I attended at the IODP Exp. 361 sampling party in this November.
 |
| Exhibition space of TAM |
I arrived at the Texas A&M University after about 15 hours flights (from Nagoya to College Station via Narita and Dallas).
Almost all shipboard scientists met together again, and some shore-based scientists newly joined.
We are separated in two groups and each group had 6 hour shift. At fist I was in the morning shift (8:00 - 14:00), and later it was changed to afternoon shift (14:00 - 20:00).
 |
| Messy sampling table |
Marine sediment from South Africa was sometimes so stiff that we needed a lot of energy.
 |
| Sampling efficiency increased at first, but reached to saturation after. |
We competed each other in that how many samples each group and each sampling table could obtain in the working shift.
Finally we were able to obtain 36,000 samples!!
Before of After the working shift, we went to restaurants nearby and enjoyed chatting.
 |
| Nice sunset. Everyday we went to a restaurant near the hotel for dinner or lunch. |
College Station is a city for students, so beer of some restaurants were really cheep!
 |
| My friends from around the world!! |
 |
| Dinner of the last night. |
I could not find any interesting place to visit by walk. But I found one good park (Bark run).
 |
| a squirrel I found in a park |
The sediment samples will be shipped in the coming two weeks to each institute.
After the arrival of samples I will soon start sieving the material in order to collect foraminifers.
