July 15. Again gas hydrates!
We have started the day with successful coring! Again hydrates! Let it be a good tradition or, at least, habit. The gas hydrates were obtained from Novosibirsk mud volcano. Today was engaged in its mapping.
Milky-white hydrates appeared as one huge piece. Such finding has pleased and inspired all participants.
The weather has slightly changed. The heat of last two days was relieved with a gentle breeze. The mist has disappeared and the participants got a chance to enjoy not only results of the sampling but also picturesque views of Baikal coasts.
Of course, new adventures were waiting for us. Both the nature and equipment gave surprises.
The gravity core with thermal sensors (they stick out as some "wings") got tangled into the wire. Of course, the participants of the cruise (mostly, the MSU team) got worried about their main instrument. But the well-organized and very skillful team of the RV "G. Yu. Vereshchagin" led by co-chief scientist of the expedition Oleg Khlystov has “entered the arena”. Just in 30 minutes everything was fine. The core, safe and sound, got on the deck. The samples have arrived in laboratories. All data from the sensors were downloaded to the computer. The damaged wire was cut off, and the new one was prepared for work. And again we look forward (and deep down Baikal) for new discoveries. Wonder people!
The further, the greater! Three identical cores were obtained although three different locations were sampled! We have already mentioned “typical” Baikalian section before. But still, such similarity was not expected and, so, is impressive! Each layer, each lens, each laminae repeated each other in the smallest details. Wonderful lake!
Tomorrow we will take some more samples from the Novosibirsk mud volcano, and then we will go toward new unknown objects.
Night guest
The closure of the day was with very informative lecture of the “fresh-cooked” Master of Sciences Anastasia Fokina. The subject of the lecture was "Technique of gas-geochemical survey in water areas". After that we watched the funny movie prepared and presented by Svetlana Bubnova (the video operator and the photographer of our expedition). Its title was “Master class for the core packing”. Some fragments of this movie will appear soon on the site.
