Science
Report: ROPOS was back in the
water at 2 am this morning to begin dive 542. This dive included moving
the second batch of 5 extensometer instruments from the elevator mooring
to their bases that were laid out last summer across the axis of spreading.
We have also been making precise pressure measurements at each instrument
site to monitor for any vertical movements of the seafloor across the array.
Finally ROPOS has been able to successfully download data collected by the
6 extensometers that were on the seafloor since yesterday via an infrared
data port, similar to the infrared ports on many laptop computers today.
So far it looks like all the instruments are working properly (big sigh
of relief!). ROPOS will stay down until tomorrow morning when we will depart
the south Cleft site for Axial Volcano where we will spend the rest of this
NeMO 2000 expedition.
View of
extensometer mooring resting on the bottom.
