Home sweet home…at least for 3 weeks it will be.  We are on a research vessel called ‘Atlantis’.  It is 274 feet long and has a library, a lounge, a galley (dining hall), a laundry room, and a machine shop.  Like a small floating city.  We have a cook, an engineer, and other important ships crew to help us have a productive and safe cruise.

     We set sail from Astoria, Oregon on Monday, Sept 25.  Today (Tuesday, Sept 26) we reached our first target, a place called Hydrate Ridge.

     There are 24 scientists on board, 10 of which are with our group.  Our team includes 3 faculty members (from California Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, and Occidental), and 7 graduate students (Caltech, Penn State, University of Georgia, and one from Belgium).  Some of us have been to sea before, and for some of us it is our first time.  Only two of us have ever been in ALVIN (the deep sea submersible), so for many of us it is a very new and exciting experience.

     So far we have been getting the shipboard labs set up.  For now, a group from Scripps (the other 14 scientists, from many other universities) has their dives at Hydrate Ridge, off of Oregon. Our dives don’t start until October 1st at the Eel River Basin, off of Eureka, CA.  Until then, we will talk about strategies for getting the best samples, which include mud – and lot’s of it.  Mud at the bottom of the ocean is actually a very fascinating thing to study…

     Tune in later for more on deep sea mud!

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Hello Everyone!!!

      My name is Emily.  I am starting my second year in graduate school at the Pennsylvania State University where I’m studying geomicrobiology (“geomicrobiology” is the study of how bacteria interact with and influence geology).  This field is still pretty new to me since I did my undergraduate work at the University of Illinois where I was an astrophysics major. This is my first research cruise and I am really excited about everything I’m going to see and learn.

      Last night we spent the night on the ship for the first time.  Our rooms have bunks in them and we share a bathroom with a neighboring room.  The beds are pretty comfortable, but there isn’t a lot of room to sit up.  After breakfast, we had a safety meeting where we learned how to evacuate the boat in case of emergencies.  We had to practice wearing our survival “gumby” suits.  Then we were ready to go.  Unfortunately, I decided to take motion sickness medication in case I got sea sick.  Instead of making me feel better, the medicine made me feel groggy all day long.  Nevertheless, it was really exciting to watch to boat leave port for the open ocean where we will be for the next 18 days.

     After lunch, those of us who will be diving on the submersible ALVIN had safety training.  First, we watched a safety video.  Then we had to try on gas masks that we would wear in case of a fire.  Wearing the gas masks kind of made everyone look like an alien.  Then we got to actually go and see the ALVIN and go inside of it.  Outside of ALVIN there are many cameras and equipment that the pilot will use as his eyes and arms while underwater.  In addition there are three small windows for the crew to look out.  I then got to go inside of ALVIN.  To get in, you climb through a small hole in the top down a latter into a small titanium sphere (about six feet in diameter).  This sphere is where the two scientists and the pilot sit during the dive.  There are surprisingly comfortable mats to sit on, but no chairs.  The walls of the sphere are covered with switches and buttons.  We then learned a little about how to operate ALVIN and what to do in case of an emergency.  What sound the scariest to me was if ALVIN got entrapped, the sphere could be released.  This means that everyone in it would just roll around, especially when it reached the surface.  Luckily, nothing bad like that has ever happened.

     After the ALVIN tour, it was dinner time.  We had a variety of choices of food, including fish, chicken, mashed potatoes, zucchini, asparagus, and garlic bread.  To end the meal, we had brownie sundaes with brownies, vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, caramel, and whipped cream.  They were delicious and a good way to end an exciting day.  Tomorrow we will get to watch the first ALVIN launch of the cruise.

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Have you ever thought much about the air you breathe, consider this...

     Normal air (on Earth) contains ~21% oxygen (O2) and only 0.037 % carbon dioxide (CO2).  While in the enclosed submersible, we will be breathing the same air over and over, so we would use up all of the O2 and add more CO2 as we breathe.  For 7-8 hours (the length of a typical dive) this would result in deadly conditions, unless measures are taken to ensure breathable conditions.

      The ALVIN is equipped with 3 scuba tanks (enough air for 3 days for the pilot and 2 scientists on board).  During the dive, O2 is slowly leaked into the submarine (or the “ball” as the pilots call it).  CO2 is removed by chemicals (calcium hydroxide) in a canister that can be replaced if necessary during a dive. To monitor O2 and CO2, there are two O2 and two CO2 sensors along with a mechanical handheld sensor in case those fail.  During our safety training we were fitted with full face masks (called Emergency Breathing Apparatus or EBA device) that are also attached to the scuba tanks and could be used in case of a fire/smoke on board the submersible. Even with all of these measures, however, the oxygen level in the sub is only 17% (4% lower than our atmosphere on Earth) and the CO2 is allowed to get to 0.5% (over 10 times higher than our atmosphere).

     Have you ever thought about the atmosphere on other planets? Most have very high levels of CO2 (95-98% on Mars and Venus), hardly any have measurable O2, making our planet the only habitable place known in our solar system.

     Riding in the ALVIN sure does make you appreciate our stable and suitable atmosphere.

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Hi.  My name is Burt.  I’m a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University. I am a biogeochemist, which means that I study the chemical interactions of life with geological materials like sediment, soil, and rocks.  Humans spend most of our lives on land, so sometimes we forget that more than 75% of the entire planet is covered by water.  What is at the bottom of all that water?  Sand and mud.  We’re out here on the Research Vessel Atlantis looking to collect and study the tiny microscopic organisms that live in the sand and mud at the bottom of the ocean.   These microbes are so small that the only way we can see them without a microscope is to look for the products of their metabolism.  The microbes we collect have a wide variety of metabolic processes.  Whereas humans eat food and breathe oxygen to oxidize the food and produce carbon dioxide, these microbes eat and breathe dissolved gases and ions.  Some microbes here eat natural gas (like stoves use to cook with) and breathe sulfate.  Others eat hydrogen gas and breathe carbon dioxide.

     So, where do we find these tiny microscopic organisms (called bacteria and archaea)?…in the mud.  That’s right.  All 10 of us, elbow deep in deep-sea mud, each and every night.  Every day ALVIN brings us deep sea mud, and every night we must collect samples as quickly as possible.  Some of the words that come to the minds of our team while we process mud include “Fun, Smells, Good, Nasty, Again, Practice, Joyful, Gritty, Under my fingernails.”  All with the hopes of collecting and finding out more about tiny bacteria and archaea (see last paragraph) that help keep our atmosphere suitable for life.

      While processing our mud samples, we’ve also come across many very special clams!  Pretty much all macroscopic animals and many microbes on the planet are like us—they use oxygen to oxidize a food source they have eaten.  However, at the bottom of the ocean, some animals (like some clams and tube worms) have become reliant upon bacterial symbionts for their energy needs.  In a way, these symbioses are a bit like a farmer who plants crops to feed him or herself, except these animals grow their symbionts inside their bodies in special organs that foster the growth of their symbiont friends.  Clams cultivate microbes living within their gills.  These microbes love hydrogen sulfide and use it as an energy source.  Hydrogen sulfide is a stinky smelly, nasty gas that smells like rotten eggs.  Imagine the smell of hard boiled eggs only a thousand times worse and you can imagine how unpleasant a place it is that clams have decided to live.  This is a ‘symbiosis’ because the clams, due to their internal bacteria, have the ability to thrive in an area that is toxic and inhospitable to other animals.  And the clam never has to eat!  In exchange for providing the bacterial symbionts with sulfide gas, the bacteria give the clam food and energy.  Believe it or not, these clams and their bacteria have become so dependent upon each other that neither can survive without the other.  It is a true symbiosis.

     The discovery that has led to this research cruise and the research that many of us are conducting was that a similar symbiosis exists between two very different types of microbes.  One group of these microbes consumes methane gas or natural gas—the other group consumes sulfate (a common chemical in the ocean).  These two microorganisms work together in a symbiosis to efficiently burn methane and breathe sulfate.  This is an important process because if methane gas were to escape from the ocean to the atmosphere it could cause massive global warming.  Before Dr. Orphan (our Chief Scientist) and other scientists found and characterized this symbiosis nobody could explain where all of the methane gas was going...biogeochemists, like me, knew it had to be going somewhere because it wasn’t escaping from the seafloor sediments.  This has led to a whole new avenue of scientific research out here at the bottom of the middle of the ocean.

     Tune in next time for more on bacteria that don’t use oxygen at all…

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Hi, I’m Chris House, an Associate Professor at Penn State University in the Department of Geosciences.  Yesterday, during our transit to our dive sites, a pod of dolphins spent about an hour playing along side the ship.  Among them were three Right Whale Dolphins, which are very rare and unusual to see.  We also later saw three humpback whales surfacing along side the ship.  A great day for marine mammal watching.

      This morning, I am heading down in Alvin on the first dive of our series at Eel River Basin.  This is the first time I will have ever been down in a submarine, so I’m very excited.  We’ll be going down to a depth of 520 meters, and plan to recover experiments that were placed there over a year ago, on our last cruise to this area.  If we have time, we will also be taking water and sediment samples from several areas.

      Our main focus is areas of the seafloor through which methane gas is escaping.  One might wonder why there is methane on the seafloor just below us here on the continental shelf and slope.  This is a good question!  In general, most methane comes from the break down of organic material (or in other words from the breakdown of once living organisms).  The methane can be generated from this organic material either by microorganisms or by heat and pressure.  Methanogens are microorganisms that “exhale” methane, and they are a natural part of the ecosystem that we are here to study.  However, at Eel River Basin, there is a large amount of methane produced deep in the sediment by heat and pressure, which can also break down organic material.  In either case, having organic material is important for creating methane seeps.  There are two reasons that Eel River Basin has a high amount of buried organic material.  First, it is on the continental shelf or margin.  Continental margins are often areas where nutrients upwell to the surface of the ocean.  These nutrients support surface marine life, leading to areas of abundant organic material in the sediment below.  Because margins are areas of the ocean that produce abundant organic material, this is where methane seeps are found.  Second, Eel River Basin is where sediment from the Eel River is ultimately deposited.  For a few million years the Eel River has been the most important river for drainage of Northern California.  It transports an amazing amount of organic material (including Redwood trees) from inland to the marine basin.  Over time, this material is buried to great deeps allowing heat and pressure to break it down into methane.

     Today, we will be looking out of the porthole of Alvin at bubbles of methane emerging from the sediment. The carbon in that methane is completing a long journey that started out when the carbon was in a living organism (either near the surface of the ocean or in a evergreen forest).  Some of the methane now seeping up though the sediment is being consumed by microorganisms, to further complete the cycle of the carbon contained within it.

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My name is Julia Whitty and I’m not a scientist.  I’m a writer, along for the expedition in order to cover some of this undersea work for a magazine article and a book. I’ve spent much time at sea over the years but this cruise is different.

     First off, my first thought on boarding R/V Atlantis in Astoria, Oregon a week ago was that this is a real working ship. It’s worn and battered the way your best tools get worn and battered. Not because you neglect them but because you use them all the time.

     There’s also a great sense of history here. The history of scientific exploration. Many great discoveries have been, and continue to be, made here. If you’ve ever spent any time watching documentaries of undersea exploration, then you’ll likely recognize the library, the mess deck, the labs, and the working decks areas. All told, it’s a privilege to follow, however humbly, in the footsteps that have gone before.

     It’s fun to work with all the scientists aboard, too. I never imagined so many could get so excited about mud. But the lifeforms in the mud, however small and simple, collectively tell a big story--and that’s why all these marine biologists, biogeochemists, taxonomists, and grad students crowd so eagerly around the Alvin when it returns from the deep every evening. It’s like getting the next chapter, hot off the presses, from a scientific serial story. No one yet knows the ending of the story, though it’s sure to be thrilling.

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Hi my name is Victoria Orphan and I’m one of the chief scientists on this research expedition.  I’m happy to report that our cruise has been very successful so far.  We’ve had two great dives to the methane seeps off of Northern California and if the weather holds up, there will be three additional dives to collect samples for our research before we steam home next week.  Being a chief scientist on a big research vessel is a challenging, but very rewarding job.

     I have the opportunity to work with almost everyone on the ship, including the Captain, Alvin pilots, technicians, bosun, engineers, cooks, and of course, the other scientists.  Everyone is extremely helpful and willing to go out of their way to meet our science objectives and to make sure we are all having a good cruise experience.  Communication and cooperation are both extremely important out here and part of our job as chief scientist is to serve as the lesion between the ship’s crew and the scientists.  Each day I meet with the Captain (his name is AD) and get an update on the weather conditions and discuss the science plan.

     At 9AM, two scientists and pilot climb into Alvin, the hatch is closed and it is carefully is lowered into the water off the back of the ship using the A-frame.  It takes only 30 minutes to reach the seafloor here (about 500-600 m deep), but still the pressure is strong enough to shrivel a Styrofoam cup into half its original size (see tomorrow's photo).  Many folks on my science team have been exploring their artistic side while waiting for the next batch of samples by decorating all sorts of Styrofoam objects to be sent down with the sub- a nice way to relax after a long night of processing mud cores.

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It takes ALVIN only 30 minutes to reach the seafloor here (about 500-600 m deep), but still the pressure is strong enough to shrivel a Styrofoam cup or head into half its original size (see photo below).  Many folks on my science team have been exploring their artistic side while waiting for the next batch of samples by decorating all sorts of Styrofoam objects to be sent down with the sub- a nice way to relax after a long night of processing mud cores. 

Science question
Which do you think is heavier, the Styrofoam head on the left (before Alvin dive) or the three heads on the right (after Alvin dive)?

   Figure: The left head is full size, the next 3 heads have been taken
   to 500, 800, and 1500 m depth in the ocean, respectively.

     I spend part of my day in the “top lab” (that’s the place where the ALVIN pilots communicate with the submarine during the dive) and check to see how the dive is going.  The pilot in Alvin periodically signals to the top lab using a series of three beeps to let the ship know that they are OK and the top lab responds in kind.  In the top lab, different navigation systems are used to track the submarine (marked on the screen as a bright yellow cartoon sub) and it’s location relative to the ship (represented by a green wedge).  As we found out on our last dive, determining the exact location of the sub is no easy task and requires the skill and experience of both the shipboard pilot and pilot in the sub.  We listen for the ship’s short horn blast in the afternoon that marks the return of the sub to the surface.  The science team prepares for the sub’s arrival and congregates on the back deck to welcome our deep-sea explorers home.  While the science team prepares for processing our new samples, I meet briefly with the ALVIN expedition leader, pilots, and other chief scientists to look over maps of the dive site and discuss the sampling strategy and science objectives for the following day.  The rest of the evening is spent processing samples in the lab with my hard working team, who without their help, none of this would be possible.

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Hello everyone!  My name is Crystal, and I’m a 2^nd-year graduate student at Caltech.  I’m interested in learning about the different ways microbes can get energy from sulfur in ocean sediments.  The other day, I got to see these sediments firsthand on my trip to the ocean bottom in ALVIN!

     My dive day started early – the ALVIN crew starts work at 6am so they have time to go through 13 pages of technical and safety checkpoints before the submarine even leaves the hangar.  The submarine and its 3 divers – Shana, a scientist; Bruce, the pilot; and I, the observer – left the R.V. Atlantis a little before 9am.

Ready to board ALVIN

     Before I knew it, we were on our way down.  The descent doesn’t take too long, only about 30 minutes, since our site is only about 520 meters deep.  Sunlight penetrates the top 70-100 meters of water; this is called the photic zone, and it’s where all the photosynthetic organisms live (like algae and cyanobacteria).  After about 10 minutes, we were surrounded by total darkness; the only things visible through our portholes were tiny, bioluminescent sea creatures.  Most ecosystems we encounter on the surface of the Earth are fueled by photosynthetic organisms (especially microorganisms!) at the bottom of the food chain.  In a world without light, like the bottom of the ocean, ecosystems depend on another energy source:  chemical energy that can be harnessed by chemosynthetic microbes.  Chemosynthetic microbes can get energy from chemical substances in ocean water and sediments, and they use this energy to change carbon dioxide into sugars and other organic carbon molecules.  The organic carbon provides food for other microbes and animals living on the seafloor.  This makes the bottom of the ocean a great place to study microbes that get energy from sulfur!

     Once we reached the bottom, we started the hunt for our research sites.  One of the first things you notice on the ocean floor is the hundreds of starfish scattered around.  There were so many of them that our pilot asked us if we wanted to switch to studying starfish instead of bacteria.  Besides starfish, there were lots of beautiful, brightly colored fish, sponges, and, every once in a while, squid!  The next thing you notice about being at the bottom of the ocean is how cold it is.  The bottom seawater temperature here is around 6°C – way too cold for swimming without getting hypothermia.  The ALVIN has some insulation in its walls, but not enough to keep you warm for 7 hours.  The temperature in our sub soon dipped below 20°C, and slowly dropped throughout the rest of our dive -- we were all glad we’d brought extra sweatshirts with us!

     Navigation on the seafloor is difficult in a submarine because often the navigation software used by the sub doesn’t always match up with the one used by the ship, or even those used by other scientists during previous research cruises.  Nevertheless, after exploring the bottom of the ocean for a couple hours, we found some excellent sampling sites.  At one, we could see hundreds of little gas bubbles (filled with methane) vigorously ascending through the water.  We sampled the water, gas bubbles, and sediment in this area to look for methanotrophs – microbes that eat methane.  These guys are sometimes found in clusters with a partner bacterium that breathes sulfate.  After a few hours of collecting samples using ALVIN’s external arm, we began to run low on battery power.  Reluctantly, we collected a couple more samples, dropped some weights so the sub became more buoyant, and made our way back to the surface.  Back on the ship, though, I had one more surprise awaiting me:  my ALVIN initiation.  Since this was my first dive, all the other scientists got to dump lots of very cold water on me.

The initiation was wet and — in a word — COLD!

     I was completely soaked, and very, very cold.  It was definitely worth all the cold water, though, because visiting the bottom of the ocean for a day is an awesome experience!  Besides, Emily’s first dive is coming up soon…and I’ll be there waiting for her with a bucket of ice water!!!

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Sea, sky, sea, sky, sea, sky…that is what I see out of the porthole of my stateroom.  For the last two days we’ve had rough weather…up to 30 knot winds and swells as high as 10-12 ft.  Each day the ALVIN team and scientists get ready for the launch of the submersible, but ultimately our expedition leader Bruce and the Captain A.D. must decide if it is safe to dive.  The approximate cutoff for diving is 25 knot winds, but it also depends on the height and spacing of the waves.  Both yesterday and today our dives were cancelled due to safety concerns. Not only are there submersible divers in ALVIN, but the launch and recovery requires scuba/free divers, which, as you can imagine, can be dangerous in rough seas.

     Instead, we must improvise our strategy for the day and come up with other ways to collect data.  There are many tools on board for us to use.  We have a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) recorder that we can send overboard to collect real time data including; salinity, temperature, O2, chlorophyll concentrations, and finally, to actually collect water for us.

Ben and Burt get water from the Niskin samplers on the CTD frame.

     We have used this many times over the course of the cruise to collect and sample marine bacteria.  We also have a multicore on board that allows us to penetrate and collect up to 45 cm into the seafloor.  It brings us 7 discreet samples each time.  So far we have sampled mud from depths of 100 to almost 900 m.

Victoria and Ben process mud from a multicore, despite the high seas.

     We sample this mud from the seafloor to collect microorganisms and measure the chemistry of the different sediment layers.  Last night, we also tried to survey the seafloor using a 3.5kH echo system that can help determine which parts of the seafloor are covered with deep sediment layers and which are rocky outcrops.  This helps us to determine where we can multicore successfully.  So far we have cast the multicore 4 times today so we are keeping busy despite not using the ALVIN.

     Tune in tomorrow for more about fascinating rocks on the seafloor.

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When I first began to study geology in Minnesota, my class would take weekly field trips, visiting road outcrops and quarries equipped with drip bottles of dilute hydrochloric acid. When dripped on particular rocks, the acid would bubble with released carbon dioxide, just as you see with a newly opened soft drink. This is one of the easiest ways to identify a carbonate rock in field work. The most common carbonates are composed of variable amounts of calcium and magnesium, combined with carbon and oxygen ((Ca,Mg)₁CO₃). The acid breaks down the rock, releasing CO₂.

     Ancient carbonates may be found most anywhere. 500 million years ago a shallow ocean deposited carbonate sediments over the Mississippi Basin up to Minnesota. Carbonates from the Mesozoic era may be found along much of the California coast. The study of these rocks has taught us about the past arrangement of continents, the composition of ancient oceans, the climate of ancient atmospheres, and the history and evolution of life. On this expedition, our interest in these rocks is specific for the types of carbonates associated with methane seeps.

     In most modern oceans, carbonate rocks are formed in part by the fallen shells of marine life. These collect in mud at the seafloor, and form into rocks as they are buried deep below sediment accumulating over millions of years.  However, in methane seep environments such as those of the Eel River Basin, carbonate rocks form in shallow sediment. These rocks are interesting both as a signature of the microbial metabolic processes and environments we are investigating, and also as a novel type of carbonate petrogenesis (= ‘rock origin’). The anaerobic oxidation of methane stimulates carbonate precipitation through localized increase in alkalinity (= higher pH, like the pH of common household cleaning products) and concentration of the carbonate ion CO₃^2-. The carbonate precipitates from solution, in between and around the clay minerals that are the typical constituents of our sediment cores. The first precipitates are smooth, rounded “nodules” that we dig out of cores. Later on, a secondary, porous carbonate matrix fills in the space between the nodules, binding them together in the large rocks we collect from the seafloor. Some structures in the rocks show signs of close association with methane seeps, such as holes interpreted as “chimneys” through which methane bubbling may occur (see picture below). In our lab we are trying to determine what role the ANME consortia (specific microorganisms called Archaea) may play in the early stages of carbonate formation. We hope to learn a great deal from the samples collected on this cruise.

– Ben Harrison, graduate student, Caltech

Our Chief Scientist Victoria Orphan (left, Caltech), along with co-Principal Investigator Chris House (right, Penn State) holding donut-shaped rocks assumed to be formed from the venting of methane gas from the seafloor.

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Here on the Atlantis, we often need to know what the topography of the seafloor looks like.  Sometimes we want to know how high the undersea mountains are; sometimes we need to know how deep the canyons are.  Since we can’t see them from the surface and Alvin can’t visit all of them for us, we need a way of imaging the surface of the seafloor without leaving the ship.  We use something called the SeaBeam to do this.

     Some animals have the same problem: they want to know where something is, but they can’t see (either because it is too dark or water is too murky). Animals like bats and dolphins use sonar to locate objects in the dark or in murky water.  Sonar is a combination of the word sound and radar.  So, sonar is basically making a sound that bounces off an object and is heard and interpreted by the maker of the sound.  We want to use this technology to see the surface of the ocean floor; bats use it to locate bugs to eat at night.  The SeaBeam is a tool that sends out a sound wave underneath the ship and listens for it after it bounces off the seafloor.  Depending on how far away the seafloor is it bounces back later and later.  Information from several of these beams is complied in a shipboard computer and when we process it and look at it we have a map of the seafloor underneath the ship.

     If we let the ship move at approximately 6 knots (slightly faster than six miles/hour)  in a straight line on the surface of the ocean it can image the seafloor beneath it and generate  a ‘swath’ or a map shaped like a strip.  If we make several of these swaths next to each other then we can get a map of the seafloor just like any map of the land.  Once we have a good map of the seafloor we can decide where to let Alvin dive to get a closer look.

— Burt

Emily, Chris, and Burt plan the ship’s course for a night of seabeaming.

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So far, we have had a really great expedition.  I was fortunate to get to dive in ALVIN twice.  Both dives were to about 520 meters water depth at our northern methane seep site along the ridge at Eel River Basin.  It’s exciting and fun to go to the bottom of the ocean.  When you look out of the porthole, the whole world of the ocean floor is right there starting a few inches from your face.  When a fish swims by, it is so close and clear – right there outside the window.  It’s really another world down there!  Traveling along the seafloor…gliding over sea stars, sea pens, and large rock structures while fish, squid, and sharks swim by… makes it clear that we (the sub and its occupants) are very out of place.  With its lights, cameras, and manipulating arms, the sub must really look like a strange beast.  Expeditions, like this, are also great examples of how science can be really fun.  I enjoyed both of my trips to the sea floor, and after the dives, working as part of a team to process our sediment cores late into the night as the ship rolls gently in the waves is also fun (most of the time).  About a week ago, we all went to the front of the ship after we finished our night work and starred at the stars.  It was a good ending to a fun, but hard, day of research.

— Chris

While on this cruise I had the opportunity to go on an ALVIN dive.  On the way down we went through hundreds of meters where we saw bioluminescent jellyfish and fish.  Sometimes we would even see clusters of bioluminescent plankton in ball-like shapes!  It was pretty cool to see so many creatures glowing.  When we reached the sea floor, the lights on ALVIN were turned on.  Because we were in a relatively shallow dive (around 500m), there was all sorts of sea life.  We saw large sea anemones, brittle stars, starfish, rock fish, and squid.  We then explored our dive area looking for microbial mats around methane seeps.  It was very exciting when we found our first sampling area because I finally got to see where all the mud I’ve been working with for the last year came from.  Occasionally, we would even see methane-filled bubbles escaping from the sea floor, like swimming through 7-UP!  After 5 hours of collecting samples, we began our ascent.  On the way up our pilot turned on the strobe light which makes the bioluminescent plankton blink in response.  Seeing this was like seeing thousands of tiny stars shinning in the sea.  When we reached the surface, the ALVIN rescue team got us back onto the boat where there rest of the scientists were waiting with cold buckets of water to throw over my head for my ALVIN initiation.  Crystal was happy to get me back!!!

— Emily

Cold, dark, amazing flashes of light, can fish really live this deep, are they bored, what is it like to have such a slow metabolism? I feel like an astronaut - has anyone else seen this very spot on the seafloor at 40 47.1919 degrees north latitude and 124 35.7057 degrees west longitude.  Am I and my fellow submariners the only ones, besides, of course, the starfish, little red rockfish and the squid that cruised by my porthole.  That is their home; a place where we once thought life could not exist.  Extreme pressure, chilly temperatures, and no sunlight.  They don’t seem to mind… in fact, they thrive.  It was a pleasure and honor, once again, to travel into this alien world to glimpse some of the planet’s most fascinating organisms.

— Shana

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We took an opportunity after the final ALVIN dive to take a photo of our hard working group(in our new Atlantis hats!). Front row: Shana Goffredi, Victoria Orphan, Ben Harrison, Marshall Bowles. Back row: Burt Thomas, Chris House, Emily Beal, Crystal Gammon, Christy Wu (not pictured, Moshe Rhodes)

Thanks everyone for all of your questions… we’ve listed a few of them below:

Q1: How do these bacteria live in the ocean without sunlight?

Just as there exist organisms that perform photosynthesis to create energy you have organims that perform chemosynthesis. Chemosynthesis is a process by which microbes use chemicals to create energy. Energy is the currency in these chemical transactions, with some reactions yielding more currency than others!

     Chemosynthesis predominantly occurs where there exists a gradient of oxygen and no oxygen (anoxic). Methane happens to be a molecule that can be used by microbes to gain energy. Two chemosynthetic pathways exist that directly involve methane, methanogenesis and methanotrophy. In methanogensis molecules such as bicarbonate are reduced or transformed into methane. In methanotrophy methane is converted into bicarbonate.  Each process depending on the molecules used provides microbes with energy.

Q2: How do humans survive in Alvin?  How do you keep air in Alvin?  How much air?

The air that is in Alvin when we leave the surface is reused during the whole dive.  In order to survive in Alvin, we need to have oxygen provided and we need to have carbon dioxide [CO2] removed.  Alvin uses canisters of calcium hydroxide [Ca(OH)2].  CO2 reacts quickly with Ca(OH)2 to make CaCO3 and H2O.  This removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere inside Alvin throughout the dive.  During the dive, the people in Alvin are constantly breathing out carbon dioxide.  The amount of Ca(OH)2 used in Alvin does not remove all of the CO2.  While we are underwater, the carbon dioxide levels in Alvin rise to 0.5%.  This is not a problem, but it is much higher than the level of CO2 that we typically breath everyday.  To survive in Alvin, we also need oxygen.  For our dives, we slowly bleed oxygen into the sub’s atmosphere from a tank of pure oxygen.  As the dive continues, the level of oxygen is maintained at 17%.  This is lower than that we typically breath everyday (Earth has 21% oxygen).  Rather  than use 21%, Alvin uses 17% because lower oxygen reduces the chance of a fire in the sub.  Finally, in order to survive, we must be protected from the crushing pressure at depth.  The people are inside a titanium sphere with portholes for looking out.  Each dive is designed to last about 7 hours.  At this point, Alvin is usually low on power.  However, the sub is equipped with emergency supplies of hydroxide (and some food), so that people can survive for three days if something happens, and they need to be rescued.

Q3: What type of fish live at the bottom of the sea? Are the “light fish” from Finding Nemo really down there?

Some of the most amazing and bizarre looking fish live at the bottom of ocean.  Living in such an inhospitable environment, where you must try to eat almost anything you come in contact with, has resulted in fish with big mouths full of long sharp teeth and luminescent fishing lures to attract smaller fish. The light fish from Finding Nemo really does live down there!  They are called angler fish.  There are also gulper eels, who can swallow prey many times their size, and many others.  See if you can find out more about the following deep-sea fish: Hagfish, Hatchetfish, Midwater Eelpout, and the Pacific Blackdragon (Victoria saw one of these on her last ALVIN dive).

Q4: What kind of cameras do you use down there?  How do they withstand the pressure of the deep sea?  Are there lights on Alvin?  What kind of lights?

There are nine different lights on Alvin (facing front and to each side).  The lights are 200 watt and 400 watt lights designed specifically to be effective deep underwater.  There are also a variety of cameras on Alvin.  There is one Nikon digital camera fixed facing forward.  There are also two pan and tilt video cameras controlled by the scientists, and another camera on the manipulator arm.  The cameras and lights are contained in titanium pressure housings that allow them to survived the crushing pressure at depth.

Q5: How many people can you fit in Alvin? Does Alvin have a toilet?

Three people can fit into the sphere inside Alvin, but it is a tight space.  There is usually two scientists and a pilot.  Each scientist looks out a side porthole and the pilot looks out the front porthole.  It is really a small space to fit into (like a Gemini space capsule).  Alvin does not have a toilet.  The dives last about 7 hours, and so most people need to relieve themselves once during the dive.  There are special bottles to be used for this.  It is, a bit awkward, but necessary to get the science accomplished.  Some people prefer to wait and hold it (which also works too).

Q6: Is ALVIN the very same three-man submarine that they used to look at the Titanic?

We are indeed diving in the very same ALVIN that visited the Titanic in 1986.  It made 12 dives to photographically document the wreck, along with Woods Hole's other unmanned submersible JASON.  Of course there has been the general upkeep and maintenance of the submersible and some upgrades to worn out components (think of it like a knee replacement for a human) but it's the very same overall.

Q7: How were the whales behaving during our close necounter?

It was late at night and they were circling the ship for a little over an hour.  We suspect they were feeding on the krill (shrimp) and fish that were attracted to our lights at night.  It was probably a concentration of food for them.  We saw a few 'spy hop' which is when they stick their heads way out of the water — we think they were checking out the scientists on the deck staring at them.  It was an amazing experience.

Q8: What kind of food do you eat in Alvin?

Everyone who dives in Alvin is provided with a lunch that has two sandwiches, an apple, and a candy bar.  When I dove, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  There are also emergency supplies of power bars.

Q9: Is there sand or mud at the bottom of the ocean?

In our particular case, the sediment at greater than 500 meters is almost always mud, composed of silt and clay size fractions. Given our distance from the shoreline, this is what we expect from these push cores. Walk down to the beach some time and pick up a handful of beach sand, them mix it up in a bottle with some potters clay mixed in to water — a very watery slip. Shake these up in water, and then set the bottle down, and you will see that the sand will end up on the bottom, and it may take quite a long time for the clay to settle down on top of it. In a vacuum, two objects of different size will fall at essentially the same rate, but in a viscous fluid, any object in motion experiences drag. Objects falling through seawater reach a terminal velocity at which the force of drag equals the force driving it downward, and that velocity is greater for sand particles than for clays. A simplified equation describing this behavior is presented in Stokes’ Law.

     In a simplified view of sedimentology, sand will appear at the shore, where wave energy resuspends particles and carries clay-sized grains out to sea. Carbonates from shell material are deposited at greater depth, where wave energy and hard quartz sand do not abrade softer carbonate, and where the surface waters support abundant carbonate-precipitating life. Mud and clay covers much of the remainder of the ocean floor, including the depths we have explored on this expedition- larger particles have long since settled on the bottom.

     In some rock outcrops on land, one can see the rocks change as one walks along a roadcut from sandstone to limestone (calcium carbonate formed into a rock) to shale (clays). If sedimentation was continuous, and one was walking “upwards” with respect to the deposition of the rocks, one could conclude that sea level was rising, and that the location was becoming progessively deeper and more distant from shore. Sand came first, carbonate came down on top of it, and last came the clays.

Q10:  How do you keep power on Alvin?

Alvin uses a series of rechargeable lead-acid batteries.  They are forklift batteries that have been adapted to be used on Alvin.  The amount of power to drive the sub, run the manipulator arms, and lights usually limits the length of a dive.  However, Alvin needs very little power to get back from the bottom of the ocean because to surface, the pilot drops 400 pounds of steel weights.  The weights drop to the seafloor and Alvin becomes buoyant, rising to the surface.

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