 We're back. We're alive and she's back. Petty Fryer is back. Petty Fryer, a professor of geology and geophysics at UH Minoa in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology right here among us. Welcome back, Petty. Oh, well, thanks for having me on the show, Jay. This is a continuation. This is research in Minoa, and that is submarine research discoveries in the Marianas part two. And as we left this exciting story, we had these things on the table and I'd like to review them because because one of the staff members came around later he said that's the most unusual rock I ever saw. So wait a minute, that's not a rock. No, no, no, no. What is that? What is it? Oh, a very heavy thing. No, this is a bit. And this goes on the bottom hole assembly, basically on the, there are four of them, that go surrounding a hole in the metal pipe that grinds out the material on the seafloor as we drill. This is used when we're drilling through really hard material, but in order to get really full cores and when they use these they also have to circulate drilling mud and water and so it kind of washes things out of the hole and if you were to do this into soft stuff you'd be losing a lot of material. So what they do instead is initially they just use a pipe with kind of a beveled edge at the tip and it goes through the center of the drill bit and pushes ahead of the drill bit, no actually it's not turning and that's that's the critical thing. They use, they actually use a piston and the piston is released and suddenly the whole core shoots down into the formation and brings back most of the time 100% of the soft material. Then we keep doing that until we can't get any further and then we go to what's called an extended core barrel, so an XCB and this is kind of like what's not really a bit, well it is a bit, but it's got a little, yeah it's got a little teeth. Yeah these are, these are steel ones. Yeah the outside is steel and these guys are, I think they're tungsten and I forget exactly what they are. But they will then rotate and basically drill into the slightly harder material. So this is for the harder material this is for the softer material. No this is for the very hard material. Okay. I didn't, I don't have anything to show you for the advanced piston coring which is just, it's just a metal pipe with beveled edges on the top to make it a little bit sharp. And then inside all of this both the piston coring device and the extended core barrel device there is a metal pipe and then inside that there's a PVC pipe. And the thing about the advanced piston coring is that it's so powerful that it can shoot as much as nine and a half meters into soft material. But if it gets a little bit harder strange things happen. Like, like, like, can you folks see this? This actually is a piece of PVC pipe and it was twisted like this when, when the piston shot out. Because the material was so hard. The material was too hard and there was so much friction that the PVC pipe got very warm. And when they tried to pull it back out, it just basically twisted like, you know, taffy. Just sometimes it's amazing. Yeah, melted it and twisted as pipe rotated. Can we get a shot of this? Okay, that's the that's the the PVC pipe which is which is plastic transparent plastic. That's right. Yeah, we put we put these marks on the side so we'll be able to saw it in half exactly. So you can see exactly what happened to the material. Yeah, and you can look through and see. I didn't, you know, you're very strong. Although I noticed your hands were shaking a little with the weight of this. But I would have a problem lifting it up. I'm gonna try to lift it up now. Okay. Heavy or yet. So this thing, gee, this must be almost 3040 pounds. It's really heavy. Probably 25 30 25 30. Okay, and if you look if you can look into the that thing that's that's where the what what goes in there the shaft this actually we have a couple of pictures that I can show folks these this sits on basically on holders there are four holders around the center of the drill pipe and there's one of these on each and they're facing inward so they face inward like this and then they grind away on the rock as as the drill is pressed. So interesting the outside is you know rough and tough with all these dots on it. We we decided by the way this was reminiscent of a candy. Oh yes way back when we had a three inch strip of paper and then there were dots of sugar sugary stuff on it and you'd peel off the dots with your teeth and eat some of the paper the paper came off yep and the FDA would never prove that today but never never not with all the mercury in the paper the paper is the problem anyway I'm getting my arm is getting tired I'm sure I can hold this okay so this is really this oh and by the way what makes it exciting is this one of those dots in the top that the very top one seems to be worn down can imagine the pressure involved yeah that's true what is something like that cost any I mean the whole operation okay this comes with it yeah yeah I don't know how much the bottom hole assembly is all together cost this is not as heavy this is yeah this is a little lighter yeah the beautiful machine machine working it's a beautiful piece of gear it certainly when we can't use it anymore you could make something out of it maybe a lamp I certainly could yeah this is paper weight for my office yeah you can have you can have as much paper as you want for sure that's right nobody comes and messes with my parents no what's what's the head this thing this is a standard styrofoam head and I usually use these things when we have open house at the University and up at HIGP in fact we're gonna have open house this October so people can come in I hope you let us come with a camera great okay this was a normal size you know head and this one I put this in a remotely operated vehicle that went to the Challenger Deep which is the deepest point in the Mariana trench and of course it was just totally shrivel so the the kids that come and look at this I'll just feel feels like you know when you pick up a styrofoam head it feels really light and you know the kids always think that that weighs more because it's compressed it just feels it's denser you know so they think it weighs but it actually weighs same amount exactly yeah it's an interesting what did Liani isn't it not sure take a look and see if you agree that it's more deeply any okay certainly it's it's it's not Venus de Milo so how many feet how many atmospheres down there oh it's about what we said this last time imagine 16,000 pounds per square inch so you know it's either an SUV or an elephant on Pogo stick on your big toe and all over your body so that's how many how many meters or feet down below that's almost 11,000 meters it's 10,924 meters meters that's just over seven miles seven miles yeah and so this is at the bottom these guys are these guys can the drill string on on the joyous resolution can go to 10,000 meters and then it can go I think about a thousand meters it has that much pipe when it when it's fully loaded it has that much pipe but they're the deepest that I know of in terms of touching the seafloor is in the Mariana Trench at about about 8,000 meters deep I think that's about what it was but there there may have been deeper drill sites elsewhere that I'm not aware of just wondering you know if a ship say an 18th century ships any ship yeah was crossing this area and for some reason a storm who knows what yeah it you know it lost its watertight integrity and sank right would it go to the bottom and what would happen to it on the way sure it would and anything that had air in it would be crunched you know any any hollow more more sort of more like that I got it screwed on I think that's what I think Patty is trying to tell me we need to take a break we take a short break a little water we'll examine the bottom more carefully okay and then we'll be right back that's patty fryer we'll be right back you're watching think tech Hawaii which dreams live on think tech Hawaii comm uploads to YouTube and broadcast on cable OC 16 and a lullo 54 great content for Hawaii from think tank freedom is it a feeling is it a place is it an idea a dive heart we believe freedom is all of these and more regardless of your ability dive hard wants to help 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paperweights out of them this one was used on the mid Atlantic Ridge on expedition 305 and we were coring through very very fresh unaltered and extremely hard rock that's the same kind of like hard rock you'd find on the surface like granite for example yeah yeah just so you have some photos that we sort of you know show this and demonstrate exactly what it looks like when we try the photos okay let's do that yeah the the very first picture is of the ship itself sailing out of Honolulu and occasionally it does come here and if folks want to visit the ship they can if you know if they're not incredibly busy offloading and stuff they do have tours of the ship on occasion best to get in touch with somebody from the University and that tower is the tower is like an oil well tower because it's sinking the pipe it's turning the pipe it's it's the Derek so if we look at the next picture well that's the two chief scientists that were out on cruise 366 that's me in a pink shirt and my buddy Jeff wheat who is in the other shirt so we were making decisions as to where to go after spending almost 13 years discussing with the drilling program the the protocols that necessary data and so forth that's what they call operational control of the vessel yeah maybe a scientist and they may be a captain but you're telling him where to go that's true but he's telling me yes or no if the waves are bad or the weather isn't cooperating and the second the second picture that we saw was of the drill floor itself can we where the pipe is put together and then the next picture shows oh yeah there we go there's the drill bit before all these little nubbies get worn off and that dark like something out of a transformer movie yeah exactly it was really mean so the the black thing coming up through the center of the drill bit is the advanced piston coring pipe so you can see the beveled edge at the top so that's that's upside down when it's actually operating the next one is the drill bit that's used for just one more look at that look at you know it looks like it's smiling teeth are it's got a smile yeah anyway yes and the teeth are somehow coordinated they moving or what yes they will they will rotate and as they do they grind away the rock and they leave the area right in the center of the four bits that's the core that we recover as the drill pipe advances down into the sea floor so the the motion of those three wheels yeah is caused by the motion of the pipe itself there's no motor or anything oh yes there is oh yes these rotate as the entire drill string rotates and that is controlled within the Derek by the drillers can you see what as a scientist you know with operational control this can you see it is there a camera or something down there how do you know what's going on the drillers tell you there's all kinds of things that they're measuring I'm measuring the pressure on the formation they're measuring the resistance of the drill bits to the material that they're they're penetrating and and they have all this arrayed on just a huge digital screen that they've got you know every single aspect of what's going on down there yeah the heave of the ship all of that is controlled by the the the top drive and the heave compensation system which is bunch of bunch of tubes with the area in them that try to keep the pipe from you know crashing into the the sea floor every time we take away and so they're reading the heave yes and then compensating and that's done that's done basically automatically they're not controlling the heave the heave is controlled by by what is actually happening on the sea floor how do I get on this ship you know what do I have to study who do I have to call or write to anybody absolutely anybody can write a proposal to take this ship out to sea and collect core samples and what you have to do is you have to fill out all of the appropriate forms of course right and then then you write a rationale for why scientifically this is important and that proposal then goes through a whole series of scientific advisory panels that are staffed by people who have similar interests people who have very different interests scientifically people who have experience with the drilling program itself and having gone to sea on the drill ship and know whether things are going to work the way the person is proposing it sets or hopes that it will work and once you have gone through all of that you go to a safety panel that evaluates whether or not there are any potential dangers or problems with actually drilling also whether or not this is an area that's protected either environmentally or just that it's you know somebody else's backyard someone someone else's sovereign economic so I know you wouldn't do this in the South China Sea for example actually they are doing it right now the Chinese or no with the drill ship okay yeah they had actually get permission yes and we have partners now who contribute to the funding of of the expeditions and we had two Chinese actually three Chinese scientists on the cruise that I was coaching so you not only have to you know get permission to get on the ship to I guess lease the ship or rent the ship you won't have to pay to rent and that's another whole issue about getting funding for what did you say a hundred thousand dollars a day for the minimum yeah right give a take yeah so you have six there's two applications involved that's true and because this is an international program and we have partners from a variety of nations they all chip in to help pay for the ship so the ship is leased to the international ocean discovery program now I ODP and then from each country that contributes a certain number of scientists can be invited from countries that contribute more more scientists can be invited yes it is a great privilege and tremendous amount of fun you see you can have both at the same time honor privilege and fun oh yeah so we only have a couple minutes left and I want to get into the question of what you pick up there yep and what you do and I know there's a lot of material to discuss in a few minutes but pick one pick one kind of material that opened the Proustian keyhole for you okay I'll pick two I'm not going to take these out because they're really muddy but if the camera can get a look at this these these are bits of the material that came out of the coral anger when we were coring at the mud volcanoes that I'm interested in this material is basically bits of the hydrated mantle of the earth and the rocks and the mud that we were recovering tells us about the the physical composition that we can measure temperature down the hole we can drop instruments down the hole once it has been cased with a pipe and leave them there for years on end and determine what the characteristics of the contact zone between the subducting plate and the overriding plate are and that's where the biggest earthquakes on the planet occur what can you learn from that I mean you know to me you know you take a little sample yep a little experience like this it's this big but it is miles high in terms of its value and the kinds of things you what can you learn well this is the only way that we can learn about what the physical characteristics of that contact zone are because we have no technology that can drill down 18 kilometers into the area where the down going plate actually touches the overriding so you can learn about the mechanics of the subject yes and what it does to the material that's being subduced is that the right word no but that's a nice word we can deduce what the seducing seducing here you go watch it again that endangers family show yeah what we can tell from this are the temperature the pressure the chemical composition of the contact zone where these major earthquakes are taking place and some of the rocks that we brought back that were were dragged up basically erupted from that contact zone we can see the nature of deformation within those rocks we see cracks in the rocks we can see what filled the cracks you know what what minerals what are what are the characteristics of those minerals do they slide easily do they not slide easily would they help or would they preclude earthquakes you know there's just so much information that we can get out of just tiny little pieces of rocks geologists paradise dream come true dream come true you can not only find the rocks we can you can figure out what forces what have to do to change that how that how they react to heat how they react to pressure all those things that's right now what does this tell us for example about other subduction zones or other you know geological phenomena one of the things that we're very interested in is the fact that on the east side of the Mariana trench there are a whole lot of ancient seamounts big big seamounts I mean you know three thousand and four thousand meters high and these things are being subducted and there's a lot of argument in the scientific community right now about whether or not they cause earthquakes or whether they stop earthquakes by changing the physical characteristics of the surrounding stuff so these things are being subducted all over the subduction zones around the Pacific and Atlantic I mean all over the world so what does this lead us this is the is to understand earthquakes more yes definitely so theoretically we could we could put sensors gonna sensors is all the technological rage these days and science put sensors down there or somehow sense what's what's happening in zone B not in Mariana but zone B sure and see what the the readings are and then figure out what is going to happen or what is happening right now right in that's in the subduction possibilities of that second area that's correct what we can do as soon as we get instruments down in the cased holes that we left in the Mariana region we'll be able to follow the changes in chemistry of fluids that are coming up out of the down-going plate we can collect them in these tubes that just collect them for years and so then we can slice the cube the tubes up and figure out okay does the composition of the fluids change when there are earthquakes that will tell us what mineral phases have released fluids we'll be able to tell by the composition okay so then if we have a seismometer anywhere near this area there's an earthquake we can determine whether that produces a pulse of fluids does that help earthquakes everybody thinks that the more lubricated a fault zone is the more likely it is to give way and so if we can we can track those kinds of changes we'll know a whole lot more about the instantaneous changes that are required in order to create an earthquake and that and my goodness we have earthquakes yet yet to come here in this planet of ours sure do that could be devastating so we need to know more about them to deal with that devastation or that risk of that earthquake absolutely yeah what about minerals and vegetables what about new compounds new rocks that you haven't seen before what about you know the cure to cancer is it down there can you find new yeah we think so of course we think so we need more funding I'm teasing you but but yeah indeed the microbiologists who were on this expedition were incredibly interested in finding out because these mud volcanoes can tap the most unusual chemistry that we've ever found in the oceans and how does that affect the parameters of life the limits of life can animals actually live down there one of the questions we have is we know that there are microbes that are going down the subduction zone and the microbes that we find in the mud volcanoes some of them are unique but some of them look an awful lot like the ones that are going down with the subducting plate and so one of the questions one of the microbiologists is pursuing is whether or not the animals the microbes are able to ride the plate down and then come back up the plumbing system of the mud volcano and how they do that because they may be you know mechanisms biological mechanisms that allow them to do things that we haven't figured out yet that's for sure it's a whole new world it's goes way past captain Nemo indeed yeah but you but you are right you know both things like cancer and Alzheimer's are things that people who are interested in pharmaceuticals from micro organisms or from macro organisms on the sea floor are looking into I mean the fish that we talked about last time that can survive at pressures that will do this to a styrofoam head the these animals have chemicals in their bodies that protect their tissues from those kinds of pressures and those are the same kind chemicals that people are using now to treat Alzheimer's so how can how can we springboard off discoveries such as that in order to be able to help chemical that protects you from water pressure also could help you from Alzheimer's but there it is I mean so you you know you find one magical compound somewhere it could have implications there somewhere you never and so this is a world of research to be done by fire oh so much it's we're only at the very beginning research so little time well we'll have to continue this discussion but the last question I want to ask you is so suppose you know I was watching this and I am watching this and I got very interested in this sort of thing and I wanted to I wanted to be a student I wanted to be a person I wanted to just like you oh my goodness how would I do that how would you do that have to go back a few years well the the most important thing I think for any scientist is never to forget to be curious and I know that you're curious Jay and that's a good start to understand all of you know the materials the background in terms of the science in school and joy school whatever topic you enjoy follow that through for me it was rocks from the very beginning but but you have also to be persistent and there are a lot of things that that get in the way of people advancing you know through through their interests to a career and the most important thing I think is to love what you do you know and make sure that you do what you love and once you decide that you're in the great dichotomy it's the follow-through and the others two kinds of people in the world the ones who follow through on their dreams their aspirations their passions and the others follow your career and all these fabulous discoveries you know to make it oh well thank you Jay that would be fun come back soon this is Patty Friar she's a professor of geology and geophysics at UH and she's in a wonderful place for professor of geology and she there was an article what I saw in the last day or two about how UH had incredible research facilities we don't realize I mean the population the people of Hawaii don't realize all the incredible things that UH is doing this is one of them you're welcome any time