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December 7- December 14, 2001 vol. 38 no. 49 In Memoriam Marie Hall Hamilton passed away in San Diego on November 10, 2001. She was the widow of Dr. Edwin L. Hamilton, a prominent geologist who led the Seafloor Studies Section of the U.S. Naval Electronics Laboratory (NEL), participated on MidPac Expedition, and was credited with the discovery of the Mid-Pacific Mountain Range. The Hamiltons led a remarkable life, with wartime service in the Marine Corps, followed by a life in science. They were wonderful dancers. Marie Hamilton is survived by her three daughters. (Deborah Day) Friday, December 7 MARINE BIOLOGY SEMINAR - Liz Mann, SIO, will present "Trace Metals and the Ecology of Marine Cyanybacteria" in 4500 Hubbs Hall at 12 noon. (Kim, kthamatr@ucsd.edu) Tuesday, December 11 MOC MEETING - The Marine Operations Committee meeting will be held at 1330 in the 114 Scripps Building. (Jason Strimpel, x42840) Wednesday, December 12 PERSPECTIVES ON OCEAN SCIENCE - Wake up your senses with a cup of hot coffee and the hottest new research from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the aquarium's next Perspectives on Ocean Science breakfast lecture. Dr. Lisa Shaffer will present "Beyond the Ivory Tower: Connecting Discovery with Decision-Making at Scripps," 7:30-9:00 a.m. in the aquarium's Galleria. This lecture describes programs and activities in which Scripps has taken initiatives to connect science with policy, including climate change, coastal management, nuclear weapons testing, marine biodiversity conservation, state water management, and infrastructure monitoring during earthquakes. Come learn how Scripps goes beyond the ivory tower to connect discovery with decision-making from local to international levels. Please RSVP to 534-7336. Includes continental breakfast, parking validation & aquarium admission. Aquarium members: free; UCSD staff, faculty, students: $5; guests: $8. Thursday, December 13 AGU FALL RECEPTION - Past and present Scripps Institution faculty, researchers, students, and alumni attending the Fall 2001 AGU Meeting in San Francisco are invited to attend a hosted Scripps alumni reception, Thursday evening, December 13. Please contact Kevin Hardy for further details. (khardy@ucsd.edu) Friday, December 14 CENTER FOR MARINE BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOMEDICINE - Jane C. Burns, Chief, Division of Allergy, Immunology and Rheumatology Department of Pediatrics, UCSD School of Medicine, will present "Fending Off Foreign Invaders: Characterization of Two New Antimicrobial Peptides from a Hybrid Striped Bass" in 4500 Hubbs Hall at 3:30 p.m. (Bill Fenical, x42133) COMPASS RECEPTION - You are invited to a joint SIO/SDSC/CAL IT2 reception to celebrate SIO's latest addition to its scientific computing family. Come on by room 120 at NTV. (Detlef Stammer, dstammer@ucsd.edu) Notices SIO HOLIDAY PARTY - Bundle up and come on up to the terrific Holiday Party at the Birch Aquarium, Friday, December 21, 5-10 p.m. Free parking. The Bookshop will be open for business! Rock out to the terrific sounds of "Hot Rod Lincoln"! Get your photo taken with Santa and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer! Chow down on mouth-watering turkey and all the fixins! (Even so, we still need you to please BRING food to SHARE!) Anyone wishing to help us set up, please meet in front of the aquarium at 3:30 p.m. (There will be no child care this year since kids seem to hang with you parents throughout the party. PLEASE keep an eye on your children.....they are getting a teentsy bit out of hand). Ho ho ho! (Jill Hammons, x43958) Ship News Melville Cook Expedition Leg 16 - Weekly Science Report, Wednesday, December 5, 2001 - It was a week of ups and downs, as may be appropriate for hump week marking the middle of our leg studying the origin of intraplate, volcanic ridges. Ocean-bottom seismometers (OBSs) came up to the surface as we retrieved the instruments that had been deployed along our 450-km-long seismic refraction line. OBSs also went back down to the seafloor as we began to redeploy them in the configuration that will stay in place for 11 months recording distant earthquakes for a seismic tomography study of the mantle beneath the volcanic chains. We were elated to find high quality data recorded by the OBSs from our airgun shooting along the refraction line. We also were excited by the recording of a few local, very small earthquakes that bode well for the success of our microearthquake arrays deployed earlier along the Matua seamount chain. But we despaired at the failure of some of the OBSs, including damage caused by leaks in two of the electronics chambers. We brought many rocks up in dredges, but the difficulty of dredging old seamounts meant that we left a lot more still down on the bottom. Perhaps most intriguing geologically of the ups and downs were the ups and downs of the seafloor; we discovered a small seamount chain midway between the Sojourn and Hotu-Matua chains that was connected by a narrow, continous ridge, overall resembling beads on a necklace. There were also ups and downs in the moods of the scientific party in the midst of a long leg, as many of the group are experiencing their first sea-going expedition. (PIs Don Forsyth, Spahr Webb, Dan Scheirer, Katie Donnelly) Weekly Report #3 from the R/V Revelle - 1900 GMT 27 November 2001 - We have been concentrating our multibeam mapping and rock sampling efforts in the big bend area where the Nazca Ridge intersects the Easter and Salas y Gomez seamount chain. The intersection area is characterized by widely distributed volcanoes and one or more crosscutting fracture zones. Together these volcanic and tectonic features form a broad zone of volcanoes that are aligned as three separate sub-parallel traces. We have mapped and sampled these volcanoes in a grid-like manner, in an effort to differentiate these sub-parallel traces by analysis of their petrology, isotopic geochemistry, geomorphology, and their radiometric age pattern. We have much to be thankful during this past Thanksgiving weekend, including fabulous food and stupendous ship support. For the first time we can remember, the sun came out from the cold gray dreary windy whitecap weather. A few folks got a quick suntan just in time for the return of the consistently cold and cloudy days. Festivities included a horseshoe toss, some ping pong, and a real football game where England defeated Germany 5 to 1 (thanks to Yasushi Harada). We are presently at the very elbow of the chain, the southeasternmost submerged island that is presently 167 meters below the sea. (David Naar, USF; Doug Pyle, OSU; Paul Wessel, UH; Kevin Johnson, Bishop Museum) Weekly Report #4 from the R/V Revelle 1400 GMT 3 December 2001 - We have completed our multibeam mapping and rock sampling efforts in the big bend area where the Nazca Ridge intersects the Easter and Salas y Gomez seamount chain. See Weekly Report #3 we sent in a week ago for details. We are currently mapping and dredging our way west along the Easter and Salas y Gomez seamount chain. Although finding and obtaining fresh basalt has been difficult, we have been fortunate to obtain samples suitable for 40Ar-39Ar dating and geochemical analyses (along with Manganese crust, coral, carbonate sands, and alien space pods). The DRIFT LEG 6 Open Invitational Ping Pong Tournament is well underway, with Rey Esteban and Paul Wessel leading the way with no losses in the double elimination tournament. The weather is still cold and cloudy, but both the sun and the full moon have shown their brilliance on occasion. We look forward to arriving in Rapa Nui before the R/V Melville and preparing the island for the merry band of tropical back deck dancers. (David Naar, USF; Paul Wessel, UH; Kevin Johnson, Bishop Museum; Doug Pyle, OSU) CRUISE MAP INDEX/AREA/ CH SCI/INSTITUTION/ PORTS DAYS/AGENCY/ R/V Melville R/V New Horizon R/V Robert Gordon Sproul David Starr Jordan
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