Once the core is on board and curated, it is up to the scientific party to see that each section is fed into the “tracks,” the nickname for the various machines and systems used to run analyses on the samples. Technical Support keeps the tracks maintained and calibrated but it’s the scientists who run them. Andrew Barth (Igneous Petrologist, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, USA) and Kyoko Kanayama (Sedimentologist, Kanazawa University, Japan), part of the noon-to-midnight shift, set up the Imaging scanner for operation. All of the crew work 12-hour shifts; the ship never sleeps. (Credit: Bill Crawford, IODP/TAMU) [Photo ID: exp351_040] Back to expedition photos.