To study the deep scour pits on the northern Blake Plateau to determine the nature of erosion or solution, the age and nature of the outcropping rocks, the nature of the biomass supporting large fish concentrations reported in this area, the thickness of the phosphorite-manganese pavements over the Blake Plateau, and the fracture patterns and their orientation; to visit the "Aluminaut Hole" and measure the water salinity within erosional pits to determine possible presence of fresh water nodules and their occurence; to determine if pavement is discontinuous; to examine and groundcheck features seen on GLORIA long-range sidescan sonar mosaic; to measure current velocity, temperature and direction throughout the area to determine the extent south-flowing undercurrents have contributed to scour topography; and to study the deepwater ahermatypic reef mounds.
Location
Blake Plateau, United States, North America, North Atlantic;
Summary
Sediment samplers were not placed into operating position due to heavy seas (must be emplaced by divers). Approximately 70 nautical miles (140 km) were traversed in view of the bottom. Approximately 35 nm of the bottom were recorded on video tape. Approximately 50 nm were recorded with sidescan sonar. Approximately 360 photographs of the bottom were made with hand-held cameras; 633 photos were taken with the external Benthos camera system.
Comments
Project = EEZ Minerals, EEZ Minerals. Information brought over from Foghorn: view ports, incandescent lights, closed circuit television system, 10 underwater TV cameras, video tape recorder, 4 regular screens with two small enhanced screens fed to videotape machine along with date and time;Benthos 35mm external still camera with strobe light;70mm external (powerful) strobe for hand-held viewer cameras;forward looking sonar;3.5 kHz sub-bottom profiler;manipulator arm, sample basket sampling scoops;temperature-conductivity-salinity probe, Savonius rotor current meter;side-looking sonar.
Chief Scientist's cruise report including personnel, purpose, equipment, tabulated information and extensive description of station information. Also includes trackmap, seismic profile location sketch, and several hand-drawn cross-sections.
