Today was a very busy day! We actually completed 2 dredges during my watch shift and we started a trawl just about 30 minutes before the end of my watch. We are currently at the top of a seamount that is about 75 miles off the coast of South Georgia. That is correct, South Georgia is an island. We all were very excited to see land off in the distance. At the top of the seamount the depth is only 852 meters. It is almost strange to see the water depth so shallow after being in deeper waters for about a week. The 8th dredge was done this afternoon, 3 more igneous rocks were kept for Alan and Matt to sledgehammer and saw.
Taryn and I are watching Kevin send off a temperature probe to the seafloor. The probe measures the water temperature as it descends to the very bottom of the sea.
This evening the 9th dredge was done on the same seamount, but on a different side. It brought up a full bag of rocks, many appearing useful at first observation but are actually iceberg drop stones. It is thought that the drop stones are an immature sandstone that was carried off a valley glacier on South Georgia, and now the ice has receded and an iceberg has carried this type of rock into the sea. It does make sense that we would find rocks from South Georgia in an area only 75 miles away. I am looking forward to reporting on all the biology collected in this trawl, but it must wait for tomorrow's journal-it is my bedtime.