Summary
Expedition 401 Mediterranean-Atlantic Gateway Exchange began in Amsterdam, Netherlands on December 12th and ended in Naples, Italy on February 9th. We drilled a total of 4 sites for the extent of the expedition recovering sediment. The samples processed in the x-ray lab where as follows:
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- Bulk (~2hr scan)
- random mount
- 4°-70°
- Step: 0.02°
- Scanning speed: 2s/step
- Clay (~1hr scan)
- oriented mount
- 4°-40°
- Step: 0.02°
- Scanning speed: 2s/step
Issues
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- Add sample in 50 ml centrifuge tube
- Add 45ml of water, I added DI water, but it can be regular water
- Sonify samples until the samples are all desegregated
- If samples flocculate, then add sodium hexametaphosphate and mix again
- leave for 8 hrs., the time the samples are left was calculated by measuring the height of the sample using Stokes's Law and inputting it into a spreadsheet provided by the scientist
- Empty the suspended liquid in another centrifuge
- Centrifuge at 3000rpm for 60 minutes, then empty most of the liquid
- Mount clay, measure, then glycolated, then measure.
AERIS
The AERIS was turned off during this expedition, since the Bruker was used to run XRD. I did turn it on weekly to make sure everything was running correctly. It still has the sample arm error when turning it back on, so I just pushed the arm in and restarted the instrument and that cleared the error.
Beadmaker
Beadmaker pump
In the process of finding the exhaust for petrol in the thin section lab we realized that the pump for the beadmaker was installed reversed, so it wasn't doing anything (Figure 1). The pump was then disconnected electronically and bypassed. Now the beadmaker is connected to the "T" that is always on and sucking air out (Figure 3). The exhaust power in thin section overhead cable needs to stay disconnected because the pump is not connected (Figure 2).
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