Scientists from Canada and France began deploying a cabled piezometer at 9:45 am (PDT) on Wednesday, July 6, 2011 at the Cascadia Basin site. This is the first operation of the NEPTUNE Canada July 2011 installation and maintenance expedition on the R/V Thompson. In visible company was the R/V Atlantis, the sister ship of the R/V Thompson, with a crew of researchers working on nearby Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) boreholes, an illustration of the high interest in the thin oceanic crust of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate.

The needle-like probe...