Water


Adventures in Costa Rica

Adventures in Costa Rica


Posted on Sep 24, 2013

Earlier this month, NMC students Mara Penfil and Miriam Owsley presented a lecture on their 2013 internship in environmental management in Costa Rica.  They, along with fellow NMC student Samantha Padgett traveled to Costa Rica in May to EARTH University for the internship, and where they could interact with other students from around the world.

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Paige Jehnke is a student at NMC’s Great Lakes Maritime Academy. She is completing a sea project for the fall semester of her junior year in the engine room of the M/V Taku, a ferry which travels the Alaska Marine Highway. Paige is blogging about her adventures and has graciously allowed us to share her updates.

Today, September 3, 2013, I start my fall semester aboard the M/V Taku. The Taku is a passenger/car ferry with Alaska Marine Highway. I will arrive this evening in Juneau to meet the ship. The ship does a daily run between Juneau, Skagway, and Haines. I have never been to Southeast Alaska before and I am anxious to get there. This internship will be counted as sea days towards my 3rd assistant engineer’s license, which I will receive at the end of my four years of schooling. I will complete assignments and help carry out engine room tasks.

Basically, I will always smell like diesel or lube oil.

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NMC Great Lakes Water Studies student Chris Horvath is in Iceland this summer on a Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) internship aboard Columbia University’s research vessel the R/V Langseth, doing research on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  Chris is sending us periodic blog posts to update us on his adventure.  You can read the rest of them here.

Before I delve into this blog entry, there are a couple things I’d like to address:

First, in the last entry I detailed our gravimeter aboard the boat and identified it as a Lacoste and Romberg G237 unit, which is in fact the portable unit I will be using when we land back in Iceland.  That unit is taken to various control points around the world where the exact gravity has been surveyed in using some other very sophisticated equipment.  The Science Techs and myself will be taking the G237 to two control points in Reykjavik:  At the University of Iceland; and, outside the Hallgrímskirkja (giant Irish Lutheran church in the center of town).  The data we get from those points can be compared to the calibration of the Lockheed Martin B210 unit that is secured in the main lab aboard the ship.  All the data we collected during the cruise can then be confirmed as accurate and true; though, calibration is done before the cruise as well, and the B210 is monitored throughout our cruise.

Second, there is a website devoted to this cruise, which also includes some blog entries by other members of the team:  R/V Langseth – Reykjanes Ridge Cruise

I highly recommend that you check it out for some different perspectives.

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NMC Great Lakes Water Studies student Chris Horvath is in Iceland this summer on a Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) internship aboard Columbia University’s research vessel the R/V Langseth, doing research on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  Chris is sending us periodic blog posts to update us on his adventure.  You can read the rest of them here.

Contrary to popular discussion overheard in the galley, there is a point to all this drifting and isolation.  We are here to affirm assumptions from lands far away.  To stand firmly on ground never before tread upon – so to speak.  To discover the secrets of a land not yet explored.   At least so I’m inclined to believe.

My job is fairly straightforward.  I stand watch over the scientific equipment collecting various types of data by monitoring the computers designed to record the data in real time, and help troubleshoot and launch the equipment required to retrieve said data.  I suppose a brief walk-through is in order to fully understand what we are collecting and how it can be considered accurate and true.

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Ship life has its privileges

Ship life has its privileges


Posted on Aug 24, 2013

NMC Great Lakes Water Studies student Chris Horvath is in Iceland this summer on a Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) internship aboard Columbia University’s research vessel the R/V Langseth, doing research on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  Chris is sending us periodic blog posts to update us on his adventure.  You can read the rest of them here.

It’s about 65 steps from my room to the lab, when the weather is good; or, somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 when the seas are unsettled.  The ship can be quite large if you don’t know where you are going, and 65 steps can very easily turn into 500+, which consequently is how I spent most of the first two days – aimlessly wandering the hallways, walking down the same pathways from different directions, and generally having a real hard time keeping a face like I knew what I was doing as I passed by the same deckhand for the fourth time.

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In Iceland and ready to get started

In Iceland and ready to get started


Posted on Aug 19, 2013

NMC Great Lakes Water Studies student Chris Horvath is in Iceland this summer on a Marine Advanced Technology Education Center (MATE) internship aboard Columbia University’s research vessel the R/V Langseth, doing research on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.  Chris is sending us periodic blog posts to update us on his adventure.  

This is his first entry.  It was written on August 12, but due to technical difficulties sent on August 19.

It’s been 95 days since I accepted this amazing opportunity to work aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth out of Reykjavik, Iceland.  Sandwiched in the wait was a 19 day delay due to the ship succumbing to engine troubles.  The trip took 15 hours to get from door to door.  And, I had gotten exactly one hour of sleep by the time I touched down in Keflavik at 9 a.m. local time.

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