Journey to the center of the earth
"Wherever he saw a hole, he always wanted to know the depth of it. To him this was important."
- Jules Verne in Journey to the center of the earth
Diving under the WHOI pier feels like descending into an infinite hole. You jump from the pier into the test well with a splash. After letting a little air out of your wing, you descend slowly through the depths. The water starts out light blue but becomes green and gets darker and darker as you sink. By the time you approach the seafloor, everything is black, and you may as well be in Earth's core - except for the temperature. The water is a chilling cold that presses in on you from all sides. The pressure pushes on your ear drums, which you have to pop multiple times.
After adding a little air back into your wing, you lift just a foot or two off the silty seafloor and hover there. Your light comes on at the flick of a switch, and you push yourself along with your fins. You are swimming through the depths, an alien visitor to this dark and turbid world.
I dove under the WHOI pier this week to check on an experiment. Over the past several months, I've been working with engineers to develop a camera system, and it's currently undergoing its second test deployment. The camera photographs new recruits that have just metamorphosed from larvae. My objective is to photograph them as soon as possible after they metamorphose and then quantify parameters like growth rate, mortality rate, and temporal patterns in settlement.
I wasn't sure if anything was growing on my camera, but I was excited to see that there is! Assuming everything works with the camera electronics, I should get my first real data! It was a great dive.
- Jules Verne in Journey to the center of the earth
Diving under the WHOI pier feels like descending into an infinite hole. You jump from the pier into the test well with a splash. After letting a little air out of your wing, you descend slowly through the depths. The water starts out light blue but becomes green and gets darker and darker as you sink. By the time you approach the seafloor, everything is black, and you may as well be in Earth's core - except for the temperature. The water is a chilling cold that presses in on you from all sides. The pressure pushes on your ear drums, which you have to pop multiple times.
After adding a little air back into your wing, you lift just a foot or two off the silty seafloor and hover there. Your light comes on at the flick of a switch, and you push yourself along with your fins. You are swimming through the depths, an alien visitor to this dark and turbid world.
I dove under the WHOI pier this week to check on an experiment. Over the past several months, I've been working with engineers to develop a camera system, and it's currently undergoing its second test deployment. The camera photographs new recruits that have just metamorphosed from larvae. My objective is to photograph them as soon as possible after they metamorphose and then quantify parameters like growth rate, mortality rate, and temporal patterns in settlement.
I wasn't sure if anything was growing on my camera, but I was excited to see that there is! Assuming everything works with the camera electronics, I should get my first real data! It was a great dive.
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| Diving under the WHOI pier with my camera system. Photo by Ed O'Brien. |
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