1501NH

CalCOFI 1501NH General Cast Notes: This cruise occupied 100 stations: 93 standard, & 7 SCCOOS. The stations were occupied in traditional sequence but MBARI-SECRET 20nm stations, 63.65 63.75 63.85 & 63.95 were not occupied. SCCOOS stations 80.0 50.5 (too rough, windy night) & 85.4 35.8 (offline, shiptime) were not occupied. No CTD casts deeper than 770m were performed – no 1000m MBARI-SECRET casts on Line 63 & no 3500m casts on 90.90 or 80.90.

CalCOFI 1501NH was on SIO RV New Horizon. STS’ two-wire termination was used intially but after three short but problematic casts, a new termination was done. 150m of severely rusty wire was removed then a fresh termination of the three-conductor wire done by JRW. As recommended by STS, only the white conductor and shield were used for signal & ground (as the first three stations). There were problems with the pumps failing after 50m so the secondary pump was disconnected. For casts 04-11, only the primary sensors T, C, & O2 were collecting good data. Since using a single conductor for signal proved unreliable, the black+white conductors were combined for signal, shield as ground and new secondary pump installed. This solution worked and both sets of T C O2 sensors logged data for casts 12 – 63. On cast 64, the CTD failed during the downcast. The only viable workaround was to run primary T, C, O2 & pump only for casts 65 – 100. It is uncertain whether the CTD fish or deck unit were having problems or the conductive wire. (Note: CTD fish and deck unit tested fine so problems are attributed to the wire quality). The CTD & deck unit were sent to Seabird post-cruise for service. Please note that wildedit was applied to the CTD data to despike the sensor data – there were a few casts with significant spikes resulting in data gaps in 1m averaged data. Downcasts should be good but there are a few upcasts with spikes when triggering bottle closure. Please refer to specific cast notes below.

CTD initial configuration was standard: Seabird 911+ with dual T, C, O2, & pumps; Wetlabs C-Star 25cm transmissometer; Biospherical QSP200L PAR; Datasonics/Benthos Altimeter; WET Labs ECO-AFL/FL; Seabird pH; Satlantic ISUS v2 & battery. Please refer to the xmlcon files or cruise prospectus for additional info. The secondary pump was disabled for a couple casts at the beginning of the cruise; the secondary set of sensors were disabled after cast 64 for the remainder of the cruise.

Cast Notes:

Cast 01 – non-confirmations for bottles #2 at 50m and #3 at 42m; suspect #1 was 60m then #2 was 36m, both prodo bottles. Noisy signal & spikes noted on upcast; downcast looks okay.

Cast 02 – SCCOOS shallow station immediately after Cast 01; signal noise but 4 bottles marked, tripped, & closed.

Cast 03 – SCCOOS shallow station; downcast prfiles looks okay; upcast: 5m bottle #4 did not close – carousel jumped from 4 to 2 so additional trips were necessary to catchup. CTD reterminated post-cast.

Cast 04 – 93.28 severe problems, lost 12hrs troubleshooting CTD issues; CTD reterminated after 150m of wire removed. CTD pumps are turning off at ~50m on downcast. Additional solutions attempted: 1) 1° conductivity sensor changed before cast; 2) carousel changes as per DAG suggestion; 3) new pump cable; 4) new pylon cable; 5) spare deck unit used; 6) dummied secondary pump WORKED. So secondary sensor data on casts 004 – 011 are bad.

Cast 04 – 11 primary sensor data good, secondary sensor bad – no pump

Cast 06 – bottom valves on bottle #1 & #20 replaced post-cast, drippy

Cast 08 – bottle #10 replaced, bottom o-ring leaking

Cast 12 – backup pump installed as 2°; dual conductors – black & white combined for signal, shield as ground. Both pumps & sensor sets are working.

Cast 15 – rockin-rolling

Cast 19 – 15kt winds but relatively calm

Cast 20 – some big rolls

Cast 21 – rolling

Cast 22 – windy, rolling

Cast 23 – going down slow 30m/min then 40m/min; sunny but windy & rough

Cast 24 – going down slow 30 then 40 – rough seas

Cast 25 – mid-size rollers

Cast 27 – calmer; two markers at 440m – file edited/corrected

Cast 29 – calm sunny

Cast 37 – calm bright but cloudy; transmissometer dropout @ 500m downcast

Cast 40 – small pH spike at 330m on downcast

Cast 45 – calm morning; Fukushima water collected from underway since all bottle needed

Cast 48 – no nav file; created one from marker file

Cast 60 – RS232 issues, deck unit reset seemed to fix the glitch; MET system froze & was reset as well. Extra 4om tripped & ignored

Cast 61 – relatively calm with some big rolls – trough

Cast 62 – deck unit error lights flashed red at 35m downcast; spikes in O2 135m downcast; fluorometer spike @ 458m upcast. Connectors checked and serviced post-cast.

Cast 63 – all sensors glitched out at 85m on downcast but transient

Cast 64 – carousel reset after major spike, RJ did not fire enough bottles to “catch-up” so no bottles closed less than 200m ie only the 1st 7 depths from 515 to 200 trapped water. Downcast does not look bad but the transmissometer dropped out at 450-515m downcast. Pre-cast notes by RJ: deck unit displaying zeros on all channels, changed sea cable slo-blow fuse & fast-blow fuse. Numbers came back but it was decided to run only primary sensors and disable secondary sensors & pump.

Cast 65T – test cast, primary T, C, O2 & pump only on white & black conductors. Looked at sliprings but did not see any obvious problem. Test successful.

Cast 65 – single sensors no problems at all

Cast 66 – Fukushima seawater collected at 25m bottle 19 (should have tripped another for 20L; used remainder of bottle 18) and surface bottle 22. Pr offset adjusted by -0.05.

Cast 69 – rough seas again

Cast 70 -71 – moderate rollers

Cast 73 – no nav file created – will create one from marker

Cast 75 – big rollers, transmissometer failure 450-515m downcast.

Cast 76 – big rollers, hard to hit target depths; transmissometer out at 500-515m

Cast 77 – big rollers, hard to hit target depths; transmissometer out at 480-515m

Cast 78 – big rollers, hard to hit target depths; transmissometer out at 480-515m

Cast 79 – rough sunny weather; Windex bottle broke in wetlab (ammonia?); transmissometer okay

Cast 80 – moderate seas; transmissometer dropped out ~450-515m downcast

Cast 81 – Transmissometer spikes ~430-490m

Cast 82 -84 – Transmissometer squirrely ~450-500m downcast; no spare (Goericke’s spare uses older connector)

Cast 85 – crossed lanyards on bottles #2-3

Cast 86 – 100 – 12 bottle casts, Leg II after 8 scientists disembarked in Santa Cruz/Monterey

Cast 88 – 100 – Transmissometer squirrely ~400-515m downcast; no spare (Goericke’s spare uses older connector)

Cast 92 – moderate rollers

File notes:
08Mar2017 update to 20-1501NH_CTDFinalQC.zip file:

Seasoft-generated asc-hdr files are available renamed to 20-1501NH_LLLLSSSS_###d or u.asc & .hdr. Voltages in the .asc files were also relabled. Since this makes it difficult to reprocess & merge with bottle data if necessary, the original .asc, .hdr, & .btl have also been archived. Their voltage header labels have not been changed so refer to the corresponding .hdr file for sensor configuration. This cruise had both single T,C & O2 and dual T,C, & O2 – refer to notes.

Missing nav files created from mrk files: Cast 41, 62, & 73

Mislabels found and corrected:

Cast 09 – cast mislabeled 08 in hdr, hdr & hex files corrected using text & hex editors.

Cast 68 – sta mislabeled 90.0 in hdr, should be 80.0; hdr & hex files corrected using text & hex editors.

26Feb2015 / 16Aug2016(final update) / 08Mar2017 (CTD.csv file renaming; .asc file sensor-voltage relabeling)