Introduction

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R/V Pelagia Cruise SME 117 INDUS
	Diary overview
Friday, 19 December 2008	Yvo and Marcel preparing the Boxcore
Another windy night on the outer shelf last night meant that again we had to keep our seismic equipment on deck and safe and sound for a better chance to make a good cross section across the canyon later in the cruise. We made the best of the rather North Sea-like weather to do some more bathymetric mapping of the Indus Canyon, running up and down the length of this huge chasm in the shelf despite the waves pounding us. It's a very amazing feature with its tight meander loops, terraces and steep sides. Like a submarine Grand Canyon. There seems to an established pattern of windy, rough nights and calming during the day.
We are keeping our fingers crossed for better weather and good coring luck coming at the weekend. Today we have been coring across the outer shelf. We've been trying a number of styles at different locations. Multicores and now piston cores again, especially on the thickly sedimented outer foreset of the submarine delta front on the eastern side of the canyon. Our recovery is improving as the cruise is going on. The rush of core to process revealed a few holes in our organization, but now we have that under control and people's stress levels are returning to normal again. Looks like it might be a good evening to try a Chirp transect across the mid canyon.