Having ExCom and a Faculty on the same day (like today) is just not good for my constitution, so I will talk about something else... Just as LDEO led the world in bringing multichannel seismics to academic research three decades ago, so we have again attained a first (as far as I know) of being the first academic general purpose research vessel to tow multiple hydrophone streamers (enabling practical collection of 3D data sets). A couple of days ago R/V Marcus G. Langseth had three 6km long hydrophone streamers deployed, towing them successfully a few tens of meters apart, and learning the many challenges of rigging and ship handling. It will be a steep learning curve for us in the coming months as we bring this new capability to the academic community. The goal was to deploy four streamers - we did not make that - the weather in the Gulf (and the reliability of the weather forecasts) has been very poor over the last couple of weeks so we lost many days of working time.
She is alongside in Galveston right now - sails again on Sunday. Keep your eye on the NYT Op Ed page over the weekend - we may have a Lamont authored piece in print - if not over the weekend then early next week I hope.
Having missed the colloquium (that I really wanted to attend) because of an essential conference call... I am going to have a beer now.
Have a good weekend,
- Mike