Posted on by Kerry

New world record!

We did it! Today we deep-towed SUESI to 5100 m deep in the Alaskan subduction zone, making this the deepest ever deep-tow of a controlled-source electromagnetic transmitter.  Woohoo!  Edit: the night team just pushed SUESI down to 5150 m! This beats our previous record of 5000 m set in 2010 at the Middle America Trench offshore Nicaragua.

We celebrated 5100 m earlier tonight but as I write this the night shift pushed the record to 5150 m!
We maxed out the amount of cable we’re allowed to deploy at 7600 m. We were told the RV Sikuliaq would have 9000 m of 0.680 cable for us to use, but when we were loading the ship in San Diego at the start of May, they informed us that the cable was damaged at around 7800 m and so we could only let out 7600 m. So we’re not able to go as deep as the trench is here (about 6000 m for this profile), but at least 5150 m deep still beats our previous depth record of 5000 m.
Eric, Steve, Janine and Jake watching the SUESI monitor as we approach 5100 m.
Janine and Peter stoked on the new world record for deepest CSEM deep-tow!
Jake and Li on watch while we tow across the deepest part of the trench.