When I was offered a spot in the science team for the Popping Rocks cruise I got really excited: My first research cruise! The open ocean! Mid-ocean ridge basalts! HOV Alvin dives! Escaping the New York City winter! At the same time, I was a little apprehensive. Over the past decade I’ve studied lava flows on four continents and four planets but I’ve never studied submarine flows beyond a few classroom assignments when I was a student. How are submarine flows different from subaerial flows? How do we collect data? Will I know how to process the data? Will I recognize submarine flows in data and imagery? So I started doing some research.
