Gas-tight sampling for helium concentrations in vent fluids, at T&S Spires. The spires are covered with sulfide worms (golden color), as well as tubewoms and limpets.

NOAA Ship Ron Brown/ROV ROPOS
Science News

Science Report - Tuesday, July 24, 2001
Ship's position: 45 59.6'/-130 01.2'

ROPOS dive 626 collected scanning sonar data over the CASM hydrothermal vent field today. These data will be processed on board the ship over the next day or two in order to create a high-resolution (2-m pixel size) bathymetric map of the area. Over the last several years we have used this same sonar to make detailed maps of our main working areas at Axial. The sonar maps help us put the near-bottom views from the ROPOS video cameras into a larger and more meaningful context. The map of CASM will be used when ROPOS returns to the site in a few days.

ROPOS also briefly visited the vents at CASM on today's dive and sent back a live video transmission from the seafloor to shore. The next ROPOS dive will return to the Marker 33/Cloud vent area to release the interactive vent fluid sampler (which was positioned there on dive 625). This was a short-term deployment to see if there are chemical changes at the vents over the time scale of a tidal cycle. The samples on board the sampler will be processed and then the it will be redeployed in a few days for a full year and integrated into the NeMO Net communication system. More on that in the coming days.