Dec 7, 2020 Blog Post by Carmen Lawrence, JASCO Applied Sciences.

Hello everyone! I’m Carmen Lawrence, a project scientist with JASCO Applied Sciences. My role as part of the science team is facilitating the deployment and recovery of the landers and ensuring the sensors on board are installed and functioning properly. This is my fifth ADEON cruise – I’ve been on all of them!

This time around we’ll be recovering the landers from all stations and deploying three brand new units. Normally, we get the deck mostly to ourselves, but this time we’ve had to share with the JASON ROV crew – and they don’t pack light! Overall, they brought 92 tons of equipment, including their very own specialized crane (Fig 1) required for the safe launch and recovery of the system. All this is packed into a mere 7 semi truckloads. They are like a deep sea carnival (their words, not mine)! Somehow we managed to fit everything aboard and the back deck looks a bit like a mini city but we’re all really looking forward to observing and hopefully participating in the operations and learning more about this incredible system.

Figure 1. JASON ROV - specialized crane required for the safe launch and recovery of the system. Photo credit: Carmen Lawrence (JASCO)