figure non posso allegarle, ve le racconterò.
"22-29/01/2011: week 1 - From La Valletta (Malta) to Pylos (Greece).
We left La Valletta on a magnificent Monday morning, warm and sunny as it
is hard to imagine in January (especially coming from the Netherlands!).
On board,
scientists are mainly Dutch (with a few Latin exceptions), mainly from the
Oceanographic Institute NIOZ, but a bunch of astrophysicists is also
present. They follow the testing phase new designed compact mooring device
with a lot of interest. The purpose of the cruise is further testing of
this device for KM3NeT, a submerged neutrino telescope that will be
searching for astrophysical neutrinos in one of the less noisy environment
on Earth, the deep sea (~3000
m). In this framework, different Earth and Marine science measurements are
also required, exploring and monitoring the deep sea conditions.
From Monday to Thursday morning the weather has been nice, allowing us to
follow the cruise plan. The 2000 m long mooring that was deployed a year
ago has been recovered successfully, bringing us tons of data from the
NIOZ High Sampling rate Thermistor string, from current meters and an
optical device.
Moreover, we deployed twice a lander on the bottom of the sea (near
Italian NEMO site and near Greek NESTOR site) for 24 hours, obtaining a
series of nice pictures of life down there that we disturb with our iron
blocks and bait (Fig. 1: One of the pictures taken by the lander at 3400
m, near NEMO site. Group of Coryphaenoides Mediterraneus [Qui si vede una
croce latina di metallo (ogni braccio è di circa 60 cm), tenuta ancorata
orizzontalmente al fondo da degli anelloni arrugginiti di ferro. Sopra la
croce c'è un pesciazzo morto lungo circa 30 cm, ben legato al centro del
bersaglio. Tutto intorno si vedono un cinque o sei Coryphaenoides
Mediterraneus (pesci), che, attirati dall'esca, si fanno fotografare per
il censimento. Il tutto si svolge a circa 3400 metri di profondità.]).
Up to now, and due to the weather conditions, we have performed just one
night of deep CTD yo-yo (plus a short German lesson to be able to speak
with the winch man through the radio!).
The deployment and recovery of the compact mooring took from Wednesday to
Thursday afternoon. The (first) deployment (Fig. 2: First deployment of
the
compact mooring [Qui la scena è complessa. Notte, siamo oltre la poppa
della nave. Da una gru arancione penzola, a 50 cm dalla superficie la
grande struttura che siam qui a testare. E' una gabbia sferica di
alluminio (2.4 m di diametro) contenente una ventina di piccole sfere di
vetro (50 cm di diametro), che dovranno poi srotolarsi dal fondo verso la
superifice, lungo una doppia linea di cime. E' una cosa complicata anche
se la si ha davanti, inutile tentare di spiegarla a parole, ve lo
assicuro. In ogni caso questa grande palla ha poi alla base un peso per
l'ancoraggio, e in cima un complesso di boe e galleggianti gialli che
verranno sganciati al momento opportuno. Sfondo nero, gru arancione, boe
gialle, e la gabbia d'alluminio scintillante. Una bella foto, dai!]),
immediately after the sunset, was followed by recovery with a very though
winch session, with the wind starting blowing hard. The big sphere and the
line with all 25 glass spheres (of which 20 instrumented) came back on
deck. The video from the camera mounted on the bottom weight, and the
accelerometers in the spheres have been immediately analyzed, in order to
understand the performance for the next launch.
Despite the weather conditions, some other short-term moorings have been
deployed on our way to Pylos (Greece), included a clever NIOZ-prototype
for a compact, self-unrolling oceanographic mooring. For the visible part,
the launch and the unfolding of the line with the two current meters
worked as predicted, but we will check better after the recovery.
After the shacking night with wind into force 9, the bay of Pylos welcomed
us on Friday afternoon to stretch our legs, to exchange some scientists
and to re-mount quietly the entire big sphere, without the need for
running after the spheres, rolling on deck with each wave!"
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