When you're first pulling off from Port is that feeling of possibility
you don't know what's coming but you know that it's going to be an adventure
Pilot confirms control. Pull the pen. We're working off of the Cascadia Margin off
Pacific coast of the United States roughly between Northern California and Washington
Yeah that's a good heading there pilot just push that head copy pushing ahead. The objective of this
cruise is to hopefully characterize and research underwater habitats found along the Cascadia Margin
We're trying to understand geologically what happened in the past including that
earthquake that happened in the 1700s but then also kind of characterize this
location in the present day to help us better understand what could happen in the future.
This is essentially a puzzle piece that we can fit into this larger campaign known as EXPRESS,
which is a campaign that's a partnership between USGS, BOEM, and NOAA Ocean Exploration to explore
the Pacific Coast of the United States. Bottle 5 is fired. So we collected water
from the seafloor with the niskins that are attached to the ROV and we can filter the
water through a small filter to capture the DNA that might be floating around in the water column.
This is a way of detecting biological life without necessarily having to see it or sample it so we
could get an idea for what is in this area even if we're not able to get eyes on it with the cameras.
Coming out here gives you the chance to really start thinking about and seeing a
lot of these habitats close up and so it just reignites that feel of why we
do what we do and wanting to answer the questions that we came out to ask
but also answer the questions that we developed while we were out here.