Good morning from the Tasman Sea

Good morning! The daytime watch awoke to a spectacular sunrise here aboard the R/V Revelle, stationed about 40 kms off southeastern Tasmania. All 14 moorings are aboard and we have been settling in for the final few days of ocean observations. We have 48 hours left on this final leg and the TTIDE team is making as many “yoyo” and … Read More

A needle in a giant haystack at the bottom of the sea

If losing an expensive package of scientific instruments on the bottom of the ocean is a painful fact of life for the sea-going oceanographer then finding something that was once lost is a glorious moment.   The TTIDE leg 2 team was unable to bring home one of their bottom mounted ADCP’s, lost somewhere off the northeast of Tasmania in … Read More

Revelle Passing the Torch: Leg II Postscript

Running a research program at sea involves the constant re-assessment of options: how to learn the most about the planet with the limited amount of time remaining in the cruise. As the time runs-down, the assessment effort intensifies. In every cruise a rather surreal moment is reached when one runs out of options: all remaining time is committed. The re-assessment … Read More

In the lee

Down here in the “roaring forties” Tasmanians have a saying for their typical weather patterns, “four seasons in one day”.  It can be sunny and calm one moment and blowing a gale the next.  After the R/V Revelle’s first few days of relatively calm weather we have what looks to be multiple cold fronts on the way, along with the … Read More

Undersea Gliding

The ocean we are trying to better understand is always moving and changing, varying across great distances and depths as well as the passing days and seasons.  It’s impossible for us to be everywhere all the time but with the help of special programmable gliders TTIDE scientists are learning more. Gliders are a relatively new type of instrument platform, essentially … Read More

Listening to the ocean and talking to the deep

Words and photography: Thomas Moore Tasman Sea Latitude – 44.5 degrees south Longitude – 152.3 degrees west Ocean Depth – 4768m The TTIDE team is back aboard the R/V Revelle and we are again plying the fickle waters of the Tasman Sea.  This is the final cruise in our latest venture to better understand ocean mixing and how internal waves … Read More

Revelle: Dialed-In

TTIDE Leg II is entering the home stretch, with great weather & even better data coming in. Aside from a brief appearance to steal one of Capt. Dave’s fishing lures. Bruce the shark has been kind enough to stay away from our deep-profiling Fast-CTD fish. We spent last Tuesday doing a series of water sampling stations for Nicole Jones & … Read More

Revelle: Breaking Undersea Waves Make Fish a Sandwich

It’s never good news when the phone rings in the chief scientists cabin. It was 7:30 am on Tuesday. We had just lost electrical communication with our Fast-CTD fish. I arrived on the fantail to find the worst-case scenario unfolding. Fifty meters of wire were being coiled on the deck. There was no instrument on the end. The fish and … Read More