Battling crabs 250 miles off the Oregon Coast, while studying an underwater volcano

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) ^ | June 30, 2022 5 a.m. Updated: June 30, 2022 1:24 p.m. | By Jes Burns (OPB)

[thecodont]

Reporter’s notebook: OPB science reporter Jes Burns shares a strange tale of “crabotage” that emerged as scientists aboard the research vessel Thompson tried to answer complicated questions about the Axial Seamount.

Being out on the research vessel Thompson in the middle of the ocean means never really hearing the ocean at all. There’s engine noise and exhaust blowers and climate control and winches and wind — but very few actual waves.

Being out on a research ship 250 miles away from land means the science never stops. It’s a 24-7 buzz of prepping, deploying and recovering geologic sensors trying to understand complicated questions about what makes volcanos tick — specifically the undersea Axial Seamount, which is about 250 miles west of Cannon Beach.

Being out on the research vessel Thompson also means witnessing firsthand a drama beneath the waves. It’s a story of human against nature, a battle of attrition, on the top of the Pacific Northwest’s most active volcano.

It’s a story I’ve come to call “The Spider Crab and the Seismometer.”

“We expect sabotage, crab sabotage. Because there’s obviously a battle going on between Jason and the crabs at Axial Seamount,” said Oregon State University volcanologist Bill Chadwick, the head scientist on the ship.

[LastDayz]

Would suspect monkeys or some such to be involved if that were the case.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Now I want seafood. Might be a box of fish sticks in the freezer.