Hell vent is one of the high-temperature hot springs (~300° C, 572° F ) in the ASHES vent field. Hot water exits from a chimney of sulfide minerals that is 5 meters high and is covered with tubewormsy.

Hyperthermophiles - They Like it Hot!

I began my morning in ROPOS's control room waking up to a view of the many faces of ASHES vent field. Within ASHES there are many individual high-temperature hot springs. Some sites were filled with formations that resemble white, 10-scoop snowcones that are actually vent chimneys made out of the mineral anhydrite (thank goodness it was real - at this hour, the whole snowcone visual could have been a bizarre dream). Other sites show off smaller clumps of anhydrite chimneys that remind me of funky marshmallows (Chef Sean made us a great meal last night and I was still full at bedtime-can you tell?). Still other sites have amorphous, blobby-shaped chimneys made out of sulfide minerals that are not as hot and covered with beautiful worms of all types, while other areas remind me of rolling pastures. These were filled with mounds of tubeworm bushes and were so pretty. What a way to wake up!

Lab Technician Sheryl Bolton holds up her test tubes to see if any of her archaea cultures grew.

During my video logging duty, I had an opportunity to find out more about the work of Sheryl Bolton, a lab technician working with oceanographer Dr. John Baross at the University of Washington. Sheryl studies tiny forms of life in a group known as archaea. Back when I was in high school biology, we had to memorize five kingdoms of life (animals, plants, fungi, protists, and monera). That classification system was based upon the ability of early scientists to look at an organism's characteristics and make a judgement call into which category it should be placed. Nowadays, technology allows us to be more quantitative with our classification. For example, scientists working at the molecular level, like Sheryl, can compare the DNA from new organisms that they find in their samples to DNA from known organisms to place them in a classification scheme that is much more objective. With the help of this technology, scientists divided the two prokaryotes into two Domains: bacteria and archaea, their own Domains. While you may be familiar with bacteria as that friendly little critter that naturally occurs in your intestines (one of the many reasons you wash your hands before you eat), you may not be as familiar with archaea, some of which are the "extremophiles". As their name suggests, these guys like extremes! They live in environments where no other critters would dare to go, some of which are those with high salt content (like salt lakes), low temperatures (like the Arctic), and high temperatures (like, you guessed it, hydrothermal vents).

This unusual octopus crossed ROPOS's path today at ASHES vent field! .

On this particular morning, Sheryl was excited because a sample that ROPOS had collected on the 16th of July at Cloud vent contained archaea, which she has managed to keep alive and reproducing in her lab on the ship. She told me that even though the sample was taken from water that was only 5.6° C (42° F). This particular species was happy living in temperatures all the way up at 70° C (158° F), suggesting that there are much warmer conditions below the seafloor. From experiments she's conducted on the ship so far, she's been able to verify that this location is teeming with archaea. When she gets back to her lab on shore, she'll actually run DNA analyses on them to try to determine what specific kind of Archaea they are and to see if she has found a new genus or species. No wonder she's excited! I wonder what ROPOS will bring us next!

C. M. New Paltz, New York asks, "Do you need to wear special clothing when
you go out to sea?"

The temperature is comfortable where we are working right now. Most of us
have been wearing slacks, t-shirts and a lightweight jacket during the day.
We prefer to wear old clothes while we are working on the ship. You wouldn't
want to wear your dress-up clothes out to sea to work on samples - you might
stain them or spill chemicals on them. Another piece of special gear we need
while we're on the ship is a hard hat for when we're working on the deck.
Even though we don't walk around on the fantail (back deck) when the cranes
are in operation, there is a lot of equipment placed high over our heads,
and we are careful to prevent injury should something shift during the
cruise. Also, we are very careful to always remember to wear our work vests
when we are on deck. Like the life jacket that you might wear while you are
out canoeing, they are lightweight to allow for efficient movement.