The Feb. 2-4 blogs are by Catherine Rannou, artist-in-residence of project ISOLDE, who accompanied geologists Ilya Veksler and Jakob Keiding for three days of field work on Tristan da Cunha (Jan. 26-28). Translated from French by Karin Sigloch.

The most important rock samples have been taken. Today we visit the western part of the island, but this time by public transport: the island's only bus. A bucolic, sunny day, calmer than the previous one. Along little valleys and volcanoes, we encounter cows, ducks, donkeys, before arriving at the Potato Patches. 
At this place of subsistence farming, we find an assemblage of small cabins built from boulders of lava, roofs made from salvaged pieces of corrugated metal, or from pieces of driftwood. The geologists keep taking rock samples on a beach a bit further off, while I take my own "samples", photographic and videographic, in these little patches of earth.
A family is piling up a low wall using lava pieces, a tractor has come directly to the beach in order to get building material. Another family is pulling out potatoes. It feels like a present-day utopia, an self-sufficient society where every thing, every action, keeps to a human scale. Only the volcano and the ocean reach beyond this scale. They are awe-inspiring, and they are the reason that the scientists of "ISOLDE" are here.

The Feb. 2-4 blogs are by Catherine Rannou, artist-in-residence of project ISOLDE, who accompanied geologists Ilya Veksler and Jakob Keiding for three days of field work on Tristan da Cunha (Jan. 26-28). Translated from French by Karin Sigloch.

At seven in the morning, one of the fishermen confirms that our departure is imminent. The "Wave Dancer", a boat that lives up to its name, will take us to the east of the island. Landing on the beach in a rowboat with five fishermen, one as skilled as the other.  We relive a moment from the adventure books of our childhood, of pirate landings in quest of hidden treasures on the beach. 
The geologists, helped by the fishermen, locate their target at the steep base of the volcano. This gives occasion for an improvised lecture in geology. Swarms of albatross are gliding overhead, the rockhopper penguins barely move as we pass them by. 
Following a request by the administrator, I take digital pictures of the damage caused by a micro-tornado in October. The small pine forest uphill from the beach, which used to protect a farm house, is divided by a corridor of tree stumps that resemble broken match sticks. Pine trees more than 20 meters high have been unrooted. An unlucky cabin has been buried beneath a fallen tree.
Our return is just as acrobatic, and on the way, we pick up some Scottish botanists who are doing field work in the south of the island. They had been out for nine days on the flanks of the volcano, living completely cut off from the settlement.

The Feb. 2-4 blogs are by Catherine Rannou, artist-in-residence of project ISOLDE, who accompanied geologists Ilya Veksler and Jakob Keiding for three days of field work on Tristan da Cunha (Jan. 26-28). Translated from French by Karin Sigloch.

We left for Tristan on Wednesday with our geologic, photographic and video equipment. We are staying in a cottage where every detail reminds us that we are in the United Kingdom, but far off the beaten track nevertheless. The tartan of our landlords, the Glass family, is on the wall, recipes from Cornwall are printed on a kitchen towel. We'll be bedded and fed royally, to our great delight. 
Thursday, the first morning, is spent on visiting the administrator's office, and the group of fishermen who will accompany us to Sandy Point, a site targeted by Ilya and Jakob for their rock sampling. This beach is hard to access as soon as the weather turns rough, and only experienced mariners can take us there. It will be feasible if the weather cooperates.
In the meantime, we seek out the lava flow of 1961 to take some samples. Ilya and Jakob are looking for olivine inclusions, markers that will tell them whether the lava originates from a deep magma source, which would imply that Tristan is underlain by a mantle plume, or whether the magma source is superficial. 
For my part, I take photos with my pinhole camera. It allows for shots of large focal depth, capturing the geologists in their element, completely immersed in this sea of lavas. Each exposure, made directly on cibachrome color paper, takes me 15 minutes. While this may seem like an eternity in the era of the internet, it amounts to nothing on the time scale of  a geologist.

The “Sputnik” has been the number one conversation piece of this cruise. A commanding presence on deck, and a decorative backdrop in many of the photos, it clearly knew to inspire. Our artist Catherine, who has been reflecting on the legend of Tristan and Isolde, has likened it to“King Marke's throne”.  

Not wanting to spoil the romance, we refrain from discussing technology here, and in any case the Sputnik had no scientific role to play in the ISOLDE project. It is an electromagnetic source in the making (“basically finished, as its owners keep assuring us), which was taken along to be field tested. Today was the day of the Sputnik launch, and it drew a considerable audience. Almost everything worked, including the things that had never worked before. We got to see perfectly clear pictures of the mud on the seabed at 1200 m depth. Nothing's perfect, so an old problem also cropped up again, but altogether the day was declared a success. Sputnik looked great all along, of course.

Karin Sigloch

During the engine room tour of the MERIAN,  our group was particularly fascinated by the two propulsion systems. Neither of them is standard. Unlike commercial ships, which want to go quickly from A to B, a research ship must hold its position in the water about 70% of the time, while scientists experiment in their chosen locations. This requires sophisticated, custom-made steering solutions. In the rear, there are two pod drives that can rotate by 360 degrees. The second propulsion system is completely contained inside the ship hull. It sucks in water and expells it again in directed streams. Since it does not protrude into the water, this propulsion is unlikely the get damaged, thus providing another margin of safety. Both propulsion solutions were partly chosen in view of the MERIAN's designation for operating on the ice margin and breaking young sea ice (“Eisrandschiff”). 

Achim Schüler, the chief engineer, is also proud of their certification by the “Blauer Umweltengel” (proof of high environmental standards). This means that no waste whatsoever is disposed of into the sea. In order to store it on board, everything needs to be strictly sorted and then treated separately. Achim demonstrated the latest upgrade, a paper treatment machine that produces neatly compressed pellets. DFG and BMBF, the agencies that operate the ship, agreed to purchase it recently when certification requirements became stricter, so that the MERIAN would keep its “Umweltengel” status. Currently it is the only ship that holds the certificate in all categories.

Karin Sigloch

The MERIAN's chief engineer, Achim Schüler, gave us a tour of the ship's engine rooms. It started with an intro in the engine control room, one floor down from the main deck, which is packed from bottom to top with technical manuals. The chief engineer is not just in charge of the ship engines and propulsion systems, but also of heating and cooling, electrical infrastructure, sanitary facilities, water desalination and waste water treatment, and waste treatment facilities. In short, he is responsible for managing the interplay of all technical components and technical staff that keep this little floating town running, under all circumstances. Officers like Achim train at a university of applied sciences (Fachhochschule), typically after an apprenticeship as ship mechanic. With enough experience as ship engineers, they can advance to chief engineers, and since many of them also find attractive jobs onshore, they are in high demand in the nautical industry.

The ship is highly computerized, so that people can concentrate on handling the more demanding situations. In case of a serious problem, the ship could be run manually from the engine room. In fact, there is not just one engine room, but two nearly identical ones, so that the ship stays functional in case of fire in one of them, for example. Achim explained that redundancy has been a general design principle for the   MERIAN, which was launched in 2005. The electrical and climatisation systems also exist in two instances, there are two different kinds of propulsion systems, a large variety of different winch systems, and so on. Besides a higher margin of safety, it also means that science operations are hardly ever interrupted due to ship maintenance.

Karin Sigloch