Crossing line SUESI tow underway

We deployed 24 OBEM receivers across the central Hikurangi subduction zone, oriented parallel to the trench axis. After email discussions with a GNS Science colleague, I decided to extend the profile length considerably.  The middle of the profile is now centered on the central tow line from about 10 days ago (the original plan was to tow only the southern half of the profile with 18 receivers). If all goes well and the weather doesn’t get in the way, it should take us about 48 hours to tow SUESI over the ~125 km long transect. Then back to navigating and recovering receivers. At this stage, we have now deployed the OBEM receivers nearly 150 times! Our crew are a hardworking bunch..

Xline-map.jpg
Map of central Hikurangi subduction zone. The triangles show the OBEM site locations from the central profile, where we collected SUESI data about ten days ago. The squares show the OBEM sites we just deployed in the last day. We are currently towing SUESI up from the southern end.