Alvin Dive 3364

25 Feb., 1999
T. Gregg, port observer (transcript)
A. Shah, stbd. observer
S. Falautico, pilot

Time Depth Heading Observation
0842 Maggie spin started
0849 Maurice dance stopped
0951 2704 035 Just now making out the bottom. Looks like we're about 17 m off the ground. From here, it looks like the sediment covered lobates that we anticipated.
0953 2711 027 As we're coming down closer to the bottom, we just passed over sortof the edge of this pillow construct. So the ground is sloping up away from Anji; it's sloping down away from me. Down, away from me, heading about 9:00 in relation to the direction the sub is heading. I can just barely make out the edge of this pillow construct in the distance. So we're flying over this Macdonald age 2 sedimented pillows and lobes--mostly pillows, elongate flowing downslope. So we're right on the edge of this construct here. Where we first landed, we were over the flat-lying lobes, and in a couple of minutes we then came into these pillows and lobes with lots of buds. Glassy, age 1.5-2.0.
0955 2710 092 x-1254, y-3602. Over these sedimented intermingled pillows and lobates. Right here where we've dropped down to pick up a rock, they're not heavily budded. There's a constant sediment cover with local patches of orange and white hydrothermal staining. Still glassy with light Mn coating on the glass. Call these Macdonald age 1.5.
0958 We're getting a sample. I also have the stbd. external camera taking pictures every 60 s while we're sampling and every 15 s while we're moving. We're beginning the dive with 440 pictures on the stbd camera and no pictures on the port camera.
1005 2709 087 x-1245, y-3603. We just collected sample #1 and put it in basket 1A. It's a piece of lobate crust--it's actually several pieces of lobate crust that fell in the basket--of this sedimented, Macdonald age 1.5-2.0 lobates and pillows. I believe, based on what I saw coming in, that we're about 10-15m upslope from the base of this construct. So Steve's now heading to way point 2, which should be the toe, the distal end of a lava channel, so we're going to keep our eyes open for the contact as we go.
1006 2707 083 Climbing obliquely up this pillow slope. The pillows are 1-2 m long, <1 m in diameter. Glassy buds occasionally. There's an orange shrimp out my window. We're climbing up this slope somewhat obliquely; the stuff's flowing downslope heading about 7-8:00 as the sub flies.
1007 There are 2 big-headed ugly fish out my window, a stalked crinoid. The sediment coating is uniform. There are no real pockets of sediment. The vertical relief in this material is approaching 2 m locally where there are little piles of pillows, so it's very possible that the sediment just can't collect anywhere--that there's too much relief for it to really pile up.
1008 2699 085 Looks like we're heading pretty much straight up the slope now, with pillows and lobes flowing toward the front of the sub. They're elongate, but not terribly so. Now we're getting more lobes mingling with the pillows, lobes on the order of <0.5 m across and 1-2 m long. Fairly flat lobes; the lobes are only 20 cm thick or so. The pillows are still pretty bulbous, up to 0.5 to 0.8 m in diameter. I'm getting some longer pillow tubes that are 3-4 m long but those are rare.
1009 2694 082 We just crossed into a field of broad, fat lobates. I think it's the same stuff--it just looks more sedimented because it's smoother. The lobes are, we're coming back out of it now, so it's just a little shoulder. [Steve: Oo, look at this jumbled sheet flow!] Yup, coming up on my side is a jumbled sheet flow coming down the slope towards us. Couple more of those big-headed ugly fish. Chaotically folded sheet flow. I'm right on the margin of it; Anji says she sees it so I'm right on the contact. Right next to it are decorated lobes and pillows.
1011 2690 083 I'm looking out my window at a really broken up sheet flow in the distance flowing downhill. It's very chaotic and autobrecciated. I think we may have just passed a contact.
1012 2684 084 Now the pillows and lobes are budded. Just passed 3 of those big-headed ugly fish. Locally the sediment cover appears less, and I'm wondering if we're not getting close to some of the younger lava. I know it's difficult to find out here...but we should be getting close. Now I'm passing over a field of broad lobates that look pretty heavily sedimented, locally collapsed.
1013 2683 085 Now out my window I see a jumbled sheet flow. [Steve: It's really rising very steep in front of us]. I'm flying over this jumbled sheet flow that has a heavy sediment cover on it and this is a wonderful view. It is very clear that this lava poured down this slope and completely autobrecciated as it was pouring down this steep slope, which is very steep. Steve, could you please turn sideways at some point, although perhaps not right now because there's a big rock out my window [note: the big rock is a twisted up pile of lava as tall as the sub].
1014 2676 I just asked Steve to turn sideways so I could get a good mesotech reading of this slope. This sheet flow, the lava that poured down this slope just completely fragmented--it could not stay together down this slope. I'm seeing clots of lava that are sticky and pasty in appearance. There are not coherent folds. There are individual blocks that are on the order of tens of cm to occasionally you get a big wad that's about the size of the ball. This stuff just poured down here and broke up. But it is still sedimented; this is not the new stuff, this is the older lava. And it was flowing down a pretty steep slope locally.
1015 There are some large clots of lava about half the size of the sub sitting on the floor.
1016 2668 085 Passing out of the jumbled terrain and into sedimented lobates now.
1017 Here the lobes are onlapping onto the jumbled lava. And here, the other way around is true, so there's an interfingering of the jumbled and lobates here.
1017 2668 090 Now passing into sedimented and decorated pillows and lobes.
1018 2660 090 Decorated pillows and lobes. It looks like we may have crossed into the contact of this younger lava, but we're still a little deep. I'm a little surprised. So I think we're keep flying for a while until I'm sure that we're in it, and then we'll pick up a sample.
1020 2647 086 Still climbing up this slope of sedimented lobes and pillows, locally decorated. I just heard Steve whimper that its dropping off. [Steve: Okay, on Anji's side, we're going over a little ridge, maybe that's all it is. And then it looks like ahead it'll climb up again.] So right now we're going over a little shoulder, and that's why I see pillows that are elongate flowing away from me, flowing toward 9:00. Steve says it looks like it rises up again in front of him.
1022 2641 087 Passing over a haystack of pillows with patches of orange hydrothermal staining in the pockets. Here we're passing over a region where there's a little bit less sediment and more buds on the lobes and pillows.
1023 2634 086 This is the contact. We've passed into the new stuff now, but I think we may have been passing over little fingers of it--sortof an irregular contact--for the past, mmm, 4 minutes or so. This is much less sediment, and it's much glassier. So here is the contact.
1024 I'm looking out my window and there's this beautiful broken pillow. It's a very irregular-shaped pillow; it's about 4 m across, about 2 m high. And there's a big hole about 50 cm in diameter, and out of this hole spurts this lobe that's about 30 cm in diameter, about a meter long and it's feeding this pillow that's about 2 m high and about a meter across. And it's out of my field of view now but it was really stunning. Megalope in the water.
1025 2630 055 Steve's settling down on the floor of this new stuff. The local topography here is approaching 3-4 m in places where we've got large pillows that have sortof rolled over on top of themselves, piled up on top of themselves. I'm looking out at a pillow that's sticking up about 3 m close to the sub. Farther in the distance I see a ridge of pillows and lobes that's sticking up about 4 m. Settling down onto a field of decorated pillows. Sediment in the pockets; there's orange hydrothermal staining locally.
1030 Just collected sample #2 from the new lava. It's part of a bud from a lobate, a good sized bud. We're here, trying to get a good fix. My guess is we're about 1300 m from the axis proper.
1034 Picking up from the bottom after collecting sample #2 of the new lava, not far from the contact. I'd say we were within 20 m of the contact where we picked up that lobate bud. We're not having great nav. I'm hoping that it's because we're on the "wrong" side of this slope and as we get closer to the axis the nav will pick up. We've got a good fix from the surface, which seems pretty reasonable: x-760, which puts us at just around a km from the axis. Now passing over broad lobes, well, not that broad. They're elongate lobes, they're almost 1 m thick, about 1 m across, and 10-11 m long. Orange patches of hydrothermal staining in the pockets--although Blee says that that orange stuff is bacterial--that it's bacterial mats. I'm not convinced, but anyway. The other sediment cover is the spots that we've been seeing, just spots of yellowish sediment. Locally the lobes are collapsed, although that's rare; it's on the scale of an individual lobe. Just passed over an individual lobe that was collapsed. It was a shallow collapse, about 20 cm deep or so. Now coming into decorated pillows and smaller lobes.
1036 2623 087 Anji and Steve are passing over a sheet flow; I'm seeing a lineated lobe which is quite long and channeled, and pillows and decorated lobes with patches of white and orange hydrothermal sediment.
1037 We're tweaking the submarine a little bit to the stbd. side. Anji says she sees a channel, so we'll see if we can follow it up towards the axis.
1038 2620 171 We are driving right into a big tumulus in the middle of this sheet flow. The tumulus is just about the size of the sub in all dimensions--about the right length and about the right height. Passing over a gorgeous summit cleft in this tumulus. I can look down in it. It's about 3 m high and about half the length of the sub. Passing into a sheet flow now, which we'll try to follow up towards the axis.
1039 2619 108 Anji's got jumbles out her window; I have lobes. We're gonna try to follow this jumbled sheet flow up to the axis, or at least until it dies.
1040 2618 091 Flying over this channeled sheet flow. It's jumbled in portions, and flat and lineated in other portions. Now Steve is turning to follow the lineated portions of it, and as he's turned to follow the freeway, out my window now we're following jumbled flow. Very jumbled, broken up. It's got relief on the order of 1-2 m where things have piled up. Could be a levee--a lineated flow with a jumbled levee, possibly, although it's really busted up so it's hard to tell. It's clearly some kind of channel but I'm having a hard time envisioning it.
1041 2613 093 I just passed out of the sheet flow into lobes. Yeah, it's interfingered jumbled and lobes. I've lost any kind of channel out here. So it just kindof ended, huh? [Steve: Well, it's like this stuff is on top of it.] Just keep heading to 2, that's fine. If we see another one we'll try to follow it for a while.
1042 The channel ended because additional lobes started pouring on top of it. You can still see little chunks of jumbled, folded and occasionally smooth sheet flows in little kipukas within the lobates and pillows that we're in now.
1043 Just got a vector to way point 2. Still flying over lobes and pillows with decorations; the occasional white and orange hydrothermal staining. I saw an orange shrimp a while ago. There's a white eel-fish. I see a sponge growing on the flow. I've seen a few anemones. There's a collapse feature in one of these lobes. Some beautiful buds, absolutely gorgeous buds.
1044 2607 073 Passing over a field of broad lobates now. The lobes are on the order of 0.5 - 1 m thick. Steve says he's coming up on a jumbled flow. OK, I've got a little bit of jumbled stuff on my side too. Anji's got jumbled on her side; I've got pillows and lobes on my side, so why don't you tweak it a little bit towards Anji's side, Steve, and see if we can find another channel. We'll see if we can follow this one up and see what happens to it. Out my window I have decorated lobes and pillows, now passing into more lobes. Elongate lobes that are 3 m long. They're onlapping jumbled here locally, I can see.
1046 Just followed this channel for a little ways and it petered out. It got covered up again by lobes, just like the first one did. So it seems that initially the lava came gushing out in these channels that created jumbled levees and jumbled interiors, as well as lineated flows, and that later in the eruption, the lobes dribbled out on top of them, burying the jumbled sheets. Local patches of orange and white hydrothermal staining in these broad lobes. There are also little stacks of lobes, bulbous lobes. The stacks of lobes are 2 and 3 deep, and up to a couple meters tall. There are little worms in the water.
1047 2600 062 x-441 y -3652. I've seen quite a few of these big-headed fish since we landed--it seems like every 5 minutes I see one. I don't remember seeing this many before.
1049 2598 073 We're in a field of broad lobates. There's not much relief here in this area--total vertical relief of about 0.5 m. The lobes are 1-2 m across and 10 or more meters long. They locally have some wrinkles on them. I see a large collapse in the distance, an entire lobe that's collapsed. It's about 0.5 m deep and about 1 m across and about 2 m long. There's white hydrothermal staining in the cracks, and local patches of orange hydrothermal staining in the pockets. And there's another big-headed fish.
1050 2598 070 Passing over more collapses in the lobes now. Collapses on the order of 1 -2 m in diameter (although they're elongate) and 0.8- 1 m deep. They've got bathtub rings on them, and mostly the ones I've seen so far are floored with rubble.
1051 2597 070 Broad lobates with collapse and a couple of big-headed fish. Again, these collapses are floored with rubble. They've got bathtub rings on the sides that are pretty closely spaced. Lobes are starting to get a little bit more relief now. Here's a nice collapse structure that's at least 1 m deep, with bathtub rings on the edges and selvages as well as primary crust littering the bottom of the collapse bit. Now passing into decorated lobes and pillows. Swimming worms, a couple of megalope. Locally white hydrothermal staining in the cracks, a little bits of orange here and there.
1052 2595 069 Just passed from the broad lobates to more bulbous lobates and intermingled pillows, and some smaller lobates and decorations. Orange hydrothermal staining in the pockets. Passing more into lobes now.
1054 2592 069 Over lobates primarily; fairly bulbous lobates--they almost want to be pillows. Small decorations, and orange and white hydrothermal staining in the cracks.
1055 x-216, y-2567.
1056 2588 055 Flying over lobates with lots of white hydrothermal staining--almost every crack has white hydrothermal staining. There's patches of orange hydrothermal staining in the pockets. Just passed one of those mordrid fish. Lobes, bulbous lobes. No pillows. Local collapses, very rare, on the scale of individual lobes. We're heading toward way point 2 but Steve just said he's gonna head just a wee bit north because it's better to go north than south--there are channels north of 2 but not south of 2. There's a long bud, sticking out of this flat, broad lobate which looks totally ridiculous. See a holothurian, and another one of those mordrid fish.
1058 2587 058 Some of these lobes are quite large, on the order of 10-15 m long, up to a meter thick (although that's rare), they're more about 0.8 m thick, and about 2-3 m across. We just passed out of that now and we're over slightly smaller lobes with a rare pillow. There's a big worm, 10 cm long. White hydrothermal staining in the cracks is still quite common, as is orange staining.
1059 2586 060 Just passing into a region of age 2 decorated pillows and lobes. This is a kipuka of older material that was not covered by the younger stuff. And Steve says he sees a dumbo octopus. I see an anemone, a stalked crinoid, white hydrothermal staining in the cracks, more anemones. Yeah, this is a little kipuka of the older stuff, I think. Either that or there's intense hydrothermal activity. [Steve: There might be some hydrothermal activity here.] Yeah, cuz the water's getting really crappy. [Steve: there's dandelions in the water, fish, crabs...] So maybe this isn't a kipuka.
1101 2579 068 x-102, y-3494. There's a lot of fish in the water, a lot of dandelions, worms, clouded, turbid water. There's definitely some hydrothermal activity going on somewhere. Don't know what kind--I suppose if we were biologists we would try to hunt down the mussel beds, but we're not biologists.
1102 2576 069 Seem to be coming out of the really cloudy icky water and flying over bulbous pillows with decorations and glassy lobes. I don't think that was a kipuka, I think that was just hydrothermal fallout that was depositing sediment.
1105 2572 067 We're definitely out of the hydrothermally influenced area, although the sediment cover here does seem a little bit higher than what we were flying through before we hit the hydrothermal area. I think it's the same stuff: it's still quite glassy and black underneath the sediment. But there's just a lot of sediment here. I'd give this a Macdonald sediment-cover age of 1.0. Definitely not less than 1, but it's still quite glassy and I think it's all the same stuff. I don't think we passed a contact, I think this is just influence o the local hydrothermal activity.
1108 2570 070 Entering a field of broad lobates, locally wrinkled on the top. They're flowing approximately in the direction of about 7:00 as the sub is heading. Quite glassy, sediment in patches, although there's a continuous thin dusting. I see a holothurian, an anemone. These are quite large lobates--I can't see an entire lobe in my field of view. Total vertical relief here is on the order of a meter, although the lobes are 0.5 m thick at the edge, thickening to a meter or more in the middle. We've just come to a collapse, this is what we're looking for. We've just come over a collapse, and jumbled/chaotically folded sheet as far as I can see, so it's at least 20 m across. This is way point 2, so this is the end of the channel that we could see on the sonar. We just came over the lateral margin of it--the end is behind us--and we're going to follow it up to the axis to see how it starts. The folds in this flow are absolutely enrapturing. They are beautifully folded, and wrinkled and piled up. Steve is turning now to follow the sheet flow up axis. Broad wrinkles, wavelength of 1-3 m; amplitudes approaching 50 cm in places. I can't see the other side of it. What do you see Anji? [Collapse] Cool, so Anji's got the margin on her side, which is marked by collapse, and I've got the whole shebang on my side--I can't see the end of it. Oh, wait, I think I can, I think I can squint and see. Steve, just follow the lineations so you're going parallel to the lineations. Follow those and they should take us up to the axis. I've got the margin out of it out my side now. We're following a little channel now, it's flat in the middle. Steve says it's coming up jumbled. We're back in jumbled, chaotically folded flows, there's a little tiny octopus out my window. Beautiful folds.
1112 2569 140 there's a couple of galatheid crabs out my window as we're flying up this jumbled flow. The vertical relief in this flow, locally, it's very glassy, beautiful. The amplitude of these folds approaches 50 cm, so the vertical relief then is 50 -70 cm as we go up. Mostly it's quite smooth however.
1114 2569 147 Following what out my side is lineated sheet flow as far as I can see. Lineations--OK, now I see the margin out my window about 10 m away, marked by collapse and then lobes on top of the collapse. Sometimes it's just draping, the lineated flows just drape up on the collapse. OK, now there's lineated flows in the middle, jumbled along the margin and then the collapse. Lineations are locally caused by shear zones, and locally I don't know what they are. But near the margins they're shear zones and near the center of the channel they're the flat lineations.
1115 2566 092 We just came to the head of the channel which was a collapse feature only about 2 m deep in the lobates. We came up over the top and we're in lobates. [Steve: And we've got a big drop off in front of us.] And that's probably the axis. Steve says he sees a big drop off in front of us. I am guessing that this is the axis. Big collapse, yep, this is the axis. So the tube there started only about 10 m from the axis. Great.
1116 Just go ahead and go right across, and when we get to the other side of the axis, grab a rock. There's a beautiful pillar wall out my window that's getting closer and closer. There are fields of pillars here--there's another one. There's an extinct chimney out my window, another pillar. The axis here is about 10 m deep.
1118 We're turning around in the axis--there's an extinct hydrothermal chimney--oh, we got a smoker. There's fish, galatheid crabs, a brachyeurid.
1120 Stopping at this smoker--Steve says there's smoke coming right out the top. I see shimmering water out my window. He says he sees some alvinilleds/tevnia things he's gonna stick in the bio box for Cindy.
1135 At this smoker, very close to way point 3, Steve dexterously scraped some worms off the side of the chimney and dropped them into the bio box. So hopefully that'll be something to keep Cindy happy.
1139 2569 We're in the axis, just pulling away from this black smoker. I've asked Steve to kindof creep northward a little bit away from the smoker and see if we can grab a piece of lava from the floor of this particular collapse.
1141 2571 024 We're on the floor of the axis; I see pillars and big plates of collapse crust on the floor of the axis. We're going to drive just a bit away from this smoker so that things aren't so heavily altered and then grab a piece of stuff. At the base of one of these pillars here there's a collapse pit about 2-3 m deep. Lava draping down the sides of the collapse. Brachyeurid crabs, spaghetti worms, white shrimp. Coming off the edge of those pillars now and now on the floor is a folded sheet flow. It looks like it's sloping down toward 12:00. And there's nothing out my side, its wide open.
1155 2576 043 Picking up off the bottom after collecting a sample of the folded sheet flow on the floor of the axis here. We left the black smoker, drove north just a few meters, maybe about 20 meters, settled down to the bottom and picked up a piece of folded sheet flow. We're now coming out of the axis. We're going to head east, to try to find the eastern contact of the young lava.
1156 We're climbing up out of the axis, up a wall. Here the axis is about 8-10 m deep. Lots of bathtub rings on the wall. The bathtub ring are fairly evenly spaced and about 7-10 cm apart. We're coming up out of the axis onto lobate lavas. There's a little tiny patch of serpulid worms by a crack outside my window. Lots of crap in the water but think we carried that with us.
1157 We just came up out of the axis, and after about 6 m we crossed into another highway. The edge is about 15 m away out my side. I've got lobes in front of me and a lineated channel about 6 m to my whatever. I think there are 2 discrete channels. Turn toward my side, Steve. This jumbled stuff marks the margin of the channel. Keep turning until you see the lineated stuff. We're flying over jumbled which I think is the margin of the channel. This is good, this is a good heading. It's folded, chaotically folded broken up sheets beneath me.
1200 2570 141 Following a lineated channel as we leave the axis.
1201 149 Lineated with lava roses. Thick lineations that look like shear zones, and that's all I see out my window.
1201 109 Following the sheet flow an there's a dumbo octopus all spread out like it's wearing a ball gown out my window but it's ears aren't' doing anything. It's sleeping. I think you're in it. I got folded sheets right below me, broken up folds, then a small patch of lineated, and then jumbled again. So we are following this channel system. I see the margin out my window so I think you need to tweak a little bit toward Anji.
1203 050 We've been following this channel and suddenly we're in collapsed lobates. Anji's got jumbled flows out her side. I think that was it. Okay, that's cool. Let's just head pretty much due east.
1203 2575 083 We may have picked this channel back up. I see a collapse margin out my window, sortof collapsed sheet flow, and some jumbled sheets. Lots of jumbled sheets, broken up folded flows.
1204 116 Flying over jumbled sheet flow, clearly a broken up folded flow. There's quite a bit of topography, just crossing over a rise now that's about 1-2 m tall onto a flat sheet flow below me now.
1205 2578 094 Flying over a jumbled sheet flow. It's really busted up, broken-up folded flow. We are in a channel. I can see the margin of the channel. The channel here is about--yow--about 4 m deep.
1208 2588 086 Came off of a little rise. There's a little pit in the jumbled flow, we came up out of it, and now we're in lobates. So there was a collapse--it looked like it was floored with the jumbled flow. There was a lobate crust, and then a gap of maybe 0.5 m to the top of the jumbled flow. We came up over that and now we're on the lobate lavas. Let's just head, you know, pretty much due east and look for the contact.
1210 2583 106 Passing over broad lobates, still the young lava. There are lots of holothurians, and rare patches of orange hydrothermal staining.
1210 Coming onto lobates that are locally collapsed. I just passed over a small zone that was maybe about 20 m wide of bulbous pillows that were heavily budded. Here's a collapse pit with a hanging pillar. That's a new one. It's not supported on the bottom, it's just hanging from the top. The collapse was only about 1 m deep, and the bottom half of the pillar was missing.
1211 2586 106 Patches of orange and white hydrothermal staining. Jumbled sheet flow? That's okay we'll just keep going east. I think this is still the young stuff. Jumbled sheet flow. Shrimp out my window. This sheet flow almost looks older, but I think that's the nature of the beast. So we just crossed over a little channel, that was cool, into lobates. The lobates still look like the young stuff. And here's another section of jumbled sheet flow. So that was a little puka of lobates surrounded by the jumbled sheet flow.
1214 2588 102 x947, y-3564. Still over lobates. I think this is still the younger material.
There's a big channel out my window. We're flying on the levee of it, it's a lobate levee, and inside the channel is quite a depression, quite a collapse, 5 m deep. It's floored with platy and locally jumbled.
1215 2591 101 Finally coming to the end of that large collapse. It was about 30 m long and about 10 m wide. Over a ridge of lobates, and here it comes again. It's a lava tube, a collapsed lava tube. This is totally awesome. So there are these large collapse pits aligned parallel with the direction we're traveling that are separated by areas still roofed over by lobate flows. These collapses that are marking the tube system are on the order of 3-5 m deep, floored with rubble and folded and lineated sheet flows. There's a nice lava coil right below me. Looking into the wall of the collapse I see bathtub rings but I don't see any tubes.
1216 2591 101 Coming up out of the next elongate collapse. Flowing over lobates for a stretch of about 8 meters, and then there's another large collapse that's big enough to swallow the sub, floored with sheet flows. And now back into lobates.
1217 2592 098 Couple of smaller collapses, 3-5 m across. Patches of orange hydrothermal staining. I think this is still the young stuff, although the sediment seems to be increasing a little bit.
1219 2595 099 Possibly, about 2 min ago we may have passed a contact. The stuff here looks a little bit older. Steve says we're going slightly downhill. There is a little bit more sediment cover. It's still patchy, there's still patches, but even between the patches we see sediment now. It's still quite glassy, however, so I think we're going to continue east until I'm convinced we're in the older material, and then we'll take a sample before turning around.
1222 2600 x 1203, y-3599. I'm pretty sure this is the older material. I think we've been in it for about 5 minutes or so but I wanted to make sure. So I've asked Steve to drop down and pick up a rock, any old rock, and we'll go from there.
1244 2601 178 x 1232 y -3624. We just collected sample #4 from this older lava. It's a piece of a pillow crust. It looked in the video like, although it was in situ, it looked as though it was pretty heavily weathered, so it'll be interesting to see what it looks like on the surface. And we're gonna head south for ~200 m and then we'll head back toward the axis.
1246 2601 182 We're flying over lobates, and the sample that we took--we all sortof agreed that the sediment cover was higher and more continuous there, although the lava is still quite glassy. I'm not terribly sure. But we're flying south and I hope that it will be obvious once we turn west again that we did in fact cross the contact.
1249 2608 183 Flying over lobes, and this is definitely the older stuff here. The sediment cover is pretty continuos. There are lobes and decorated pillows. I'm sure that this is the older stuff. I'm less sure about where we sampled, actually. x1240, y-3799. This is definitely older.
1255 2607 170 x1247, y-3841. We just collected sample #5 from these older lobates. I'd call these age 2.0. I think that sample #4 was in fact the new stuff and that sample #5 is definitely older [note: it may be that #4 is an intermediate age lava flow]. We're gonna head back toward the axis now. I'm going to keep my eyes open now to see if we pass 2 contacts or only 1. I really think that the new stuff, it looks to me like the new stuff is locally spilling onto the old stuff right here, like we're right on the edge of the contact here. Yeah, we were! Damn, we're good.
1256 These budded pillows are the newer stuff, and those heavily sedimented lobates were the older stuff. So by sheer force of luck, we managed to find the distal end of the young stuff.
1258 2604 267 Heading over broad lobates that are locally decorated. The vertical relief here is < 1m, on the order of 0.7 m or so. Pillows intermingled with lobes. The individual lobes are not very thick, on the order of 30 cm. Pillows are on the order of 80 cm. Now the lobes are getting slightly broader, on the order of 1 m across and 2 m long or so. There are some haystacks where the pillows pile up on top of each other. Now I'm in a field of decorated pillows. We're going upslope, aren't we? [Yeah]. We're going up just a wee bit, it's a gentle slope. The pillows and lobes are slightly elongate along the direction that we're flying, flowing toward 6:00 as the sub heads. It seems to be a very gentle slope. And it almost feels like we're coming out of it--no, they're still elongate. So as we head back to the axis we're going up just a little bit, but that's to be expected.
1300 2600 264 x1055, -3882y
1302 2595 266 I think about a minute ago we crossed into material that looks just a little bit older. It doesn't look like the really youngest stuff; this has an age of 1.0. Sediment is more continuous, so I think there's some irregularities to the flow contact here. Some very lobate boundaries to the flow contact.
I'm looking out my window into a field of heavily sedimented pillows. I'd give those pillows an age 2.0. Complete sediment cover, and they're large pillows that are 5 m long, 1.0-1.5 m in diameter, that are surrounded by--this is a heavily sedimented area that we've come into, so we've passed into some older material.
1303 Steve says that it's going slightly steeper uphill in front of us. This is definitely an older kindof pillow construct.
1304 2589 268 There are patches of--oh, there's a dumbo octopus--a little, itty-bitty one, only about 20 cm long. There are patches of white hydrothermal staining in the cracks of these pillowed flows, they're mostly pillows. Some of them are decorated and some of them are not. They're good-sized pillows, 1-2 m in diameter.
1305 2587 264 Passing over lobes mixed in with the pillows now. Broad flat lobes that are 2-3 m across. There's a uniform sediment cover over everything; I'd call these age 1.5 -2.0. But there is glass underneath the sediment; I can see reflections of glass from beneath the sediment. Patches of white hydrothermal staining in the cracks. I think I'm seeing dead serpulid shells, but I'm not sure.
1306 Those are big galatheid crabs! They're big--they're lobster sized! Well, okay, small lobsters. Chicken lobsters. Two pounders. We're in broad lobes now, Macdonald age 2.0 broad lobes. I saw 2 galatheid crabs in this stuff. Steve says he's coming up on a collapse. x787, y-3925. Small collapse pit about 2-3 m deep, a sub-length long. Coming up behind it is another collapse. This collapse contains small pillars. I think we're in lava tube system. That's a brachyeurid crab. Decorated pillows.
1309 2582 270 Flying over lobate flows with patches of white hydrothermal staining in the cracks. The white hydrothermal staining has become more common in the last 5-10 minutes or so. The sediment cover, it's the older lava, not the newer lava, based on the sediment cover. It's still quite glassy. I think what happened is that we were in a tongue of the newer stuff cuz we followed a channel downstream--that might've been the place where it went the farthest. Then we turned south and came back, and it just didn't go very far this far south.
1313 2579 272 Yeah, this has gotta be the younger stuff. The sediment cover's much patchier. Flying over bulbous lobes and pillows. Sediment is in spots now instead of the continuous cover. So sometime within the last 50 m or so we passed a contact. But I think there was a zone of about 100 m where there was this sortof interfingering, where there'd be this occasional pillow that sortof slipped in that didn't have the sediment cover. And now I'm flying over jumbled sheet flows. There's a big channel beneath me. We're about 300, 250m from the axis. Here's a channel that just started here. Anji's now crossing the channel.
1315 2577 270 There's absolutely no question that this is the younger stuff. Maybe we did pass a couple of contacts; I'll have to look at the video. All I know now is that definitely now we're in the younger stuff and for the previous 3 minutes I've sortof felt that we were in the younger stuff.
1315 We're probably about 200 m from the axis and we're flying over a mixture of lobes that are decorated, some that are broad and collapsed, the occasional decorated pillow, and there are channels out here filled with folded sheet flows and jumbled and smooth--the normal assortment. We just started picking them up out here and I have a feeling the channels represent the younger lava.
1317 2573 272 x 400 y -3950. Flying over decorated lobes and pillows. Definitely younger lava.
1321 Collecting a sample near the axis in a collapse pit.
1324 2567 200 x284 y-3958. We just collected sample #6, a piece of lobate crust from the margin of a small collapse. The collapse was about 1 m high and the pit was about the length of the sub, well, it was big enough to set the sub down in. And we're approaching the axis now. We're approaching the Kihi hydrothermal site so we'll see if it's still active.
1325 2566 285 There's a large lineated channel out my window that's about 6 m across, about 3 m deep, and it looks like it's ending just right in a collapse. We're probably just within 10 m now of the axis--and there it is. We're just a few m from the axis where this channel started. Oh, and now I can see a folded sheet flow on the floor of the collapse flowing out away from the axis. And here's the axis.
1326 x228 y-3944. So here we are at the axis.
Out my window there's a series of pillar walls, brachyeurid crabs, spaghetti worms. Lobate crusts connecting the pillars, holes through the pillars. There're beautiful caves back under the lobate arches. Galatheid crab, fish, there's a little pillar out my window, maybe you should take a look at it.
1329 2567 060 There is hydrothermal activity around here somewhere. There's lots of crap in the water, I see crabs, galatheid and brachyeurid. We're in the axis, but none of the pillars that we've seen, none of us have seen any hydrothermal activity.
1330 2568 034 Anji says she sees lots of pillars. I see some sort of marker out my window. It's a cylinder painted reflectively stuck on a rope. I can't see what it says or anything. I can't tell how old it is, I don't know if they put any markers here in 1993. Oh, there's an Alvin weight.
1334 We're swinging around south. There's a pillar wall that has spaghetti worms on the top, serpulid on the side. At the base of it, there's a lot of white staining. I don't really see anything coming out of it. There's crabs hanging around.
1336 2565 190 x 225 y -3830. Just took a little sweep around the Kihi area. There's something going on but nothing localized that we can really identify. There's murky water, there's a lot of biology around, crabs, fish, serpulid worms, but we don't see any specific sites of diffuse flow or chimneys. So something's going on but it's unclear what. We're now heading south to begin our pillar hunt.
1337 2570 215 We're driving south in the axis here. Lots of serpulid worms shells. I see piles of hydrothermal staining. There's lots of little worms in the water, and just a bunch of yellow and orange bacterial crap. Steve says that the stuff we're driving through here is us, that we kicked up when we came through here the first time. But there is lots of yellow hydrothermal sediment over the talus that we're flying over now. Galatheid crabs, dandelions.
1412 x208, y -3926. Just collected the upper approximately 80 cm of a pillar from the southern end of this collapse. We have some good video of it before we collected it. The entire structure was approximately 6 m tall. Knocked off the upper 1.5 m of it and got the upper 60-80 cm of it in the basket, in 2 pieces. One piece that's cylindrical in the middle of the basket, and another that's a portion of the pillar wall that's in the aft port basket.
1418 2565 269 Heading south along the axis to look for more pillars. There's a break in the axis here. It looks like we come out of the axis and travel over lobates for a few meters before getting back in the axis.
1420 2568 195 Passing over a cuspate embayment in the axis wall and into another portion of the axis where there are some pillars but they do look kinda big.
1431 2572 A piece of pillar fell into the middle back basket from this location, and we're going to sample a chunk of the platform it was growing on. We got the uppermost portion of that pillar, probably the upper 50 cm or so.
1445 2568 198 Flying over the axis, trying to find some primary stuff on the floor.
1448 2576 178 Settling down to get our last sample from the floor of the axis. We're right on the edge of a shallow collapse pit within the axis. There's spaghetti worms and the normal crap floating around in the water. The edge of the collapse pit is sheet flows. There's a single lobe out there, but otherwise it's wrinkled and flat sheet flows.
1449 Getting a piece of jumbled sheet flow from the floor of the axis.

1455 Leaving the bottom where we collected the last sample which is a piece of folded sheet flow from the floor of the axis approximately 50 m south of where we collected the pillars.
1545 Starting Maurice Dance
1552 Maurice Dance stopped