August 12-13, 2024
Some (now fixed) ROV technical trouble meant that although the Jason team was surely occupied, most of the student duties were on pause in absence of dives to log. In discussing the setback with the science team, I earned that we were previously 24 hours ahead of schedule—no small feat for an operation so intricate—leaving us still ahead after this 12-hour delay. This emphasized a tenet of the expedition somewhat reminiscent of the tortoise and the hare: regardless of where you are, don’t let complacency creep in.
The perseverance is not without reward, and in this case, I reaped the benefits of the Jason team’s hard work as we descended on the International District vent field. Here, Jason flies the vertical axis of the 16 meter (!) metal sulfide frame of the El Guapo vent, far from able to fit its massive stature in full view of the main camera. We watched as hot (350°C), shimmering hydrothermal fluids continued construction of this monument, as they will until the flow fulfills its ephemerality and slows to a stop, leaving its dependents out in the cold. Yet, marveling at the vents was only part of the dive plan, and it came time to turn our attention to the equipment. The instruments here seem a further symbol of endurance, ticking along under shag carpets of filamentous bacteria for years awaiting recapture. Perhaps their reward for this devotion is the undervator ride to the surface—a term that I was personally delighted to learn, referring to the basket latched to the underside of Jason.
Prior to this expedition, I have been interning with co-Chief Scientist Katie Bigham at the Regional Cabled Array office at the University of Washington, working on a research project on the Southern Hydrate Ridge (another branch of the cabled array).
I was funded by my own institution to be able to participate, and so with the imminent conclusion of the summer work I have provided them a bit of reflective writing on the experience. In this consideration process, I’ve been pleased to notice that one of my favorite qualities of this team—the composure with which they approach troubleshooting—is rubbing off on myself and my work.
Deep sea work, in all its logistical intricacies and expenses, seems rife with troubleshooting. As such, it is my impression that this training of calm under pressure is just as crucial to my training as the identification of a hagfish, or the composition of an abstract.
August 11, 2024
As I have already become accustomed to my routine and have relayed it all to you, I won’t subject you to repetition of the minutia. Instead, I’ll opt to drag you through some thoughts and (if you’ll allow) a brief description of my worm-themed 20th birthday. Nearly any worm you could think of (earthworm, polychaete, worm on a string) was in attendance, pictures printed and taped to the walls for some budget party decorating. Snacks of (meal)worms and vermiform foods only—think pretzel sticks, cheese puffs, and obviously gummy worms—were served, and the night was perfected by the surprise arrival of a mascot in a dirt cup. All this to say; I’m a big worm fan.
Worms (note: this non-taxonomic term generally extends to annelids, platyhelminths, and nematodes) have a truly global distribution. They’re found pole to pole, in deserts, oceans and rainforests alike—even in library paste in the case of the resilient nematode Chaos redivivum.
Naturally, today we observed worms proliferating even under the severe conditions at hydrothermal vents. The aptly named palm worms (Paralvinella sp.) live the tropical lifestyle, basking in temperatures of up to 55°C and letting the superheated fluid tickle their frond-like gills as if it were an ocean breeze. Rather than a pool chaise, they luxuriate on protruding clusters of vent tubeworm Ridgeia piscesae, the gutless ecosystem engineers of Axial Seamount vents. Truely, I use gutless as a neutral descriptor and not a diss—these polychaetes lack the typical anus, gut, and mouth that many of us animals enjoy. Rather, they derive nutrients from the metabolism of sugars produced by symbiotic bacteria from hydrogen suphides. Little pink scale worms Branchinotogluma tunnicliffae piggyback on this food synthesis from a little further down the chain, scootching around the vents in search of detritus and even sometimes attacking the tubeworms. A more fashionable worm, these flat bodied polychaetes commonly appear with their pink dulled by a coating of bacteria, posited to help them deal with the intense temperatures.
More worm-inclined readers may take issue with my apparent annelid favoritism, to whom I would challenge to take a look at a hydrothermal vent and spot a single nematode in that flamboyant chaos? Call me a fake worm fan if you like, but in writing this briefest of worm reviews I will admit that I had supplement my memory with some google fact checking. The reality that confronted me there is that the majority of online information on these worms comes from OOI and its affiliates, the people I share this ship with.
As a child and a teen, it felt (to me at least) that new scientific knowledge was passed down from somewhere high and out of reach. On this journey, it feels necessary to stop every now and again to appreciate the magnitude of these expeditions and the contributions they make to our collective knowledge, and to let myself have some awe that I get to be here.
August 10, 2024
Surrounded by researchers, being aboard the R/V Atlantis constantly reminds you that humans like to leave their mark, be it a published paper, stickers slapped on random surfaces, or the infamous “Spy Kid 2” that has tagged the lion’s share of buildings in my college town. And despite lacking digits like us apes, deep sea organisms are also constantly leaving a signature—their DNA. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is used by terrestrial and aquatic researchers alike, collected from soil, water, and air. The premise of this technique is that organisms perpetually jettison their DNA into the hydrosphere (and atmosphere, lithosphere) by way of shedding DNA-carrying tissue, feces, mucus, etc. Today, we took the first step towards our researchers reading those signatures left by organisms at 2900 meters deep by collecting water samples for DNA analysis. The samples were taken from two Niskin bottles attached to the Jason ROV, totaling enough volume to set aside samples for eDNA as well as to calibrate equipment.
The biodiversity of Earth as we currently know it is wildly underrepresented due to elusive animal behaviors and hard to reach ecosystems (as exemplified by the deep sea). Though the curious and flashy biota—like the fierce snailfish or “weird fish”—tempt the eye away from the little guy, a complete understanding of deep-sea systems requires us to read the cryptic notes left by more reserved taxa.
Among humans, the meaning of “making your mark” is drastically different for distinct individuals and situations (although few conceptualize it as sloughing off DNA). Though any shred of desire for celebrity beat a hasty retreat from my brain around the end of middle school, I wouldn’t balk at being fish famous (author’s note: invertebrates hold first place in my heart, but that just didn’t have the same ring to it). Anyhow, today my opportunity to make a mark on the fishy, briny deep was quite literal, involving a sharpie, electrical tape, and a whole lot of tubes.
After dinner, Joe and I were enlisted by Alex to support the assembly of an osmotic fluid sampler (Osmo) destined for the ASHES vent field. The Osmo contains two pumps, each with one freshwater and one supersaturated briny chamber separated by a membrane, such that the freshwater (through osmosis) will pass through the membrane and cause low pressure on the fresh side. Suction on the fresh side then draws in vent fluid through a long tube routing to a sampling cap, at which point the fluid is treated and stored in sample coils. When assembling the Osmo, it is crucial that no air is trapped in the coils or tubes lest the bubbles block the pump membrane. With five coils and twice as many tubes, this makes for a precise and challenging build as the ship steams along in active transit to ASHES.
We did our best to keep our footing despite the ship’s intensified rocking as Alex carefully walked me through the steps to remove air from the pumps and tubes with a hypodermic needle, install all components into the frame, and properly hook everything up. And of course, like in any quality research, we made sure to label, label, label as we went.
One of the virtues of the Osmo is that its brilliantly austere design makes it cheap to build and operational with no electricity. As such, it can be difficult to wholly comprehend that this mostly plastic instrument is bound for one of the most extreme environments on Earth, side by side with technology worth thousands of dollars and installed by an ROV worth hundreds of thousands—and I was writing on it with a sharpie. Witnessing that instrument be carted down nearly 2,000 meters and seeing my own handwriting warped by the characteristic shimmering of hydrothermal fluid was indescribable. Admittedly, 21 years is rarely long enough to make too many marks on the world (although I do believe in the huge weight of making small, positive marks on your immediate community). Still, that feeling that a hint of me resides in this environment—one that I rewatched religiously on Blue Planet as a child, that I meticulously painted on my fifth-grade project poster, that drew me to study geo and biosciences—will be a difficult feeling to top.
August 9, 2024
The morning was calm—as all mornings that start at 4 am should be—as I watched and logged another dive to recover and replace portions of a shallow profiler mooring. At times, the sway of the ship in the waves would coincide for a moment with the rocking of ROV Jason 200 meters below, giving the fleeting impression that we were right there within the vehicle. This is encouraged by the impression that the control van—always dark with a half dozen screens displaying an environment beyond most sunlight penetration—is immune to time and space. The digital time clock is little help, as its glowing red letters display universal standard time rather than local. Yet I know that the deep ocean, like any other Earth system, is not timeless and untethered. As scientists at UW and around the world continue to study, regions of the deep are impacted to varying degrees by daily and tidal cycles such as flux of phytodetritus, diel migration, and even tidal seismicity. And neither is the Jason control van exempt from daily cycles, as 8 am does indeed arrive and signal me to relinquish my post.
My day began in earnest around 8:30 am, when Makayla Joseph and I assisted Co-Chief Scientist Mariela White in collecting water samples from Niskin sampler bottles affixed to ROV Jason (in the aforementioned dive). Once samples were secured, Atticus Carter and I occupied ourselves by investigating some crinoids that came up with a recovered science pod before technician Andrew Paley asked for help in repairing the CAT instrument (but more on that in Atticus’s blog). The morning’s water sampling experience quickly proved useful, as the afternoon consisted of CTD sampling. This meant first preparing the 24 bottles in the CTD rosette by latching them open, and then using a winch to lower the contraption into the water to the appropriate depth (in this case, 220 meters).
Moving indoors to the computer lab, I watched as Mariela fired each Niskin bottle on the CTD at the appropriate depth while Andrew got the run down on winch operation from the Shipboard Science Support Group. As the instrument passed through the water column, thin lines grew on a monitor to graph salinity, temperature, and depth in real time, displaying a much rougher iteration of the smoothed and idealized pycnoclines I’ve studied in class.
Following recovery of the CTD by Andrew and Atticus, the students descended upon the wet lab, enthusiastic to lend a hand to Mariela and Alex’s sampling efforts. Bottles upon bottles in a range of sizes and materials (each type to accommodate a given water test) were swiftly scanned, recorded, filled with seawater from the CTD Niskin bottles, and sometimes chemically treated to ensure accurate sampling results.
Once sampling concluded, it was finally time for the fun part, and don’t the fun parts always require boots?? With a 10-liter capacity, each bottle sailed through the sample collection with plenty of water left over to “wash the deck.” We circled the CTD rosette popping bottles two at a time, each giving off a miniature flood of cold (and slightly smelly) mid-ocean water. Big shoutout to my mom for letting me borrow her muck boots…my sneakers would certainly not have made it out unscathed.
I ended the day back on watch in the Jason control van, the last stage in a routine I’ve quickly become accustomed to. Immediately, I was shown that routine certainly does not obstruct excitement as I was informed that the ROV had been descending for over two hours and was nearing the seafloor 2900 meters below our seats. The goal of the dive was to swap out a defunct medium power junction box stationed at the Oregon Slope Base with a newer model—a long and logistically complex mission. Still, my attention in the role of event logger was diverted by the bizarre benthos and their danger response upon the descent of Jason.
Several sea cucumbers displayed a level of grace I had yet to witness from an echinoderm, taking flight to evacuate the area by undulating their chubby red bodies. A giant isopod took the opposite approach and hunkered down in the silty mud. I can’t help but be fond of the giant isopods, maybe because I spent much of my earliest years rooting around in the dirt with their tiny, terrestrial cousin (or maybe because they seem like the perfect size to be cradled like a baby…). Regardless, anyone who saw me from the months of last August through June can attest to this affection, as they’ve seen me tote around a miniature figure of a giant isopod (some might argue that this just makes it a regular isopod, but I’ll never concede that) on my keychain for the better part of a year, until the keys were stolen. To see this animal at home in its own world and to know that it is slowly shuffling around below me is a feeling that will stick in my mind for years to come.
Onward to sleep, another day, and another dive!
August 8, 2024
We departed Newport around 9:30 this morning on calm seas that were quieted by fog, but we were still careful to secure our computers and personal items against the rocking of the ship. After a safety briefing and some exploration, we (the students) completed some trainings and successively peeled off to attend our respective watches.
By any metric, the most engrossing part of my day was spent on watch in the Jason control van where I was tasked with logging the ROV dive video. I’ve heard the sea, particularly the deep, compared to outer space countless times—when regarding octopi as our closest proxy to alien intelligence, in tales from Blue Planet deeming the ocean depths to be as mysterious as other planets, and so forth. University of Washington’s own astrobiology program seems to frequently collaborate with the School of Oceanography, so the sentiment extends beyond pop culture into science. It appears to extend to the Jason team as well; the not-so-subtle nod to Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard in the control van’s video display software (thank you to Jason teammate Nic for explaining that) could be chalked up to a comedic act of geekery, but for the sake of blogging I’ll assign it more meaning. I’ve only witnessed three dives across my two watch shifts so far (4pm to 8pm, then 4am to 8am), but the connection checks out.
On the Jason van monitors, I’ve seen that the Regional Cabled Array has woven its own planets into the ocean bottom, anchoring bobbing orange Shallow Profiler Moorings along the Oregon Offshore. Presumably due to variance in nutrient supply and current, each mechanical planet harbors its own assemblage and quantities of crinoids, squat lobsters, urchins, nudibranchs, and bryozoans (to name a few). In watching the nudibranchs peer out from their perch on the platform, I wonder if each settled as a wandering veliger or if they set out in pursuit of fields of algae and took a wrong turn up the lengths of mooring chains (though to be fair, the algae blanket across much of the Shallow Profiler Mooring suggests it may have been the right turn).
It was warm on deck when I emerged from the dark Jason van with a phone full of grainy pictures of the monitors. Although the jargon in the van had begun to make sense with time, lack of sleep eventually began to counteract the knowledge gained through experience. I returned to bunk with visions of nudibranchs leaving a slime trail on my dreams!