The Lau Basin is a large abysal plain that seperates the Fiji islands from the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific. From http://ridgeview.ucsd.edu/page/laubasinbrief.htm:

The Lau basin lies east of Fiji and west of the convergent intersection between the Australian and Pacific plate, the Tonga trench. It is a back-arc basin due to it’s location behind the volcanic arc that formed through subduction processes. Within the basin lie two intermediate-rate oceanic spreading systems. Scientists are now exploring these spreading systems from a range of perspectives- biological, chemical, hydrothermally, geological, geophyscial- trying to better understand the intricacies of seafloor spreading in conjunction with the subduction zone influences.

As part of the National Science Foundation funded project Ridge 2000, R/V Melville was in this region for several months working with the Jason II Submersible. The goal was to investigate the sea life around various geothermal vents in the area.

I helped the Jason crew get set up on a transit from Tahiti to Tonga back in March, but didn’t get to go on any cruises with Jason working. Luckily, they took lots of pictures. I grabbed a CD with a bunch of pictures on it during my most recent trip.

These pictures were taken by some of built-in cameras aboard the Jason II. The cameras themselves are consumer-grade Nikon Coolpix E995 cameras repackaged into waterproof pressure casings capable of going several kilometers under the surface.

The Ridge 2000 team has put together a very extensive website covering several cruises on Melville and Kilo Moana. It covers a lot of stuff that I just sort of take for granted as part of shipboard life.

On a related note, it’s nice to see that my overly anal-retentive tie down job of this flat panel monitor in the Melville’s upper computer lab has gotten some photographic recognition:

It doesn’t need that many tie down points since it’s screwed down to the plywood, but it vibrated way too much while underway. The extra lines going over the top damped the motion enough that you don’t get seasick trying to read text on the screen.