We’re back, baby!

Greetings to our many fans and followers! There are dozens of you!

We are headed back to our study site after a year to recover the broadband seismometers that were deployed in Sept 2021. This array of 28 instruments was designed to characterize background seismicity on the central part of the Queen Charlotte Fault near the 2013 M7.5 Craig, Alaska earthquake. And we get to take the R/V Langseth again! It’s great to be back on the ship with many of the same crew.

View of downtown Seattle from Pier 90, Elliot Bay.

We boarded the ship in Seattle on September 9 and left the dock at noon on the 10th. We have about 3 days of transit to the first ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) recovery site. We are on our second shifts and the science party is doing great so far.

The R/V Langseth, docked at Pier 90. Ready to roll!

This year’s experience has been so different from last year…in 2021 we had COVID quarantines, a very small team and masks always required indoors. This year, no quarantine—everyone had multiple negative tests before boarding—no masks, and a big, fun science party! Along with the co-chief scientists, we have a couple of postdocs, a graduate student and six undergraduate students joining us from Western Washington University. We also have a team of 4 OBS instrument technicians and engineers.

Ain’t no party like a science party! Students, PIs and scientists ready to go.

Having the students aboard is great and we are doing lots of training and learning about the ship’s systems and deck work and safety. We are standing watch, processing bathymetry data and eagerly awaiting our first OBS recovery coming up sometime tomorrow!

Stay tuned for more info and some slices of day to day living on the Langseth!

Blog post by Lindsay Worthington