New Zealand American Submarine Ring of Fire 2007 Explorers
Edward T. Baker
Supervisory Oceanographer
NOAA Vents Program, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory – Seattle, Washington
Ed Baker, a veteran of more than 60 research cruises, was educated at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Washington, where he is an affiliate professor in the Department of Oceanography. Currently a supervisory oceanographer at PMEL, he joined NOAA in 1975. Dr. Baker has investigated deep-sea processes, especially hydrothermal vents and submarine canyons, throughout the Pacific Ocean.
Bryan W. Davy
Marine Geophysicist
GNS Science
Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Bryan Davy is involved in most aspects of regional marine, inshore and freshwater geophysics in the NZ EEZ, Antarctica and the shallow inshore, harbour and lake environment. Dr Davy is a leading advisor on New Zealand’s UNCLOS continental shelf delineation having been involved in offshore surveying for the submission, submission preparation and currently submission delivery to the UN. Bryan has been a leading researcher on marine geophysical surveys (generally collecting seismic reflection/refraction, swath bathymetry, gravity and magnetic data) both on New Zealand vessels and collaborative surveys (e.g. R/V L’Atalante, R/V Sonne, R/V NB Palmer) which have focussed on understanding the Mesozoic evolution of New Zealand and the break-up of Gondwana. The studies have examined the collision of the Hikurangi Plateau Large Igneous Province in the New Zealand segment of the Gondwana Super-continent convergent margin 100 Million years ago, through subduction cessation at that margin, rift development in the Bounty Trough-Great South Basin-Campbell Plateau region, leading to continental break-up and seafloor spreading between New Zealand and Antarctica. Bryan has also been active in small boat seismic, swath, gravity and magnetic surveying particularly examining the volcanic collapse caldera structures within lakes such as Lake Taupo and Lake Tarawera of the New Zealand central volcanic region.
Cornel E.J. de Ronde
Geologist
GNS Science
Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Cornel de Ronde is a Principal Scientist at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS). He leads the "Offshore Minerals" part of the "Economic Growth for New Zealand through Mineral Wealth" program. The offshore minerals research has largely concentrated on seafloor hydrothermal vents associated with submarine arc volcanoes of the Kermadec arc, NE of New Zealand. This group was funded in late 2004 $4.9M over the following six years to continue their work which started in 1997. Since that time, de Ronde and colleagues at GNS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and elsewhere, have surveyed the entire Kermadec Arc (~1,300 km) and beyond into international and Tongan territorial waters, which they completed in Sept/Oct, 2004. They have surveyed around 35 major volcanoes and 8 smaller volcanic edifices. In Oct/Nov 2004, de Ronde and colleagues teamed up with Japanese scientists and dove for the first time anywhere along the arc, on Brothers volcano, with the JAMSTEC submersible Shinkai 6500. Then in April/May 2005, de Ronde and colleagues completed 23 dives on 9 different volcanoes using the submersible Pisces V as part of the NZASRoF expedition. De Ronde and colleagues have also participated on research cruises to map the Tofua (Tonga), Tabar-Lihir-Tanga-Feni (Papua New Guinea) and Mariana (Guam) Arcs, and the Ghizo Ridge (Solomon Islands) for submarine hydrothermal venting.
Bob Embley
[ 
OceanAGE interview ]
Chief Scientist for the Submarine Ring of Fire Expedition 2007
Geophysicist
NOAA Vents Program, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Dr. Embley received a PhD in Marine Geology and Geophysics from Lamont Doherty Geological (now Earth) Observatory in 1975 and came to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1979. He has been with NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Newport, Oregon and has since served as Team Leader for marine geology in the NOAA Vents Program. His more than 80 scientific publications include studies of a wide range of deep-sea features, including submarine canyons, sediment slides, fracture zones, the mid-ocean ridge, and most recently, intraoceanic arc volcanoes. He has participated in more than 50 oceanographic expeditions in the Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic Oceans over 39 years and has experience with deep-towed cameras, sidescan sonars, manned submersibles and remotely operated vehicles. He has participated in all of the Submarine Ring of Fire expeditions since 2002 and served as chief scientist on the Submarine Ring of Fire expedition in 2004 to the Mariana Arc.
Kevin Faure
Geochemist
GNS Science
Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Kevin Faure is a Senior Scientist and leads the Environmental Isotopes Section within the National Isotope Centre at GNS Science. He is primarily a stable isotope geochemist specialising in ore deposit studies, but has a keen interest in applying stable isotope geochemistry to a wide range of earth science topics. He has participated in all three previous NZAPLUME (New Zealand-NOAA) cruises along the Kermadec arc. Kevin's resposibilites are mainly associated with CTD operations, in particular measuring dissolved methane concentration in the water column. The sea-going methane analyser (SEAMAS) was successfully deployed on the last NZAPLUME III voyage and also on other research cruises exploring for gas hydrates along the east coast of New Zealand. SEAMAS rapidly analyses water samples (~ 4 minutes/sample) and has a lower limit of determination of 0.5 nM methane.
Ron
Greene
Research Assistant
CIMRS Program, Oregon State University
NOAA Vents Program, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Newport, Oregon, USA
Ron Greene has been part of the NOAA Vents chemistry group working out of Newport Oregon. for 14 years. He is a Research Technician at OSU and earned his Bachelor Degree in Geological Oceanography from the University of Washington. He specializes in the collection and processing of seawater samples for helium along with the data analysis. The degree of mantle enrichment of helium isotopes 3He and 4He, found in the seawater samples, is determined using a high vacuum extraction lab and an extremely sensitive mass spectrometer in Newport Oregon. Ron finds many aspects of the work and travel interesting. He also enjoys shipboard life as he used to fish commercially and spent time in the Navy.
Michael Hacking
Video documentary
Gibson International, Wellington New Zealand
Mike Hacking works for Gibson International, a multi-media company based in Wellington, New Zealand and has been directing and writing documentaries for 20 years. He's worked in countries such as Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and France, and his programmes have been broadcast widely to international audiences.
As part of the GNS team, he'll be recording some of the expedition's activities for documentary purposes and for exhibition in the National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Mike's particularly excited by the opportunity he been given to capture High Definition video of the Kermadec Arc volcanoes from the expedition's brand new ROV.
Matt Leybourne
Research Scientist
GNS Science
Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Matt is a Research Scientist at GNS Science, primarily investigating vent fluid and hydrothermal plume geochemistry. He has a B.Sc. from Waikato University, M.Sc. from Acadia University (petrology of mid-ocean ridge basalts) and a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa (groundwater-ore deposit interaction). Matt is a new addition to the GNS offshore team; my previous research has been focused on aqueous geochemistry with a view to better understanding water-rock interaction, mobility and transport of metals and metalloids, and groundwater-surface water interactions. His research involves fieldwork (and seawork), laboratory analyses (including major and trace elements, and stable [Se, O, H, S, C, B] and radiogenic [Sr, Nd, Pb, tritium] isotopes), and geochemical modeling. Much of Matt’s research has focused on groundwater systems (especially those around undisturbed ore deposits), but also includes the petrology and geochemistry of rocks that make up the aquifers under investigation.
Susan Merle
Senior Research Assistant
CIMRS Program, Oregon State University
NOAA Vents Program, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Susan is a Senior Research Assistant with OSU / NOAA Vents, working at Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport Oregon for the past 10 years. She graduated from the University of Washington with a BS degree in Oceanography, emphasizing marine geology and geophysics. Previous to her work with the Vents program, she worked for five years in the seafloor survey industry. Susan specializes in seafloor data acquisition, processing, analysis, two and three-dimensional rendering of ocean features and their geological interpretation. She manages large data sets that include bathymetry, sidescan/backscatter, seafloor sample information, and real-time logging system data collected by a variety of seafloor remote sensing systems, formatting the data for incorporation in ArcGIS, GMT/MBSystem, Fledermaus and various other programs for further analysis. Susan has been the web coordinator on five previous OE signature expeditions (Submarine Ring of Fire 2002-2006), and will resume that role for the OE New Zealand American Submarine Ring of Fire 2007 web site.
Joseph Resing
Chemical Oceanographer
JISAO, University of Washington
NOAA Vents Program, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Joe is a research scientist at the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and the Ocean, a cooperative institute between the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and the University of Washington. He is an affiliate assistant professor of Chemical Oceanography at the UW School of Oceanography. Joe studied chemistry at DePaul University and earned his Master's and Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography at the University of Hawaii. Joe has participated in over 20 major oceanographic expeditions and has spent more than a year's worth of days at sea. In his spare time, Joe likes to play basketball and soccer. He likes to coach his 8 year old son's soccer and basketball teams and looks forward to coaching his 5 year old daughter in her sports endeavors as well.
Sharon Walker
Oceanographer
NOAA Vents Program, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
Sharon Walker has been an Oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, WA since 1979, and a member of the NOAA Vents program since it began in 1984. Sharon specializes in the development of methods and instrumentation for the detection, monitoring and mapping of hydrothermal plumes, including the PMEL MAPR. She has participated in numerous research expeditions to mid-ocean ridges and submarine arc volcanoes. During this expedition, Sharon will collect hydrographic and optical data with the CTD, and with MAPRs during other operations.
Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) AUV Team
Andrew Billings
Engineering Assistant III
Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Alan Duester
Electrical Engineer
Woods Hole Deep Submergence Laboratory
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Al Duester is an electrical engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he has concentrated on autonomous vehicles for the majority of the 26 years he's been there. He's also worked on a variety of other instrumentation. He specializes in PC board design, and electromechanical packaging of vehicle subsystems. And lately, keeping ABE functioning at sea.....
Dana YoergerABE Team Leader / Associate Scientist
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA
Dana Yoerger received the SB, SM, and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently an Associate Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he designs and implements robotic control systems for telerobotic and autonomous underwater vehicles. He supervises the thesis research of students enrolled in the WHOI/MIT joint program in Oceanographic Engineering, in the areas of control, robotics, and design. Dana has gone to sea on over 50 oceanographic expeditions, including the 1985 Titanic discovery cruise.. He was a member of the team that developed the telerobotic control system for the Jason ROV and has served as Jason navigator on many cruises. He has been to the deep seafloor six times in DSV Alvin. For operations of the fully autonomous ABE vehicle, his responsibilities include science liaison, control system design and implementation, mission programming and testing, and generation of data products. New developments include Sentry, a successor to ABE, and Nereus, a hybrid vehicle that will be used as both and autonomous and teleoperated vehicle at depths to 11000 meters. Dana has also participated in a number of education and outreach programs featuring deep submergence technology and seafloor exploration. He is a member of WHOI's Deep Submergence Laboratory (DSL) which was founded by Dr. Robert Ballard.
IFM-GEOMAR QUEST 7 ROV Team
Colin Devey Expedition Chief Scientist
Thomas Kuhn ROV Chief Pilot
Martin Pieper ROV Engineer (hydraulics, mechanics)
Claus Hinz ROV Engineer (software)
Karsten Witkiewicz ROV Engineer (electronics)
Arne Meier ROV Technician (winch)
Hannes Huusmann ROV Technician (video)
Greg Engemann Schilling Robotics Technician/Supervisor
Furtauer Henrik Schilling Robotics Technician/Supervisor
Andrew Foster Schilling Robotics Technician/Supervisor
Erik Labahn ROV Engineer
Robert Surma ROV Engineer
Sara Yierul TV Team (after personnel transfer)
Thomas Kutschker TV Team (after personnel transfer)
