SHIPS - Photo Enlargements 123

SHIPS Preparations at the USGS Marine Facility March 2, 1998. The equipment is loaded on the truck and headed for the University of Washington.
February 10, preparations are underway at the USGS Marine Facility at Redwood City, California (near San Francisco). The equipment shown below will be shipped to Seattle and installed on the University of Washington Research Vessel Thompson. Hal Williams (left) takes a break from work on the air compressors to talk to visitors. These compressors will deliver 600 cubic feet of high-pressure air per minute to the airguns. The compressors will be trucked to Seattle and mounted on the back deck of the R/V Thompson; they will supplement University of Washington compressors of equivalent size that are already onboard.
Kevin O'Toole works on the airgun gantry. The airgun array will be towed from this gantry, which will be mounted on the stern of the R/V Thompson. The gantry weighs about 20 tons and is made up of 10-inch diameter steel pipe. It is being specially made for the SHIPS survey. It was fabricated in Redwood City, and is shown here during final welding and assembly. Tarps obscure most of the structure because arc-welding can occur only during the infrequent breaks in the el nino rains. Kevin is working on one of the 16 hydraulic motors, each of which will be used to deploy an airgun. After being assembled and tested, the gantry will be disassembled, mounted onto three large trucks and shipped to Seattle.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/pacnw/ships/wetships/photos0.html
maintained by Susan Rhea
last modified Wed, Feb 28, 2001