Six-Day Log

Storegga Slide Coring Cruise

Written by Michele Hatton
Educator & Florida State undergraduate geology student

Saturday, August 28, 2004 - Bergen, Norway

We woke early, checked out of our modest but tidy European hotel in the port town of Bergen and caught a taxi to the harbor. It has been raining constantly since we arrived here 18 hours ago. Blue with cold, the ten of us piled in the cab, stuffed our soggy luggage in back, and zipped on over to the harbor four blocks away. Today our thirteen-member science team would settle in on the R/V Knorr, a 300-foot research vessel that would be home for the next two weeks. Early tomorrow, we would leave port to begin our journey on the Norwegian Sea.

Most of us crossed at least a half dozen time zones to reach Bergen, hooking up with one another in foreign airports. Handpicked by the expedition leader, the group consisted of students and scientists, all passionate about geology. Quickly, we were forging alliances, warming to one another, swapping stories.

Bergen is known as the rainiest city in Europe. It is an old city of churches and cobbled roads. But today, a fog hung limp in the fjords, shrouding the brightly-colored homes, the green moss of hillsides, the bobbing ships. Occasionally, the sun peeked out, revealing a rainbow of color that stretched to the harbor and back again.

The Knorr was more majestic than I had imagined. A cobalt blue hull with a lime green top. Flags waving proudly high against the sky. Walking up the gangplank was a thrill. I was embarking on an adventure unlike anything I had ever known. There was nothing to compare it with and at 49, experiences like those are hard to find. I had returned to college at Florida State University to study geology and had recently been accepted for an internship with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. We would be steaming through the Norwegian Sea coring deep ocean sediment in search of clues as to what happened during an underwater landslide that shook the area 8,000 years ago. This type of adventure I had read about, seen on television, but never imagined I would have an opportunity to participate in.

Once aboard, we dumped or suitcases in our respective cabins. We then set up the laboratory, hauling heavy boxes and unwieldy gadgets from the upper deck to the lower deck, and then into the shipboard lab.

The more experienced of the group set up the band saw, the Manheim-style squeezer, and another device called a multi-sensor core logger (MSCL), also known as the MST (multi-system track). I was handed a screw gun to help put together the portable squeezer apparatuses on which we hung heavy black canisters. We shelved vials, syringes, core caps, and other items, including at least 100 large boxes of paper towels which we stacked on racks under the lab tables. I suppose tomorrow we will learn what to do with this equipment. Right now, I don’t have a clue what any of them is for.

By early afternoon, we headed to the outdoor market —a gang of eight of us, seven Americans and one Dane. The market was packed with crates of raspberries and blackberries, knitted wool sweaters, and fresh fish with frozen grimaces. As we ambled through, I returned again and again to the stands with colorful Norwegian sweaters folded neatly in stacks. Although they were useless items to a native Floridian like me, they appeared so cheerful alongside the unrelenting drizzle that I left there with a bundle of them in my arms. I wasn’t the only one.

Tonight we ate dinner together on the ship: moussaka, vegetarian chili, sautéed snow peas, and 5-greens salad. This delicious spread was followed by a stack of pies, each prepared with a mix of fresh raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries purchased in the marketplace. Each slice was topped with a dollop of iced cream. This meal could have easily passed for one served at an upscale Boston restaurant. If this is the start of what’s to come, I’m game!

So far, I’m not sea-sick. Then again, we haven’t left port.