Participant Interview:
Kim Juniper
Biologist
University of Quebec

Jeff: You've been studying hydrothermal vents for about 15 years. How did you get started in this type of research?
Kim: I came out to Axial Volcano in the summer on 1983 with Verena Tunnicliffe and four other scientists and we made the first discovery of a vent system in the North Pacific. The vent is called CASM and is in the northern part of Axial's caldera. I got hooked and I've been studying vents ever since. It was natural for me to come out to the vents. Before I'd been working with chemosynthetic bacteria and using a submersible a lot.

Jeff: How has hydrothermal vent research changed over the last 15 years?
Kim: Technology has changed the most in the last five years with the advent of ROV's which allow everybody to get involved on every dive. The first ten years of vent research were exploration, mapping, inventory of species and sites and discovering symbiosis. Now were starting to ask questions that we would normally ask about any ecosystem. There is great interest in trying to understand how the environment varies in time, from both the earth scientist's point of view and the biologist's point of view.

Jeff: What research are you and your graduate students working on this year at Axial?
Kim: We're concentrating this year on finishing up a project which involves looking at how food chains develop as new vents are formed and colonized. We're also trying to understand how the animals work out their social arrangements. Obviously we expect vent communities to become more complex after an eruption because they're starting with a clean slate (fresh lava).

Jeff: What has kept people's interest in hydrothermal vents since their discovery in 1977?
Kim: Obviously, the discovery of a new ecosystem is in the interest of everyone in terms of basic science. But that's all over. We've moved on from that discovery phase. I think what's been keeping people going now is the extreme nature of the environment compared to what we know elsewhere on Earth. In terms of biodiversity in this environment, its not the numbers of species, but their adaptations and the novelty of what they do to survive and thrive in this environment.

Kim Juniper working on specimens in the Biology Lab on the Ron Brown.

Marie Maineaux, Kim's graduate student, sorting sulfide worms.