Tuesday, February 1, 2005...

In the morning, the DSL 120 side-scan sonar vehicle was launched over the port side (see launch photos). After several hours of paying out wire, we began to tow the vehicle ~125 meters off the ocean floor, collecting a continuous ~1 km swath of ocean floor backscatter data. The side-scan images are used to map the physical characteristics of the ocean floor, distinguishing regions that expose bedrock from those covered by sediment or talus. Output from the DSL 120 is monitored by a group of scientists stationed in a darkened van on an upper deck.