August 10, 2026
Today my shift started at a very comfortable 0000 (12 am) as the ship was transiting to the Oregon Offshore site. Alex and I spent the first hour standing by and awaiting any directions as the ship was still a few hours from reaching the site. We spent this time brainstorming for our eventual projects and keeping ourselves energized for our early shift. At around 0100 we began preparations to lower a CTD into the water so that we would be ready to launch as soon as we got to site. CTD stands for conductivity, temperature, and depth, and it is a system of instruments that measures just that, as well as many other things such as pH, salinity, and chlorophyll-a. CTD instruments are commonlyn attached to a round metal frame that houses multiple plastic tubes called Niskin bottles, which are containers that are open as they enter the water column and fill with ocean water. They can be closed remotely at will from the lab on the ship, allowing for water samples to be taken at various depths. It is extremely common to have a myriad of instruments together in one system to make each cast and operation as efficient as possible. The more data we can get with less work, the better.
The preparation work we had to do was priming the Niskin bottles by latching them open so that the spring-loaded mechanism can activate at the push of a scientist’s button, closing the bottle and securing the water sample inside. Once the ship arrived on site, with the help of the winch operator, the CTD was lowered into the water to a depth of 220 meters. With 24 primed Niskin bottles, the scientist on watch, Joe, proceeded to take two water samples every 20 meters. After a lengthy spell of water sample collecting, the CTD was hauled back aboard the ship, and the water was ready to be collected into various flasks for nutrient, dissolved inorganic carbon, and dissolved oxygen analysis. This involved going back and forth between our log books and the Niskin bottles to note which flasks were filled with water from certain depths. When we were relieved by the next shift at 0400, I headed immediately to bed.
I slept until 1100, just in time to witness Jason come up from having just swapped the Oregon Offshore’s Benthic Experiment Package. At 1200, it was time for my turn in the Jason control van which involved an operation to replace the Digital Still Camera. This operation relied heavily on very precise and calculated movements with Jason as the Digital Still Camera and its cables are more fragile than most of the other instruments. The Digital Still Camera is also mounted on a tripod, so it was more prone to being unstable, as opposed to the two box-like instruments I had previously helped log in the control van.
Once again, I was in awe of the engineering of Jason, as well as the precise coordination between the Jason operation team. The communication between the navigator, the pilot, the engineer, and the hot seat (RCA dive lead), was fluid and efficient. This operation was at a depth of about 580 meters, deeper than our previous dives which meant the lifeforms present were much different. There were plenty of black cod surrounding the entire instrumentation area, and occasionally the ones who were too curious ended up being sucked into the Jason turbines and end up mutilated. It was morbidly humorous to be focused on our operation and then see a section of black cod gill float into focus. My shift ended at 1600, where the next set of my peers took over and the operation hit its final stride by taking some 4k highlight videos.
Following the end of that operation, we began our transit to the Southern Hydrate Ridge. All of us students were taken to the main deck by Mariela to witness deployment of an XBT (Expendable BathyThermograph), which is a disposable probe that is dropped into the water and is attached to an extremely thin strand of copper wire. This probe falls a certain depth into the water column sending real time data back to the ship before the wire eventually is snapped either by the scientists or on its own and sinks to the seafloor, hence its expendability. Since the housing of the XBT looks almost identical to a t-shirt cannon, we were all led under the false premise by Mariela that we needed PPE; hard hats, safety goggles and life vests, when in fact the probe is anticlimactically just dropped into the water, not launched. Being a student means you’re subject to be tricked occasionally.
Dinner was a hearty selection of chicken thighs and salmon with sundried tomato sauce as well as rice and focaccia. After a few hours napping to rest up for my next shift, I awoke at around 2230 and caught the beginnings of the descent for Dive J2-1780 to swap the Southern Hydrate Ridge Digital Still Camera. What greeted me as I was still waking up was a pair of curious blue sharks following Jason’s descent, streamed down to the Main Lab monitors. I made my way to the control van and witnessed even more lifeforms as the ROV descended, jellyfish, zooplankton, and lanternfish. By the time we had reached the bottom of the Southern Hydrate Ridge, it was almost 0000 again and time for my shift.
August 9, 2026
Today is our first full day aboard the ship R/V Roger Revelle. We started bright and early with breakfast at 0730 to fuel up for our first scientific operations of the trip. Fruit, eggs, sausage, bacon, and chocolate chip pancakes were my foods of choice. At 0830 all students were taken to the ROV Jason control room to get a feel of where we were going to spend most of our time. Among other things, we are entrusted with the task of logging the actions of the dives and capturing important footage during the dives. It is important that we track every movement the ROV makes to have an accurate recount of the operation. At 0930 we were taken to see the ship’s CTD and become familiar with priming the Niskin bottles for water sampling. We made sure to have a good idea of everything we were working with before we head off to the first site.
After about a one-hour transit starting at 1000, we arrived at the Oregon Shelf site for our first three Jason dives. After a quick lunch of a turkey-duck wrap with sweet potato fries and a final safety orientation, Alex and I were the first students thrown into the seats of the control van to help operate Jason. The goal of the dives was to recover and replace the Benthic Experiment Package; a large system of various instruments housed in one chassis. When we came upon the old BEP deployed in 2025, the Jason operators skillfully navigated using Jason’s two robotic arms to open the doors of the old BEP frame and disconnect the main cable. The 2025 BEP frame was home to a plethora of organisms including various anemones, sea stars, various fish of differing sizes, and most abundantly a large population of sole. The organisms had grown so much that they covered the cable connector with two large white anemones making their home on the connection point. The Jason operators were able to successfully transfer the main cable from the old BEP frame to the new one. The dive finished with Jason attaching itself to the 2025 BEP frame and bringing up all the 2025 instrumentation, leaving a sparkling new system of instruments down at the bottom of the sea. As the dive finished, so did my time in the control van for the day, handing off the responsibility of logging the dive actions to my peers for the next dive. My next shift begins at 0000 (12 am) so I took the chance to take a quick nap for a little over an hour before getting up to grab dinner, which was ribeye steaks with garlic noodles and potatoes.
I went to the main deck to take a closer look at the 2025 BEP that was brought up and the Digital Still Camera installed in 2025 that was swapped while I napped and ate dinner. Among the thousands of barnacles crusting over the two instruments, I spotted a few critters clinging to life including a few squat lobsters, hermit crabs, and anemones. Benthic instruments often have various life forms inhabiting them, making opportunistic use of the shelter. They almost become like island-like communities on the ocean bottom. I once met a researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution whose research revolves heavily around benthic hard-bottom island habitat colonization.
We then had the third Jason dive of the day, an operation to recover the 2025 zooplankton platform that hosts a bio-acoustic sonar. I followed along with the live video feed to the Main ship lab and periodically watched from the back of the control van. The bio-acoustic sonar emits sound waves into the water column that bounce off organisms back towards the sensor creating what is known as backscatter. This is useful for estimating biomass and tracking vertical migration of zooplankton. Once again, this dive involves disconnecting cables from instrumentation deployed last year and plugging them into new ones. It is impressive how strong, mobile, and precise the arms of Jason are. The level of engineering that goes into ROVs is incredible.