The anticipation finally ended today as the first set of DeepWorker pilots began the exploration of Pavilion Lake for 2009! Margarita Marinova and Mike Gernhardt each flew tracks through the Central Basin and the incredible science backroom team had the data processed and available for our evening science tagup. This is the first time we’ve been able to achieve this type of turnaround, making video from the sub available to be projected onto a screen in a little under 2 hours. The discussion that followed from the video footage was excellent, raising several new and interesting scientific questions, and we are looking forward to seeing daily mission highlights throughout the field season. Check out Mike Gernhardt’s blog for a sample of what he and the PLRP team was able to observe from just one flight this afternoon!
While the DeepWorkers were busy in the water, the AUV team was busy generating a high-resolution bathymetry map of the lake bed, sending Gavia on a mission for data-collection, and preparing for tomorrow’s experiment that uses both DeepWorker and Gavia to investigate the groundwater springs found at the south end of the lake. The high resolution bathymetry map will be especially useful to determine slope aspects along the basin walls, which is difficult to measure directly using divers or other means.
In addition to the lake exploration today, Dawn Sumner and Bekah Shepard were busy growing their recently collected microbial mats in our on-site laboratory. We are anticipating some excellent time-lapse photography from this experiment later in the week, and these changes in mat structure may be able explain some of the diversity we observe in the microbialites at Pavilion Lake.
For more photos of our operation, check our Picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/pavilion.lake for daily photo updates, or any of the other media channels available through the “Follow Me” link on the right of this page!
Cheers,
Ben
