengths, and these shorter wavelengths disperse out of sight when the sun is at lower angles in the sky- why? Incoming rays just above the horizon need to pass through nearly 40x more atmosphere than when the sun is directly overhead (simple trig)! This means, with clear skies and the right atmospheric conditions for the green light to be refracted exactly towards the observer the green part of the spectrum becomes visible for a split second after the sun sinks below the horizon.
Electromagnetic Spectrum (from Quora) showing the wavelengths of the different colors in the visible realm.
On a research ship you never really get a weekend, ship operation is extremely expensive and every minute on board is precious. But it is still essential to take care of yourself and build the community on board. It doesn’t really take all that much, small spins on the routine are always refreshing. This voyage we’ve had Saturday Shirt Fever (wear your best and brightest shirt!), Wacky Wigs, an engineer’s BBQ, and 4 (!!!!) birthdays! There’s also routine fun- the Settlers of Catan game after dinner every night, the regular challenges in ping pong or fooseball, and movies in the lounge. Fooseball is all the more exciting when you’re never quite sure whose team the waves will be on!
Gathering on deck to watch the sunset!
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