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Dive 1614 First View of ASHES

Dive 1614 was a short trip down and back to survey locations for instruments & junction boxes near, and in, the ASHES hydrothermal field. The imagery starts with close-ups of microbial experiments deployed in 2011 in a beautiful diffusely venting area at the base of  4-m-tall ‘Mushroom’ chimney, which is marked by highly friable ‘chimlets’ that emit particle-poor high-temperature fluids. This area is a target for a high-definition camera that will provide real-time imaging of this animal-covered edifice. ROPOS also visited > 1 m-tall, new black smoker spires at the summit of Inferno. In 2011,  Inferno's top was sampled for microbial analyses, so this new growth is only ~ 2 years old. ROPOS then visited the base of Mushroom again, and the dive ended with placement of Markers 8 and 10, which will be used as target sites for placement of secondary infrastructure on Leg 4 of VISIONS'13. Video credit: OOI-NSF/UW/CSSF

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