Logistics

Mounting an expedition to remote, uninhabited islands is going to be a challenge! For the Marianas expedition, the team are piggybacking onto the NSF-sponsored cruise of the research vessel Wecoma operated out of Newport, Oregon. Professor Doug Wiens from Washington University, St. Louis will be using the Wecoma to retrieve ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) from around the islands. He will also be visiting six of the islands as far north as Agrigan to dismantle land-based seismometers installed in spring, 2003. Setting sail from Saipan on April 14, four members of the team will join Wiens' group to land on the islands and collect samples.

Although the ship-based scientists will land on some of the islands, time ashore will be very limited. In addition, the ship will not go near the most northerly volcanoes. Therefore, part of the sampling will be done by helicopter and one of the main challenges of the expedition will be to coordinate ship and helicopter operations to gain maximum access to various sampling sites.

Helicopter to be used for transporting the team

Specifically, the helicopter will be used to transfer people between landing points on the shore and the summit regions of the various volcanoes and to bring them and the samples they collect back safely. The helicopter will start out from Saipan on April 19 and will carry three members of the volcanology team. The plan is that everyone will meet on Pagan that day. For the next five days, the ship and helicopter will work together so that all nine islands are visited and any samples collected are returned to the ship to bring home.

As the volcanology team will be split into two groups, they will be updating the journal from both Saipan (the helicopter group) and the ship (the Wecoma group). Therefore, expect an eclectic mix of stories as the two groups report on progress and experiences from different parts of the Mariana chain.