What's Happening Today - May 17

Today Ken Macdonald and Rachel Haymon went down in Alvin on Dive 3785 to explore for evidence of hydrothermal venting away from the ridge axis. These exploratory dives are based on some research that Ken has been doing in looking at video tapes from old Alvin dives in this area. He observed some curious seafloor mound-like features that looked like they might be of hydrothermal origin, as well as lots of flocculent material in the water in this area that is about 30 kilometers west of the East Pacific Rise near 9° 28'N.

The dive was very successful in that they found structures that do appear to be hydrothermal in origin. Many core samples of the sediment were taken as well as slurp samples of the water. They'll take these back to their lab at UCSB for further analysis.

Jeff Blasius, Ken's graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, provided this short summary of his research work with Ken.

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My research crrently focuses on using a computer program I developed to analyze fault scarps on the East Pacific Rise. Ken Macdonald has given me the opportunity to help him on this research cruise, where we hope to find hydrothermal activity away from the ridge axis. My most intense job during this cruise has been to prepare chemicals and special containers that properly preserve sediment samples. A research cruise like this is an amazing opportunity for me to absorb a wealth of hands-on experience and knowledge not obtainable in any other way. - Jeff Blasius

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Today, ABE was readied for it's long dive this evening, but unfortunately it aborted it's mission because of a connector failure. The good news is that the computer programs that control ABE are smart enough to tell it to come back to the surface when it has problems. The ABE team is working on the problem and they're confident that it will be ready to dive tomorrow.

Testing of the towed camera system continued today. Steve Liberatore has been doing extensive tests to determine why the corer winches don't fire when the camera and strobes are working. It seems to be some sort of electrical ground problem (remember when the camera is in seawater all of the components in metal housings are electrically connected to each other).

Naomi Ward and John Heidelberg are onboard Atlantis. They are from The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), and are collecting samples of microorganisms to determine what these bacteria can do. This process is not as simple as it sounds. Deep-sea bacteria are very difficult to grow in pure culture, and therefore, very difficult to study using traditional microbiology. However, genomic technologies allow the DNA of these bacteria to be sequenced directly, without the need to grow them in the laboratory. From this DNA sequence they can determine many of the biological activities of these bacteria. They are collecting microbial samples of the biofilms that form on rocks and on animals, free-living in the water, in sediments, and the symbiotic bacteria in the animals. When all the data are analyzed, they hope to have a better picture of the biogeochemical cycles that can be ongoing in the deep ocean.

The weather continues to be hot and humid but the pool is always open! The occasional rain showers help cool things off and wash the deck.

More tomorrow.

Best Regards

Dan

Hans and Sara watch as Alvin is launched. Dan (right) working on the towed camera system.

Rod Catanach working on one of ABE's descent floats. Maurice Tivey working on his styrofoam head that will go down with Alvin to be squished.

Paul Johnson tending one of the tag lines to the towed camera system (above) as it is lowered over the side for a test. We determined the precise scale of images at different distances from the camera lens and tested the camera and strobe electronics successfully.

Jeff Blasius and Sara Benjamin, graduate students at UC-Santa Barbara, working on sample preparation in the Main Lab.

Mike Doherty and Uriel Carpentar, both Ordinary Seamen in Atlantis' crew, talk with Sara and Naomi during the Alvin recovery today.

Rachel and Ken coming down the ladder after the Alvin dive. Phil Forte was the pilot on their dive.