I had to get up a little earlier this morning for Marine Mammal Training. Jenny trained about 15 of us to be marine mammal observers. When the boat is collecting seismic information a person is needed to stand watch for marine mammals, mostly whales, because they are sometimes attracted to the instruments that are towed behind the boat. We each signed up for a daily 1-hour shift. I signed up for the 14:00- 15:00 shift. The watch takes place in both the bridge and the ice tower. The bridge is located on the 05 deck; the highest deck onboard, and the ice tower is a small room above the bridge that requires the use of a ladder. Both places are full of windows so you can get a full 360-degree view of the sea. We are also provided with a special pair of binoculars during this watch. It would be cool to see a whale, but at a distance away from the boat because the seismic tools must be shut off if any marine mammals get too close and we want all the science to continue. The remainder of the day was very calm. I did my normal watch duties, ping editing and keeping the watch log. I also helped again with sorting the fossilized corals. This time the sorting was according to roughly how old the corals looked. We had 3 basic piles, the very old which are darker brown and have holes, the very new which are white and almost shiny, and the middle group for everything else.
**Middle Coral Group **
These corals were sorted into the middle group, not super old and not white and shiny.
*These corals are in the middle group. Laura is mainly interested in the old corals, anywhere from about 25,000 to 10,000 years old. That is the last time the Earth was at a point of glacier maximum, where the sea levels were the lowest and the ice sheets were the thickest. She will do geochemical analysis on the corals to help her understand the environment and climate during that time, super interesting! *
Laura now has thousands of corals, so it is nice to help her in any way that I can. We did receive some interesting news today of an expected storm. The storm is predicted to hit us at about 3:00 in the morning. Some reports have said that it could bring winds up to 70 knots and produce swells up to 27 feet! Wow, that is a big storm! Hopefully the storm will not be that big, but this ship has encountered rougher before so it will be fine either way. I am hoping to sleep right through it, we will see if I am so lucky. Thank you all very much for all your excellent questions and comments, keep them coming.