Our ship, the R/V Marcus G. Langseth, is one of 25 research vessels available to U.S. scientists for oceanographic research. The Langseth is unique among the research fleet, equipped for advanced seismic imaging, with a high quality sound source and long arrays of listening devices, or hydrophones, which trail behind the ship listening for the echos returned from the seafloor and below.
Our program is complex. Part of our science team is on a companion ship nearby, the R/V Oceanus, deploying ocean bottom seismometers, which are also listening to the Langseth’s soundings. On land, just prior to our cruise, a series of seismometers were set out by our colleagues in the mountains of coastal Oregon and Washington to also record our soundings. With these arrays, extending hundreds of kilometers offshore and onshore, we hope to see deep into the subduction zone in two regions with quite different properties, one along the Washington margin where there are relatively frequent small magnitude earthquakes ,and the much quieter central Oregon margin.
This expedition features a cast of scientists and graduate students from the U.S., Canada, France, China, Spain and Serbia. We are accompanied by expert science technicians who deploy the advanced seismic equipment, marine mammal observers who let us know when marine mammals are nearby, and the crew who ensure the safe operation of our ship, day in and day out, for the 26 days we will be out on the cloudy Northeast Pacific.