R/V Wecoma - CTD Cruise

Imagine flying over Mt. Rainer National Park at night, trying to locate camp sites by detecting the wispy smoke drifting downwind from campfires. We're floating not flying, and looking for vent sites not camp sites, but we have a similar challenge out here. One difference, of course, is that we already know where most of the vent sites are located thanks to the extensive seafloor mapping conducted by the ROPOS team over the last few years. More...

R/V Wecoma - Missy Holzer

What's for dinner? Out at sea dinner could be anything from Yankee pot roast, to seafood flown in from Hawaii, to something exotic like a stir fry with pot stickers and sesame soba noodles when you have experienced cooks planning and preparing 3 meals a day for the duration of the cruise. With the creativity they bring to the galley, more...

Participant Perspective

Interview with Mausmi Mehta
Microbiologist Graduate Student, U. Washington

Jeff: Why are you so interested in the microbiology of hydrothermal vents?

Mausmi: As an undergraduate I was strictly learning microbiology. While it was interesting, I thought it would be more exciting to apply it to a field that was related, but not exactly what I had studied previously. It's fascinating. I read all about it when I was younger and watched the discovery channel and PBS programs on the hydrothermal vents. I thought it would be amazing to get to do both what I had been trained to do and this whole new thing with oceanography which I hadn't done before. More...