Rapture of the Deep, Chapter 3
To say that Tina was happy to be starting her last day aboard her floating work-tomb was the understatement of the year. She was happy to hop aboard this project when it was offered to her, but in just the first few days at sea, she realized this was more of an exercise in busy work than her already mundane days surveying marine life for disease. Not the most exciting work, she knew. But Tina would give anything to have the last two months back and return to staring at bacteria in jellyfish.
She flipped on the lights to her chaotically organized office aboard the USS Nevada aircraft carrier. The current naval officers resented her for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was her rare privilege of having a work space that was separate from her quarters. Tina remembered putting up a fight when Commander Stevens had insisted that she be given her own private area for work. She knew it would only do more to alienate her from the crew, and she would much prefer to avoid any extra grief. It wasn’t enough that she was the daughter of one of the most decorated naval Commanders in the last twenty years. It also wasn’t enough that she had been a navy brat her whole life, and had parleyed that into a career as a Marine Biologist specializing in water-born viruses. Sure, she did the work, attended the classes, earned the degrees, blah blah blah. But Tina knew how everyone really felt, even if they were nice to her face.
So she initially refused this office, but Stevens insisted, nearly ordered her to take it. She still shook her head every morning when she came in, cursing him in the back of her mind. Even after sixty days at sea, (59 and one morning to be exact) she was still unhappy that once again, she was singled out as special.
Tina switched on the surge protectors and moved to the coffee pot as the computers, sonar, radar and NAVSAT all whirred to life. She filled the pot and added her usual seven scoops of grounds into the transparent filter before flipping the pot to brew, adding the sounds of percolating liquid to the morning symphony of work ritual. That same ritual, as it were, was being performed for the last time before her two month duty was over.
Looking back, Tina wasn’t sure she had completed anything really worthwhile during her time on the Nevada. She was sheltered from the day to day of the Navy boys. Drills, exercises and routines rivaled only the monotony of the sea itself. Her assignment had been to study the effects of oil on the surface sea life. It wasn’t that Tina disliked the work, but it felt as if she were one of a million researchers studying the same damned thing. Ever since the Deepwater Horizon blew and sent millions of gallons of oil erupting into the gulf, there were so many workers studying effects on wildlife that she had practically tuned out the day she came aboard. As special as she was treated, she was sure called to this “project” for some rather petty work that could have been done by a hundred other scientists. Sure, the pay was fantastic, (Tina actually owed a bit of a morbid thank you to British Petroleum) but she wasn’t exactly what one would call comfortable with just collecting a check.
Moving out of the narrow kitchenette, she softly slid into her chair, swiveling in behind the keyboard and mouse that she had stared at for what felt like forever. Each day was the same. Download the data from the night diving teams. Run a spreadsheet to enter the depths and toxicity of the recordings. E-Mail the findings back to the Powell Center for Marine Research in Miami. Start a new process of crunching the findings into numbers. Percentage of oil found in the fish. Percentage of dispersant chemicals found in the water. Percentage of dispersants found in the oil that was found in the fish. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
On this morning though, the sixtieth morning on the Nevada and the first day she’d eventually see dry land, Tina would have her routine broken by the first work task she would attempt to complete. She opened her Outlook account and saw an E-Mail from the director of operations at the Powell Center. Dr. Roland Harris was someone that was respected throughout the marine research field, and not exactly the type of person she was expecting correspondence from. In fact, Tina was held silent and frozen when she saw his name above the subject line.
To: tbreslin@usnavy.gov
From: rharris21@powellresearch.com
CC: commstevens@usnavy.gov
Re: Sigsbee Abyssal Plain Research
Attachments: plume.doc.sigsbee.sp/%21/%51%21
Good morning, Ms. Breslin. I trust that the staff aboard the Nevada has been taking good care of you. I am certain that Commander Stevens will regret to lose someone of your caliber as a member of his staff; however, we have a new project that seems to be calling for your attention.
Recently, our deep water diving teams have detected quite the anomaly in the Sigsbee Deep, of which I’m sure you are familiar as the deepest part of the Gulf of Mexico. What we have discovered is truly unprecedented, and I feel requires your expertise.
Our teams have discovered a new plume of oil. Well, two actually. There is a plume that is currently resting approx. 390 meters deep that measures 1/8km by 1km. It is directly over the Sansbee and our teams seem to think it is not moving with the current. Obviously, this is quite uncharacteristic in comparison to the plumes we have studied thus far. Bizarre as that may be, that is not our prime interest.
There is a second plume of oil we have detected that is much larger. 16km by 19km according to our early tests via ROV. This plume of oil is located approx. 3100m deep, a mere 1300m above the floor of the abyssal plain. This plume also appears to be somehow suspended and unaffected by deep currents.
You will see all the additional data in the attached file, including coordinates and NAVSAT imagery. The deepest plume, named VN-31, is also stationed directly above the most recently discovered field of hydrothermal vents along the Gulf’s floor. At these high temperatures and mineral volatility, VN-31 has no business sticking to the coordinates that it has.
Please review the attachment and draft a summary of potential effects and send it to me no later than 1300 today. I have arranged for transportation from the base in Pensacola directly to our offices in Miami. I look forward to speaking with you.
Dr. Roland Harris
Director of Operations
Powell Center for Marine Research
305-771-1313 O
305-513-0583 C
305-771-1319 F
rharris21@powellresearch.com
www.powellmarinedev.com
Suddenly, Tina felt there would not be much work done today in regard to oil soaked fish
