The Mission (41.75, -71.34)

     On October 17th we will set sail from Honolulu, HI on the KILO MOANA, a ship on loan from the University of Hawaii. From Hawaii we will sail to the Shatsky Rise (the elevated area to the northeast of the instrument location in map below) to retrieve ocean bottom seismometers (OBSes) that were deployed last year at this time. The OBSes have been on the seafloor recorded seismic activity from earthquakes for the last year.

     The goal of the mission is to use the seismic waves recordings, which act like CAT scans of the interior of the Earth, to decipher the structure of the upper 400 km of the oceanic lithosphere. This will tell us about both thermal and mechanical boundaries and possibly shed more light on the driving mechanism behind plate tectonics.

We hope to stay north of any typhoon activity (as it is typhoon season) and return to Guam on November 9th. You can track the ship's location from the University of Hawaii's website (http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=WDA7827) and follow the ship's log (http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/UMC/Reports/KMreport.htm). I will try to keep this blog updated daily, but if I should miss a day, don't panic. In the meantime, pray for good weather and a good chef, the two controlling factors of a good cruise.