That's it. Tomorrow we will desembark. I am not sure how good I was at this first try of having a blog. Sometimes it was hard to find new content, sometimes I was too tired, sometimes it was just better to keep it for myself.
We had a very nice sunset. We are so close to land that we have phone signal and I was able to call my parents from the helideck. That was really nice: they wanted to see who was around me and some of the people wanted to say hi as well. 

Tomorrow we will disembark (did I aready say that?). This time, I am happy to leave the ship. I am happy to hug my family. I am also grateful, as a scientist, that I was part of this amazing and successful Expedition. We found very interesting things, and this science will keep us busy for year to come. 

And, save for this, I put my hands on two different tectonic plates at the same time!  I mean... this is pretty cool, even for non geologists!

I had few broadcast with shore during this expedition. The first one was the important one with IODP - Italy, the following two were with colleagues and students from the University of Chieti-Pescara and the University of Turin, and I was way more relaxed. The last one, today, was with my son's school. And this is the broadcast that didn't make me sleep at night. This was actually my idea, to get to see hime a bit more than the allowed 10 minutes per day. But there were also deeper reasons.
Before leaving my son asked "why do you have to go on the boat?". I gave him a super good answer ("because mamma is very good at doing her job!"), but the truth is that I've been asking myself this question over and over again during the first 3 or 4 weeks at sea (and still occasionally asking). Why? WHY?  Why I was not there when he was sick. Why I was not there when the cat died? When he had a shot. When he has a nightmare. How this is and will affect him? Why the heck (and I am biting my tongue here) am I doing this?! The science is beautiful, but I  miss him terribly. The scientist is excited, but the mother feels really really guilty. So I wanted to show him and his friends what I am doing here. But how do you engage a group of kids in the pre-school age? I planted stuffed animals in each lab: the frog was a sedimentologist, the dolphins were image specialists, the dinosaur was checking moisture and density, the chicken the interstitial water, and of course the unicorn was in the laboratory of paleomagnetism.
I went a bit too fast with the tour, but luckily I had some good help from ship, with Natsumi 2nd following me with the phone and the stabilizer (that I will never be able to use on my own!), and from shore, with Lisa being a much better science communicator than me, and the inflatable model of the JR that won on everything else! 

and I wonder
(I wonder how, I wonder why...)

We are having so many outreach officers during this Expedition! Outreach are the people that take care of communicationg our science to the public. It is a very important job, and requires a lot of creativity. With the helicopter going back and forth all the time, outreaches come on board, stay a couple of weeks, then leave. Initially I was really skeptical about this. Two weeks are not enough to get to know the science and the scientists. But after I saw what they are doing... I changed my mind and I am so impressed by their many talents!

Here they are, in random order:
Dan Brinkhuis & Dick Peterse (but, really, just Dan & Dick): videographers and photographers from Science media NL. Before arriving on board they were described to us as people that were going to stick their cameras on our faces and possibly make us uncomfortable. The truth is they took beautiful pictures and realized amazing videos (here is an example about the Expedition objectives). They left yesterday and that made me really sad. Dan arrived on board when I was not having a good time (the kid was sick, the cat died, and so on...). We didn't spend a lot of time together, but he always had a nice word, a caring word, for me. It was certainly not his job. I was quite sad to see him going. Luckily I am in a much better place now. 

Will Grant: he was here to make anonymous interviews about science communication. He also gave a little presentation for us, the scientists,  with some examples on how to communicate science efectively. After talking with him I realized my blog was too personal and I went silent for few days. Then I kept writing, because my friends and family are following me, but I am still worried this is going to backfire one day. 

Natsumi Nakano (known as Natsumi 2nd. There are many Natsumis involved in Exp 405!). She works at Jamstec but she used to work at  the Miraikan museum in Tokyo, when they had a special exhibit  on the Chikyu. Since then, it has been her dream to sail on  the Chikyu. Maybe that's why the first time she was onboard on board she was a ball of energy. Now that she is back for the secon time during the same Expedition, her energy levels normalized and I am constantly worried that she is not ok! Her favorite Italian sentence is: Ho fame (which, my old University mates would knows, a very recurrent sentence of mine!). That, alone, is already a good reason to like her!

Natsumi Miura (Natsumi 3rd) and Yoshinori Kurata (just Yoshi):  they both work at the Miraikan museum but they were on board at different times. Because if the barrier language I  didn't interact a lot with them, but they are both sooooo enthusiastic! Yoshinori is on board now and, with Natsumi 2nd, is helping Nur translating her comics. I may go visit Yoshi and Natsumi 3rd at the Miraikan during my vacation in Tokyo. I also just found out that Natsumi 3rd has a blog too and has been writing about the Expedition.

Nur Schuba: she is a scientists (another structural geologist!), but she is on board as an outreach officer. She is making Comics and, WOW (non as in Waiting on Weather, but as WOW I love them!). There have been many artists drawing comics on ocean drilling, but I just really love her style and humor. Her work should be start to be published soon, but you can see some of her previous work here and here. The comic about me, the paleomagnetist, should be ready soon, right on time for my outreach with my kid's school!

Lisa Smith: she is the ANZIC outreach officer and she is making short videos on the scientists and on the life on board. Here is an example. I will have my interview tomorrow. I can resist just 2 min!

Beatriz-Martinex Rius: she works for Jamstec and was also making interviews for a project called Tales of the ocean. I didn't do an interview for three reasons: a. I had too much work when she arrived; b. I was not in the mood for the already mentioned reasons; c. after she mentioned that she likes to interview young scientists outside I was too scared that she was going to interview me inside. I do regret it a little, because the tales of the ocean are really nice.

Maya Pincus: here it is an another ball of positive energy! Maya is a Science communicator officer and she is posting about the expedition on the U.S. scientific ocean drilling social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook). That's why right now on social media it looks like the JR had an identity crisis right after retirement.

I think I am done outreaching the outreachers. I didn't realize they were so many! 

Being a non native speaker (as you may have noticed from my SLIGHT Italian accent or my abundant grammar errors) I find some figures of speech/ways of speaking in the English language rather funny. One of them is the popular terminology: "it's not rocket science" meaning that something is difficult to understand. This implies that rocket science, that is the aerospace engineering and orbital mechanics indeed, is very difficult to understand, to build, to happen. There are more and more parallelisms between reaching the stars and exploring the seafloor. As I am writing, year 2024, we have more knowledge of the map of the moon than what is right under our b..oats (sorry, I also like puns!). And, as 70% of our Earth is actually covered by water, there is a lot that we still don't know. It is hard to map all the ocean floor, much harder to see what is underneath, or what happens there as time passes.

During this very last IODP Expedition, we are adding some more tiles to the puzzle. The science we are getting out of it is really exciting. One of the things we are doing is to install an observatory inside a hole drilled at the bottom of the ocean floor. In very poor words, first we drill an hole at the bottom of the ocean floor (about 7000 meters here), then we pull out of hole (in jarkon: POOH. If you are an Italian of a certain age this one will make you either sing or laugh) and go back with a rope filled with temperature sensors that will monitor the changes in the hole. In one year the ship will come back and grab the hook at the of the sensor to pull them out of the hole. Does this look easy to you? You are not even able to put a thread in the needle that is right in front of your nose!

To me, this IS rocket science, just upside down. 

It's December 2nd, only 18 days left till the end of the Expedition. My alarm goes off and it's just past 10 pm. I should get up and go to the gym, but it is getting harder and harder to find the energies. 
"Core on deck! Core on deck". According to the plan this should be the last but one core on deck. But instead of putting on my gym clothes, I put my regular shipboard clothes (meaning something between a sweatsuit and a pj) and I go have a look.
It's the last core!

It is the last core on deck. 

The last of the International Ocean Discovery Program. 

I knew this moment was coming, but I cannot believe it. It is a nice core. It is what we were looking for. But I cannot smile. And, yes, the Expedition, the last IODP Expedition, is not over, as we still have cool things to do (installing the observatory!). And, yes, the program changed several times in over 5 decades, and this is not the first last core on deck. Yes, there will be more ocean drilling. New beginnings. But right now there is this end. And, no matter what you say, it is a sad moment in ocean science. 

"I saw a rock, it was grey..ish". If we were to describe our outcrops like that we would soon end up with lot of grey rocks, that however could be very different, and we would also quickly forgot where the specific grey rock was and what were its characteristics. That is why we define formal stratigraphic units, that are defined by the geographic name of where the rock was first or more completely described, sometimes the lithological description, or the names of fossils inside. There are few exceptions to this rule, or I should say a lot of exceptions in I refer to the geology of Italy, where many Formation names where defined before the rules.

However, if we where to follow this stratigraphic nimencalture on the Logs obtained through ocean drilling, the Formation should be called something like "Hole C00XX Grey marls", but those grey marls could be very similar to an adjacent hole, and, especially, will most probably change with depth to another color and content.

Se we give these rocks very basic (boring) names: Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3... and so on, from top to bottom. Now, already the top to bottom naming would give any geologist that was first trained on land an headache. We usually name things from bottom to top, which (usually, nut not always!) correspond to an older to younger sequence. Cringes for the downward sequence apart, the truth is that the Units we found all have a very informal name, a nickname if you want, that allow us to understand what we are talking about much faster. So you would say: "I found this in Unit X" and see all the question marks lighting up on the scientist's head, until you add: "the chocolate fudge!"  Aaaaaaah!

Here we got (not in stratigraphic order): Olive black, chocolate fudge (also called Nutella), pumpkin, icecream... . Have you noticed they all have something to do with food? I did. They make me hungry! And the ice cream layers makes me craving the Gelato place in my hometown (did you know gelato and ice cream are NOT the same thing?!?). I am inviting everyone to visit! 

It depends! There are some scales here and there on the ship. One is in the helicopter room, to weight your luggage before the flight, one is in the library, one is in the mess room (How cruel is that? are you trying to tell me something?). But there is not easy answer to this question. As the ship goes up and down with the waves, this translate to a weight that is constantly changing on the scale. The +/- error depends on the wave height (but also on the mass).

You can especially feel that increase and decrease of gravity also when you go up the stairs: one step you feel like you are in a great shape, and at the following one you feel like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on your shoulder, and especially your legs.

We are scientist and we like both precision and accuracy. So how do we weight our samples? I don't want to go upstairs and take a picture right now (I am tired of fighting gravity today), but we use two precision scales instead of one: one is for the sample, one is for the tare. The difference will tell us the exact weight, even in a constantly changing gravity.

To weight myself, instead, I just keep my eyes open when the ship is going down!

We got a day off! This is not at all common on the ship, but after being helicoptered out here in the middle of craziness, after all the tensions, and as we had a break in operations, co-chiefs realizes it was wise to give us a break.

There are different options of things to do, ping pong tournament, playing with the Wii, watching a movie... Me? I look like my cat died (indeed...) and I didn't really feel up to do anything social, just watch a movie (as long as there are no cats in it), went to the gym, read a book. On Exp 368 my book choice was very poor: War and Peace by Tolstoj. Not only it took almost 1 kg of allowance in my bag, but was really impossible to read, to keep in mind all the names (to add up to all the scientist's ones!). This time I have an e-book (my sister got it to me as a present when I was supposed to sail Exp 395) and I got the perfect book: The city and its Uncertain Walls by Murakami. A book gives you shelter in another world, and Murakami's stories have a world inside the world that really carry me away from reality. I don't have much time to read it, but I am really enjoying it. I also have a book on mindfulness (guess what? My sister's present!), that would probably help, but till now I've only been able to look at its cover.
Truth it I almost feel lost in this day off, and don't know exactly what to do!

Few hours ago I was invited as a speaker at the event "The future is in the ocean: the hidden face of the planet" - that was held at the CNR headquarters in Rome. About 300 students from middle and high schools participated.

I had to get up in the middle of the night, since the event was in the morning in Italy, hence during my sleep time. (Did I mention how much I value my sleep? But this was worth it!)

Before and after me there were many interesting contributions including a tribute to Maria Bianca Cita Sironi (a pioneer in ocean science), a call with the research vessel Gaia Blu, that is investigating historical earthquakes too, but in the Adriatic Sea, and other speakers. I was not able to follow the whole event because we cannot abuse the internet!  

Annalisa Iadanza, who works for IODP-Italy and I have known for many years, introduced me and interviewed me. We only had half an hour so I couldn't show too much of the labs. We also wanted to answer questions form the students. Greta, Andrea, and Edoardo asked me interesting questions. I was expecting questions about the life on board, but they were more interested in the scientific and technical aspect. That's great! 

These outreach events are very important for  non-scientists to understand what we do, and why we do it. They are especially important for young people in hopes that we can inspire them to be scientists of the future! This is a great responsibility. 

Thank you to the organizers of the event for inviting me.

Don't get too excited: it is a sampling party. Those are pretty much the only parties we can aim for here on the Chikyu. They are not funny. They are exhausting!

We want cubes (paleomagnetism), we want scoops (various kind of dating, diffraction, biomarkers...), we want slices (paleontology, friction analysis...)... we are so needy! Eventually everyone will have access to this material, or at least what is left of it, but as we are the selected scientists selected to participate to the expedition, we get to sample and study them first. It is only fair if you thing to the time spent far from home, and the sleep deprivation! And don't worry: we are only sampling half of the core. The other half will be preserved as an archive.

Unfortunately or fortunately, these rocks are super interesting, and we riddling them! There is a video of me sampling at high speed, but last sampling party was more like a rave: it lasted 6 hours! At least this time it was during my shift. 

Have you ever done a CT scan? If you had one in modern days, they may have given you s CD-rom with weird folders and images in it. Normally, as patients, we don't really know how to read that CD-rom, nevertheless the images in it.
The CT scan is a special X-ray detector that instead of a single shot takes multiple shots, that mounted together give you a 3D visualization, and allow you to have a look along any section you wish.

Here on the ship we have a very fancy CT scan. I would have loved to check on the status of my knees, but this one is for rocks only. The sections (I guess I will eventually have to explain what a section is one of these days) are scanned before they go through any other process, while they are still whole rounds. This allow us to see what is the attitude of the bedding, if there are faults, if the drilling caused disturbance (this is a very important information for me as a paleomagnetist), and if there is anything special surprise inside. The other day we found a shark tooth! This is cool per se, but also really important as it may help us to give an age to our rocks.

The CT scanning does not take too long, whereas looking at the images requires some experience. And for sure we don't have the problem of the patient staying still!

PS: I forgot to mention that, when looking at such images, it is very difficult what is left, right, up, down, and the geometric relation between things. That's why technicians used a piece of liner to make a model of the coordinates in use. In this way, we can visualize it better. 

Today, talking with one of the outreach persons on board, I realized that I am talking a lot on this blog a lot about the "life style" on the ship. To make it clear, if you had any doubts: I am not on holiday! I am here, together with scientist from all over the world, to do science, and at the top level. It is actually a great responsibility towards the community, which is, at the end of the day, investing in this research.
The International Ocean Discovery Program had different name throughout its history, and refined its objectives during the decades. But what is this program? I consider it to be one the topmost research programs in Earth Science. IODP is to Earth what NASA is to space. And if you don't know this is because us, the scientists, are very bad at conveying this message. Why do we need to drill holes at the bottom of the ocean? The Earth is covered by 70% ocean, so in order to understand what's on over half of our planet this is the only way. The oceans supply a relatively uninterrupted record of history up to 200 Million years in the marine sediments and underlying rock. Did you know that we know more about the moon than about our own Planet? Isn't that crazy?

Enough with the philosophical dissertation, and back to the science. Each Expedition has its own scientific objectives, which may be focused on climate, biosphere, deep processes and hazards. This one is focused on understanding the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake and the massive tsunami it triggered. We aim to define the properties of the fault zone along the Japan Trench, where the 2011 earthquake occurred. Basically how frictional characteristics, permeability and chemical composition of fluids play a role in how earthquakes occur. We are also doing some paleoseismology, which is the study of earthquakes in the past. We are looking for traces of past tsunamis to reconstruct  the timeline of historical earthquakes, hence better understand earthquake recurrence patterns. 

The project involves drilling two sites across the Japan Trench: one in the area where the 2011 earthquake occurred, and the other one on the incoming plate.
The two sites are interesting for different reasons, but complement each other, and they are both fundamental to the success of the Expedition. 

Here are some pictures of my room, I mean my cabin, on the ship. Usually the room have two guests (on bunker beds! Can you picture me climbing up there?!) that work on opposite shift. In this way you are the only user of your room when you are off shift, but it also means that you need to remember to get everything you need with you when you "go" to work. Usually rooms also have a shared bathroom, with two doors. In this case it is important to lock the door to the other room when you are using the bathroom, but even more important to unlock it. Ah, the funny stories of me getting locked outside the bathroom on the JR when I was already ready to enter the shower...
Anyway, here on the Chikyu I lucked out and I have the cabin AND the bathroom all to myself. Occasionally I just share with Corno.

The amenities include: sink, shower (with extremely hot water and extremely high water pressure), two beds (in case I want to change perspective) both with an extremely hard mattresses; 4 drawers under the lower bunk; a desk; some shelfs; a couple of cabinets; and a couple of hooks. Extremely important: emergency gear in case of the evacuation of the ship (including life jacket, fire resistant gloves, respirator, suit for cold waters; remeber the drill?). 
There is also a phone, but if it rang I would just freak me out. Probably it is just for inner calls. And unicorns.

We work for 12 hours a day here on the ship. Ehm, let's say even 13 or 14 (against my will, to be clear!). It may seem like a lot (it is). However this is all we do.
Well, we eat, and we shower too, hopefully all of us. But there is a thing that we surely don't have to do: laundry!
Laundry on the ship is a kind of magic: you put a bag full of dirty clothes on your door, on an hook that says dirty, and you get them back in few hours on a hook that says clean, cleaned and nicely folded. Well, for sure folded better than I would fold them. This is definitely one of my favorite magic. It happens so fast that the first time I thought somebody moved the bag on the wrong hook without cleaning the clothes.
We've been told that ladies have the option of doing their own laundry if they want to. Ladies? LADIES? Why just ladies?!? Of course I said that out loud... But what if boys what to? Why assuming? Couldn't you just refer to persons? 

And mostly: why would I want to do so? 

It's a kind of magic! Magic!

On this Expedition we are lucky. Internet is pretty good (considering we are at sea!) and we were allowed to connect one device per person. I choose to connect my computer rather then my phone, as it is easier this way to access to work resources. Anyway I don't have the right wifi signal in my cabin, so it wouldn't make a big difference to have internet on my phone. We were asked, anyway, to be considerate: deactivate automatic downloads, and limit our personal and work video calls to 10 minutes per day.

Accustomed as we are to always be connected, this may sound like not much. But back in the days calling home, or even check emails, was really a luxury. I recently put my hands on a guide on what to expect when sailing on the JOIDES Resolution dated from 1994 that will give you an idea. Here is what it says: "Personal ship-to-shore and shore-to-ship communications are popular, but can be expensive. The least costly method is computer/satellite transmission; it is known as E-mail (they really had to explain what an e-mail is or they are just being sarcastic?!). There is no charge for E-mail; however, we ask that you not abuse the system (compare this t how may emails you receive per day nowadays!). You can make direct telephone calls

anytime by Marisat at $10 a minute, with a three-minute ($30) minimum. (30$ was the minimum cost to call home. THIRTY dollars!!!). "Ham" patches are sometimes possible by shortwave radio (I don't even know what they are talking about here, but vaguely remind me when I used to talk with a walkie-talkie to truck drivers - not sure my mom realized that :D). ODP will send you a letter (a letter!) to let your family know how to make contact with you in an emergency."

You can see now as 10 minutes of video call per day are actually a good deal!

Those who have known me for a long time might remember that I never liked Halloween. In fact, I was strongly against it. Not for religious reasons, but just because it was not a tradition that belonged to my culture. 

Look at me now: today at the beginning of my shift I was ready! I put a candy on each scientist's desk (until I ran out. Ops!), and a box full of treats outside the paleomagnetism lab. A ghost has been hanging around for few days and could be used as a costume if needed.

I guess my culture changed, and not only mine. Halloween is more and more celebrated in Italy, as well as in Japan. It is also true that on a ship every chance must be taken to raise the morale. 

However, while the ship was already full of decorations when we got on board (especially the mess hall and the lounge), the scientist don't seem to be so much into it... Some of them still appreciated the candy though.

In the mess hall (which the place where they serve meals) there are some televisions. I guess who first come changes channell, as they can be tuned on very different things, news, sports, cartoon... Today the movie Home alone was on air. I thought: oh, this can be fun.

It turnes out it was the last scene: the mother arrives home, opens the door and calls "Kevin!". He runs downstairs but he doesn't see her at first and makes that saaaad beaten dog face. The he turns, sees his mom, and runs into her arms and they hug.

Well, my son is much younger than the kid in the movie, I left just one week ago, I am overall doing ok, on the opposite I am almost feeling bad for not missing home enough, and for certain I didn't leave him alone. Yet... tears. They came immediately. As soon as I saw the sad face. Wait. Wasn't that supposed to be a fun movie? What's wrong with me?! Seriously, go away! I am not that emotional! I think I could start crying at the first person that talks to me.

To chear me up, in front of me while writing there is Corno (the unicorn plushes that used to live on the JR), some photos, a drawing form my son, and a series of cards meant to be opened at different stages of the expedition. I am not sure they are making it! 

PS: Small note on the importance of routine. Yesterday it was an hell of a shift. I had to collect samples from the shear zone for a colleague that was not able to sail. I ended my shift 5 hours later than normal. Maybe that's way I cannot hold it together? Let's not do it again!

PPS: mom, don't worry, I am fine!

29 Oct, 2024

Operating the ship is pricy, and for this reason the ship never rests. All people on board are assigned to work shifts (for seven days per week!), that commonly are noon to midnight, or midnight to noon, but can also be something in between, like 6 to 6 (for example if you are the only scientist in your field, like our young paleontologist) or 9 to 9, or odd shifts following Japanese work regulations.

However, in the field of research, and even more when on a research vessel, it is really easy to overwork. You only have so much time to do all that you want to do, meetings can be outside your shift, the outreach calls with shore can be while you are supposed to sleep…

However, I’ve learned at my own expenses two important things about me: the importance of sleep and the importance of a routine (for your information, my sleep is important for you too if we must interact during the day!). So, as much as I want to work, I know that I need to set boundaries if I want to keep physical and mental health.

As I have been assigned to the night shift (oh, my poor Vitamin D level!), here is my ideal routine once things will settle down a little, and save for pop-up meetings on the notice board:

22.00: alarm and exercise

23-24: lunch (yes, lunch, not breakfast. I exercised, and I love salty breakfasts anyway!)

00-0.30:  cross over with paleomagnetist from day shift

0.30: sampling party

05.00: meal (basically dinner)

9.30: 10 minutes video call with home (10 minutes per day is all I have)

11.00: daily meeting

11.30: meal (ideally just a soup on some fruit as I already had two meals)

12-12.30: cross over with paleomagnetist from day shift

12.30: sampling party

13.00: have a chamomile/watch a show/ read a book

13.00: on Thursdays only: weekly meeting. I have this one as it can last up to 2 hours and I am supposed to go to bed)

14.00: lights off! (save for cursed Thursdays!)

We will see how long I will be able to respect it!

28 Oct 2024

Every Sunday morning there is a drill for evacuating the ship. I was very happy to be assigned to safety boat 3, as 3 was my number also the previous times that I sailed.

This was not my first drill, so I was not nervous. The alarm went off, and there was an additional announcement. Now, I am not sure if you have heard announcement from this kind of speaker, but it is easier to understand Scottish accent than that! That was the beginning of a catastrophic drill. By what other where doing I understand we had to wear our PPE (that is personal protection equipment) consisting in work shoes, coverall, helmet and glasses. My coverall was too long (as the smaller size was too tight on my hips) and I kept tripping on hit; I put my phone and gloves in my pocket but I somehow missed and the phone ended up on my calf; when I ducked to get it, my helmet felt; my gloves where lost along my leg; my safety glasses where broken, I couldn't put my life jacket on correctly... and while struggling to go to the life boat I kept tripping on my coverall.
Finally I made it, and couldn't find my name on the list. I was at safety boat number 5! Argh!
At least I was on the right side of the ship, and I finally made it. For real, this time! I think I was the last one there, and so that you know, you cannot unlock your phone with cotton gloves. My nose was not accessible because of the mask, and I finally grabbed another persons' hand (with lattice gloves) to unlock it.
A fellow scientist that sailed with me on Expedition 368 once asked me: "How did you survive yourself?". I am still wondering.

Oct 27, 2024

My first sampling party on board was intense! I arrived right on time to put my hands on the most precious section collected till now, so precious that I am not authorized to share the picture!

What was it? If you've read anything about this Expedition, you will know that we are coring to understand the mechanisms that generated the Japan earthquake in 2011, and the subsequent tsunami. Some cores are more interesting than others!

The tiny flags indicate where scientists want their sample. There is an incredible high number of flags concentrated in just 4 cm core, so we had to find an agreement. 

Then we collected the samples with extreme caution. As some of us just came on board and are still wearing mask for safety, the sampling table looked a bit like the table in a surgical room. So when the structural geologist put out her hand to ask for the ceramic knife, I could not help myself and just shouted: scalpel!

Oct 26, 2024

Inspired by another scientist participating on the expedition, I decided to do my first experiment with blogging. I am not sure I will have the time or the mental resources to do it, we will see!

This is my first time sailing on the Chikyu Research Vessel. Each Expedition is unique in its own way. This one is the very last expedition of the IODP in its present form. The JOIDES Resolution has been demobilized in the past month. She is very much missed. At every step, at every smell, at every roll.

But here to the fun part: to board this Expedition I had to take a helicopter! Our phones were stored in the luggage, so I didn't have the chance to take a picture. But in order to board the expedition, a few months ago I had to do a training called Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET). The training consist of putting a fake helicopter in the water and turn you upside down. At this point, you have to escape. It is a fun experience, only if you if you never ever have to do it in real life!