Mapping the North Arch Volcanic Field!

We spent 24 hours mapping the North Arch Volcanic Field using a high-resolution multibeam, sub-bottom profiler, and magnetometer. All of the MG&G people were very excited to map this area, as there have not many mapping surveys in this area, so we didn't know what we were going to see until we did it. While we were mapping we "mowed the lawn" in order to maximize the coverage. The boat followed one transect, then turned to start the next transect. It was very fun to see such a big ship turn (but it wasn't fun for everyone's stomachs). We haven't started processing the data yet, but we found lots of lava flows in the sub-bottom profiler. The bathymetry data was a little more finicky and required us to slow down as much as we could without allowing the ship to drift with the waves. Like most of our watches, we spent most of our time watching computer screen collect new data and logging important events. After we finished criss-crossing over the lava flows we headed north to map an inferred fissure. Overall it was very interesting to see how seafloor mapping works, and we are all excited to start processing the data!

-- Reese Miller and Helena Pfluger