Our Mission
While we're flying to Kodiak I will brief you on the expedition. The expedition was planned and organized by two co-chief scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Dr. Lisa Levin and Dr. Peter Lonsdale. The co-chiefs are sharing cruise time on Atlantis and Alvin.
Dr. Lonsdale is going to investigate local plate tectonics during the first three days. He will use the multi-beam sonar survey system Sea Beam to create a map of the regional seafloor.
Dr. Levin's will sample cold seeps for the remainder of the cruise. Dr. Levin's main research goal is to find out why certain kinds of animals are more common in some cold seep areas than others. Will there be a pattern between the amount and types of gases that seep out and the types of life? Dr. Levin is especially interested in finding out more about medium-sized organisms living in the sediment that no one has gone to investigate before. Using Alvin, Dr. Levin's group will map the distribution of buried organisms and bring back sample specimens, which are likely to include many new species.
Dr. Joris Gieskes, a geochemist, is going along with us to make chemical measurements to find out what is in the seeping waters. The two important dissolved gases in seep areas are usually methane and hydrogen sulfide so he will test for these gases.
Dr. Kevin Brown, a marine geologist, will not be along with us in person, but he's sending graduate student Mike Tryon to deploy equipment that measures how fast water seeps out of the ground. Mike will deploy and retrieve these instruments called flux meters.
A marine biologist, a geochemist, a plate tectonics expert, and a marine geologist, are all necessary to understand the natural system at cold seeps. Living things depend on inorganic chemicals, and chemicals are distributed in particular patterns by both life and earth processes, an endless cycle of dependence that requires the multiple lines of research represented by our team for its understanding.
Figure 1: The flight path from San Diego, California to Kodiak, Alaska and back again. The trip to Kodiak will take Elena through Seattle, Washington and Anchorage, Alaska.
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A C T I V I T I E S
• Who's who?
Meet the scientific team of the Alaska expedition.
Dr. Peter Lonsdale
Dr. Lisa Levin
Dr. Joris Gieskes
Dr. Kevin Brown
Mike Tryon
• Side Note
What is a ...
Professor?
• Activity 1.2a
Time zones
What time zone(s) is Alaska in?
a. Pacific time
b. Alaska time and Hawaii-Aleutian time
c. Pacific time, Yukon time (Yakutat), and Alaska time
d. Alaska time
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