Apologies for not posting much here, but life on board is very busy and we had some weather hiccups that did not help us sitting in front of a computer or looking through the microscope. Our first 10 days of work have been extremely successful. We deployed seismometers to record…
…and we are back to the blue ocean! On the French research vessel Pourquoi pas? for the “Arc en Sub” mission, we are exploring the deep crust at the Rainbow massif, 36°14’N along the Mid Atlantic Ridge. Here, one active hydrothermal site and two fossil ones have been discovered to date. We…
For several days, the dives have been taking place directly on the axis of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which means the presence of solidified magma. These rocks are visible in different forms: pillow lava with sometimes lava fingers, lobate lava crust, etc. When magma rises to the surface, it cools very…
Here I am after two dives with the Nautile and I am still trying to get my thoughts together, to find the proper words to describe the incredible experience of plunging into the abyss. It had been one of my longtime dreams as a geologist to dive with the submersible…
As the title of this blog states we never imagined what was coming in our lives. We planned several dives keeping conservatives with the limit defined by Ifremer policies. The day arrived, however, all concurred to an historic performance. The Nautile team led by Xavier Placaud was running confident since…
To begin with, here is a little update on our activities: the core complex, a tectonically exposed structure consisting of mantle rocks, is now at the center of our studies. The latest Nautile dives were designed to study the tectonic structures that characterize the core complex. These are extensive and…
A big “hello to everyone” from Fabio! I am here to tell you about the second week on the ship. I will show you what happens in the laboratories during and after the Nautile dives. Before the beginning of the dives, three different working groups were formed to work on…
Our very own chief scientist Daniele Brunelli is diving within the Nautile as we speak. They have reached the depth of 6032.6 at about 11.10 this morning! A new record for the Nautile! Daniele is exploring the deepest portion of a core complex, a huge structure composed of mantle rocks…
At 10:15 on July 22nd, I enter the Nautile. The submarine is moved to the back of the boat, the door closes and the crew puts us in the water. The divers release the security wire, that is it, we are diving. During the descent, the pilot and co-pilot explain…
On the 21st of July, we had the first Nautile dive of the expedition. Everything went quite smoothly from start to end. The most amazing thing about this dive was the starting depth at 6010m. We are talking about 6 km of water sitting on top of this little yellow…