Thanks...I'll keep posting, but we have low speed internet on the ship (satellite is not cheap; Scripps has a monthly contract so my posts don't cost, but bandwith is limited).

We got gravity cores across the interval of interest last night...around 1 million years and a couple hundred thousand on either side. It was warmer back then...around 1 million (I think). I am doing detailed interpretation of the new seismic data and there are channels and unconformities within the interval of interest. Jim Kennett looks at the microfossils in the cores and can tell the paleo-water depth. I think after 1 million years the core site started uplifting from deep water to shallow. This is related to slip starting on the dangerous faults that dip beneath the Santa Barbara-Goleta mainland.

Meanwhile, we have been surveying all day in one of the other areas of interest with a higher resolution acoustic source (boomer=electrical). This survey is across our proposed sites for the International Ocean Drilling program. The main concern is safety and the main problem would be gas in a layer that was both porous and permeable. The velocity of sound in air (gas) is much slower than even in young slow sediments, so such gas-charged (sandstones) make a strong negative reflection. We are imaging some of these.

Tonight, we cautiously try piston coring of the same sites that we did gravity cores. Even suing Big Bertha the longest gravity core we got was 60 cm. But, the sediments are old and firm and we already stuck and lost one piston corer. So, Chris the corer (not me) will first core with less mass and look at the tension in the cable, before adding mass.

Good Sunday dinner: excellent steak and other items.
Chris