Today, was a day of collecting multi beam bathymetry as the weather calmed; and another core complex was discovered! That’s five in five days on site. This one is very interesting because it’s very close to the axis and therefore may be currently “in action”.
The other interesting result that emerged today during the rock description of the three dredges from yesterday was the presence of “iceberg litter” in our samples. In other words dropstones of continental crust (from Antarctica?) that have been carried out here by calving ice sheets during the last glaciation. Finding three or more (was the quartz sample also a dropstone?) in just 30 or so dredge samples indicates how many such dropstones must be out here.
Dropstones of continental crust- A piece of slate and two samples of garnet bearing gneiss
Maurice Tivey also presented some initial magnetic results at our nightly science meeting- possible low magnetism (peridotite?) areas within the rift valley? and hints that the magnetics will indicate asymmetric spreading.
Tomorrow, we launch Sentry at daybreak to map the axis of the rift valley and whilst we’re waiting, dredge to find peridotite (and basalt).
