During a Swath yesterday, the Geophysical Surveying and Mapping team of scientists, mapped a deep ocean trench located in the North Eastern Coral Sea – the South Rennell Trough.
Today we were lucky enough to be given a tour of the Engine and Winch rooms on RV Investigator, led by Chief Engineer Sam Bensen.
I was lucky enough to be allowed to use the multibeam processing software “HIPS and SIPS” to develop a 3D image of a previously unmapped area of the sea floor.
Over the past day or so the RV Investigator has been stopping at different parts of the Pocklington Trough to collect rock samples.
This RV Investigator voyage now takes us to the Louisiade Plateau, which sits at the northern end of the Tasmantid chain of underwater volcanoes.
Scientists collect extensive data to map the sea floor – the process of determining the depth of the ocean floor at different points is called bathymetry.
RV Investigator has multiple sensors on board that continuously collect data - 24 hours every day at sea. The data is collected and then displayed graphically in a program called Grafana.
On the morning of Sunday 18th August – success! Four black rock samples collected in the morning dredge.
Meet Jeremy Horowitz, the On-Board Biologist.
