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That was just SUPR

May 13, 2010

John (Chip) Breier (left) and Carly Strasser recover a plankton pump mooring and a new particulate sampler, the Suspended Particulate Rosette Sampler (SUPR), which Breier developed with funding from the Deep Ocean Exploration Institute (DOEI). This 2007 LADDER cruise aboard the Atlantis marked the first deployment of the device. The carousel in the sampler contains 24 filters. During this deployment it collected 24 samples–one every three hours over the course of three days–in a laterally-spreading hydrothermal plume 85 meters above the bottom at Tica Vent on the East Pacific Rise. Based on this successful deployment, the SUPR sampler is now used to sample hydrothermal plumes while on the ROV Jason –most recently along the Eastern Lau Spreading Center. (Photo by Lauren Mullineaux, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)