MARSSAM designed and maintains a 20′ refrigerated laboratory van that host two nitrogen glove boxes with multicore extruders for porewater and other oxygen-controlled experiments. The van comes with a nitrogen generator system (Parker DB5) that creates 99.97% pure N2 with a flow rate of 50 L/min. The nitrogen generator unit comes in a separate 10′ van with tubing and feedthroughs to run N2 directly into the porewater van. The porewater van system has a grated floor and drain plug for rapid hosing/cleaning of mud between sample processing batches. The van has MC tube holders built into the walls to hold samples prior to processing.
The van is designed to be modular and can be adjusted to suit the needs of the science party.
The van was designed and built in 2023-2024 and was used in 2025 onboard the RV Revelle. Although the van accomplished all science goals there are some comfort (it is loud), safety (improved communication devices within the van) and efficiency (drain improvements) kinks that will be addressed before the next deployment.
