This summer, check out Hot2Cold Vents researchers in print and on film!
‘It Really Is Otherworldly’: What It’s Like to Visit the Hot Springs of the Deep Sea — Jason Sylvan spoke with Gizmodo about deep sea life. The Gizmodo team made a fantastic video using deep sea footage captured by Alvin during our December 2019 expedition.
Continue reading “Hot2Cold Vents at the Woods Hole Film Fest + More”
Days at sea = 20
People on board = 56 (21 Atlantis crew + 8 Alvin Group + 5 Sentry Group + 2 Shipboard Science Support Group technicians + 20 scientists + 1 outreach manager)
Alvin dives on the East Pacific Rise = 12
Scientists who dove in Alvin = 21
Number of scientists making their first Alvin dive = 8
Continue reading “Hot2Cold Vents II by the Numbers”By Adrian Wackett
Read the first post in this series here.
Twelve days after Christmas, and here we are, still at sea! The circumstances have changed, though. Our last sampling efforts wrapped up just in time for the turning of calendars. The final HOV Alvin dive of the decade, number 5050, surfaced to many smiles and samples just before our last feast of 2019 (in case you’re wondering: yes, the cooks are still magicians).
Continue reading “Twelve Days of Christmas at Sea, Part II”
Hydrothermal vent environments are oases of life in the deep sea. Tube worms, mussels, and other fascinating animals thrive in the warm to super-hot, mineral-rich fluids escaping from cracks in the seafloor and vent chimneys.
Lauren Mullineaux, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and her lab group joined expedition Hot2Cold Vents to see what changes in vent species had occurred at 9°50’ North on the East Pacific Rise in recent years.
Continue reading “Scientists Find Unexpected Species on the East Pacific Rise”By Rose Jones
When cruising for pleasure, packing the most stylish outfits within the dress code of each activity is key to getting the most of the experience. When cruising for scientific research, the same applies. As this type of cruising involves more varied activities than the average day in the lab or office, knowing what to pack can be daunting. To help, here are some tips on the latest trends for science cruising with R/V Atlantis this winter, so researchers can be sure to look their best no matter what.
Continue reading “What to Pack for a 9°50′ North Research Cruise”
Happy New Year from expedition Hot2Cold Vents! Sentry dressed for the new decade with help from mechanical engineer Manyu Belani. The robot, shown here slightly before deployment on December 31, spent the last hours of 2019 and the first of 2020 mapping the seafloor along 9°50 North during its last dive of our expedition.
“We’re not back out here, we are seemingly always out here.”
This isn’t true. But by time this expedition ends, a group of participating researchers will have enjoyed nearly two months of 2019 sailing to, from, and along 9°50’ North on the East Pacific Rise. Among them is Jason Sylvan, a Texas A&M University microbiologist, expedition chief scientist, and speaker of that quote.
Continue reading “Exploring How Deep-Sea Microbes Respond to Extreme Change”
A group of expedition scientists is collecting data that will provide insight into how volcanoes behave and alter the seafloor — and possibly when the next eruption along this mid-ocean ridge in the eastern Pacific Ocean might occur.
Continue reading “Mapping the Seafloor”
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate from all of us on expedition Hot2Cold Vents! Our version of a Christmas tree is 2,500 meters below us: Riftia Mound, a sulfide chimney venting lower temperature fluid around 68°F (20°C). With help from Alvin, expedition scientists decorated it with two types of experiments related to how organisms colonize vents. One type is related to a long-term study by WHOI’s Mullineaux Lab on how communities of vent organisms change over time. The second type is part of Shawn Arellano’s research on how larvae in the deep sea determine where to settle down.
By Adrian Wackett
I’m a soil scientist and biogeochemist from Minnesota, and it’s pretty hard to get further from an ocean than Minnesota. Let’s be clear: I’m not an oceanographer. I’ve hardly ever even been on a boat bigger than a canoe.
Continue reading “Twelve Days of Christmas at Sea, Part I”
Sylvan Geomicrobiology Lab 