Science Report:
ROPOS dive 555 started on Axial's north rift zone, but ended at the ASHES vent field in the caldera five miles to the south. After the extensometer instruments were deployed (see teacher's log) on the north rift zone, the ship towed ROPOS in its cage to ASHES where it recovered some larval samplers, then deployed some temperature probes and collected gas-tight water samples at Virgin Mound vent.

After the dive the elevator mooring was recovered from the north rift zone. ROPOS then quickly made dive 556 at Marker 33 to recover another set of larval samplers that were deployed there early in the cruise. We were going to try to make one more fluid sampling dive on the 1998 lava flow, but the winds came up and prevented ROPOS from diving before we had to leave Axial volcano for our transit back to Victoria, British Columia.

Tomorrow we will be transiting all day and we will arrive in Victoria the morning of July 18th. So that's it for NeMO 2000!

ROPOS was in fine form this year, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the ROPOS group. Over the 15 and a half days we had on station this year, we had ROPOS on the bottom for 230 hours! That means ROPOS was in the water 70% of the time we were at Cleft or Axial, and it was on the bottom 61% of the time, or an average of almost 15 hours a day! That average is the best we've had during a NeMO cruise. All of our major science goals for the expedition were accomplished and all the scientists on board are heading back to shore with plenty of new data and samples to analyze after we get back.

Thanks for following along on our voyage of discovery! Hopefully we'll see you next summer.