P06 leg 2 Week 4

by Kevin Speer and Lena Schulze
(Chief Scientist and co-Chief Scientist)

RVIB N. B. Palmer, NBP17-06/P06 Leg 2: Weekly Scientific Report 04
1000 local time 17 September 2017
32 30’S 96 13’W, winds 20-25 kn, Outside temperature 15 C
Stn 210

The weather has been holding and good progress made this past week. We
are presently located in the Roggeveen Basin, a relatively small basin, of
which there are many in this region of the Pacific, named after a Dutch
explorer. Then we cross the Roggeveen Rise where some evidence of a
deep current has been found on previous P06 analyses, and enter the Chile
Basin for the home stretch. There is no rest for the weary however as our
most dense sampling period with the shortest distance between stations
arrives at the end of the Leg, over the Chile Trench and continental slope.

Some modification to the CTD cage was undertaken to add landing pads,
with the expert assistance of the marine techs. These are meant to avoid an
impact between the LADCP and the rail system in place in the Baltic
room, where the CTD lands on deck. The pads have been working well.

Watchstanders are also engaged plotting data from Leg 2, interacting with
the chemical analysts to understand the data and variations, real or
otherwise. Data quality appears to be very high overall. This exercise has
proven to be helpful for gaining a better understanding of the
measurements and sampling issues. Discussing the data with the students
is one of the most rewarding aspects of the cruise for me (KS), and to be
able to share ideas about water masses and their distributions.