Science Report:
We've completed the first portion of out work at Axial Volcano and are on our way south to the Cleft segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge. We plan to spend several days sampling and mapping along the Cleft segment and in the Blanco Fracture Zone before heading back north to complete our work at Axial Volcano.The VENTS Program has been studying the Cleft segment every year since 1983. This work constitutes the longest yearly time-series at any ridge segment on the planet.

We are now into our fourth day of sampling and are more or less in a comfortable-though arduous-routine. We have managed to work out most of the equipment bugs that occur early during a cruise. Yesterday, for example, we began to notice that our workhorse instrument, the CTD, was introducing electronic noise into some of the data channels. A few easy changes did not solve the problem and we determined that the main electronic package-the "fish"-must have developed a fault. Since the fish is too complex to repair out here we decided to swap it for our spare. We have a spare for almost everything we take to sea, since even though failures are not common there is no electronic shop or hardware store around the corner out here! So while the ship spent several hours steaming 40 miles south to the Cleft segment and many of the scientists could enjoy a short break in their constant duties, some of us spent the time tearing apart the CTD package and installing a new fish. That effort was rewarded on the next cast by the return of "clean" data on all channels.

As of July 24th we have collected over 40 hours of CTD data and more than 200 water samples. Many different scientists subsample each water sample. You can follow our daily progress on the accompanying chart. We will be sampling until August 3rd. How many water samples and CTD hours do you think we'll have when we're done?