SALT: Seep Animal Larval Transport – Page 4

Last day of Leg 1

arellas on March 5, 2020July 17, 2020

Leg 1 Crew. L-R: Ahna Van Gaest (WWU), Esmeralda Farias (WWU), Matt DePaolis (UO), Hailey Dearing (WWU), Dexter Davis (WWU), Natalie Contreras (UO), Serena McCoard (UO), Mitch Hebner (UO), Kandace Wheeler (UO), Caitlin Plowman (UO), Jackson Hoeke (UO), Laura Anthony (WWU), Craig Young (UO), Tralee Chapman (UO), Lauren Rice (UO), Avery Calhoun (UO), Shawn Arellano (WWU), Allison Heater (SSSG), Ian Grace (NC State), Glenna Dyson (WWU), Manuel Maldonado (SNRC)

Author Highlights of the Day:

"The Alvin pilots were nice enough to demo the manipulator (the hydraulic arm) today, so I enjoyed learning from them about how it works and also just seeing the arm’s fluid movements in person."

Esmeralda Farias

Senior, Western Washington University

"Today was wonderful! We got some time to sit outside and I got to go inside of the DSV Alvin and learn all about how to operate it inside and see what it feels like to be in a deep-sea submersible. It was an unforgettable experience."

Kandace Wheeler

Senior, University of Oregon

After endless hours of looking through a microscope to sort through sediment in search of mussel larval shells, we decided to take a break and enjoy the beautiful weather. While soaking up the sun on the bow we spotted a pod of dolphins riding the waves from the ship. We cheered with joy and smiled as we watched them jump over the waves as the sun illuminated a rainbow above the dolphins. Not long after we noticed them, the pod swam away despite our dolphin calls in hopes of bringing them back. We then saw some flying fish that looked like fairies as they leaped from the sea, fluttering to keep themselves above the water as they soared through the air, travelling a surprisingly long distance. These beautiful creatures entertained us while we sat in the sunlight. It was moments like this that reminded us why we love the sea so much. We lingered by the rails as long as possible, taking in the beautiful ocean view until we needed to head back to the microscopes to search for larvae. While the piles of sediment may not be as beautiful as the glistening ocean, it still is a world of its own, cluttered with shells, larvae, and eggs that are just as interesting and unique as the macrofauna that we saw from the bow. These larval shells we find will give us insight into the reproduction of these deep sea creatures by helping us to determine their location of origin and how these mussel larvae disperse throughout the ocean, and if the larvae travel from one deep sea sight to another of the sights that we visit.

Meanwhile, the Larval Lab spent the day wrapping up projects and getting organized for the trip home. As people searched for larval shells behind us, we took especially lively larvae and photographed them under the microscopes. The abundance of individuals prevented us from naming each one of these, but they were often lovingly referred to as “lil bebes.” Additionally, Dexter and Esmeralda took final notes from their experiments with the larvae and prepped them for their journey back to Washington. Despite all the work to do, the Larval Lab still managed to make time to also enjoy the sunshine knowing full well that the weather back in Washington may not be as inviting. After dinner, both groups made sure to come together for some very important matters- group photos with Alvin, dive highlight video viewing, and an impromptu larvae remix performance of Under Pressure from Matt and Mitch. Clearly, even transit days focused on getting ready for our departure don’t fail to include larvae in some way. As this trip comes to an end for our group, we look forward to hearing updates from our graduate students about the rest of the cruise.

Methane Ice, Baby

All right, drop
Into the Gulf that glistens
Alvin’s back with a brand-new mission

Sphere of titanium, secure it tightly
His arms collect the mussels that we process nightly

Will descent ever stop?
Yo, the pilot knows.
Bioluminescence providing that glow

Depths too extreme for most species to handle
Below the photic zone, you better bring your own candles

Cameras, peering out through the gloom
Watching Lamellibranchia spawn in a plume

Methane drip, seeping through the sediment
Chemosynthetic organisms, gotta process all of it

You aren’t collecting data? Best get outta my way
As long as methane’s seepin’ we will science every day

If there was a problem, the pilot better solve it
Dove deep to get the bivalves and we don’t want to call it

Ice Ice larvae (Methane) (Methane)
Ice Ice larvae (Methane)

-Matt DePaolis, M.S. and Law student, University of Oregon

Final Dive in the Gulf of Mexico

arellas on March 4, 2020July 17, 2020

“Getting to ALVIN dive at the deepest point in the Gulf of Mexico is at the top of the list in surprises that life has thrown at me in my marine biology career. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime and a lot like what I imagine going to space is like!”

Tralee Chapman

B.S. Marine Biology, University of Oregon

We live in a world where we can visualize virtually anything through the use of technology and word-of-mouth. Places you haven’t visited can be 360-toured through Google and legends get told by word-of-mouth globally and have been for millennia. Life at sea, despite having limited internet connection, is a part of this world as well. The instant I set out on this journey I was told stories of previous dives in ALVIN and what life is like at the bottom of the ocean. Tales varied from rock structures that looked like giant skeletons to Humboldt squids swimming right up to the windows. Every story that was told I desperately wanted to believe, however, like most people, I am a believe it when I see it kind of person.

Today was my chance to believe it all. When I found out I was getting an ALVIN dive I was overcome with emotions, but most of all excitement. I became more excited when I found out I was going to dive at our last (and deepest) site in the Gulf of Mexico and the first place cold seeps were ever discovered: the Florida Escarpment. The day started out normally, except today I was greeted by smiling faces and people asking, “Are you ready?” or “Are you excited?” I got into ALVIN feeling surprisingly normal and ready to begin descending. It wasn’t until the sub hit the water that I became really excited and the gravity of the situation truly hit me. In an instant, a brilliant blue washes over all five windows and you are engulfed into a world so unlike our own on land. Throughout the entire 3200 meters down, bioluminescent plankton floated by like fireflies. This in combination with the technology inside the sub made me feel like Luke Skywalker in the Millennium Falcon.

The bottom came into view and the work began. The dive went smoothly; all traps were deployed and all organisms that were needed were collected. However, the work didn’t take away from the magic of this unique site. The site sloped up to a looming giant carbonate wall. All along the slope were countless mussel beds, tube worm bushes, bacterial mats, lobsters, shrimp, clams, and chunks of carbonate. The bacterial mats created depth to the flat surface by adding streaks of white, copper, black, and dark green all over the slope. When we settled into our deployment site, a beautiful (and adorable) lavender octopus was seen relaxing on a nearby mussel bed. This was the highlight of the dive for me because it was an incredibly stunning creature and we were able to capture fantastic footage of it.

By the end of the dive, I fully believed every story I had been told about ALVIN dives and life at the bottom of the ocean. The environment down there feels like an entirely different planet. The giant rock structures mixed with the complex community of organisms creates a unique biome unlike anywhere else on the planet. If I could, I would dive every day and explore everything our oceans’ depths have to offer. As much as I try my best to explain its beautiful magic, it really is an experience you need to see to truly believe.

Environmental Note:

Although the deep was breathtaking in every way, there were still clear evidence of human contamination. I’m not talking scientific dive labels or sediment disturbance created by the sub. Instead, there were several places where we observed trash stuck to organisms or floating along the bottom current. I personally witnessed fine net mesh stuck to mussels and a plastic cup drifting through the environment. Even over 3000 meters down, the ocean still feels our negative influence on the planet. Its for this reason that I will always encourage the reduction of plastic use and implementation of better fishing practices especially with trash and fishing nets.

Chitons and mussels and crabs, oh my!

arellas on March 3, 2020July 17, 2020

UO graduate student Avery Calhoun and WWU Senior Glenna Dyson edit dive footage

Dexter Davis, Junior at WWU, Esmeralda Farias (senior) and PI Craig Young work away on microscopes

Today is a transit day on the Atlantis to our last site, The Florida Escarpment. Most everyone took advantage of the late start to sleep in, since when Alvin dives we need to wake up at around 7am. While the normal daily processes continue, many of the Western students are working on their personal projects. Though Alvin dives into the deep to collects samples, the processing and investigations happen here all day on the Atlantis.

Dexter and Esmeralda for the past week have been staring through microscopes all day to find larvae. This has led them to be curious about what deep sea mussels prefer to settle on. In order to answer this they are testing to see if they settle more on adult mussel shells, juvenile mussel shells, carbonate rocks, byssal threads, or the plastic of the petri dish. They are doing these experiments in both filtered sea water and the water mussels have been living in to see if mussels release chemicals that influence settling. This will help us better collect larvae samples in the future and understand where mussels are found in the deep-sea. “It’s been really fun looking through microscopes. There’s a bunch of things that you don’t necessarily care about at first, but then you see there’s a lot of fun things you get to see that live in the dark,” reports Esmeralda Farias, senior at WWU.

Hailey Dearing, a second year undergrad at WWU, is interested in possibly carnivorous snails. She will be giving the snail a variety of food including worms, mussels and shrimp to see if the snail shows a preference. There is little information on this snail, including its prey, so she will be contributing largely to the understanding of this organism. Hailey notes, “I’m really grateful to be participating in this sort of research as an undergrad.”

My work on the boat has mainly consisted of looking at videos taken by Alvin at every dive spot, which I feel so lucky to do. I am also a part of the group that takes the organisms out of the Bio-box on Alvin after each dive and put them into chilled seawater. It’s amazing to watch videos of the deep sea and then realize that for every sample we collect, I am the first person to see and hold the organisms in my own hands. After the organisms are collected, they are sorted and the bottom of the biobox is sieved to collect anything we missed. Mussels are shucked, tubeworms are spawned, larvae are identified, and the equipment is modified for the next dive. Additionally, I am working on the animal behavior of snot worms. At the sites where we found them, the worms were in large clumps together, so I will be studying their movement patterns to find each other and how they behave as individuals vs. in groups.

Author’s Highlights:

"Being on the Atlantis is incredible! It has helped me to realize what working in a deep-sea lab is like, which has been so different from other lab I’ve worked in. In other labs, if I don’t know something there is an expert to ask or a paper to reference. If there’s no answer to the question, there are previous studies which I can base a hypothesis after. However, in a deep-sea lab, if I have a question and ask one of our principle investigators, who are experts in the field, most of the time they answer, “Nobody knows!” If I ask what the animal’s name is, it could be a new organism never documented before. If I’m curious about a process or behavior, no papers exist on it (if the organism has been studied at all). It reminds me of when I came to Washington from my hometown in Colorado, and everything about the ocean seemed incredibly new and exciting: intertidal chitons and mussels and crabs were so amazing and interesting, even when my teachers seemed less impressed. Now, however, every chiton, mussel, and crab is novel to us all."

Glenna Dyson

Senior at Western Washington University

Adieu, soleil

arellas on March 2, 2020July 17, 2020

Landlocked in Montana as a child, but craving the majesty and mystery of the ocean, I had no choice but to read of the high seas. For years, I sailed aboard the Nautilus with Dr. Aronnax and avidly flipped through marine textbooks. One day, I happened upon a book with a single page describing cryptic deep-sea coral habitats and I was entranced; a hidden beauty in the ocean that only Captain Nemo could find in his submersible. Yet today I said goodbye to the sun much like Captain Nemo by dipping beneath the waves in the HOV Alvin.

As a student working in Dr. Shawn Arellano’s lab, I’ve been excitedly anticipating our cruise for several months. However, I never expected to go in a submarine! The preparation for today’s dive began late last night when all the students on board decided to decorate Styrofoam cups. We each sent a Styrofoam cup down to be shrunk by the pressure of the ocean. During the evening, I participated in the age-old tradition of avoiding liquids due to the lack of restrooms on the small sub.

Waking up in the morning brought a fresh wave of excitement as I donned all cotton clothing (any synthetic fibers are a flammable hazard inAlvin). My next step was to simply step into the sub and descend into the deep! Though I didn’t quite travel 20,000 leagues like Captain Nemo, I did get to go down 1,093 meters which is our deepest dive thus far. As soon as we hit bottom, we began a search for beds of the cold seep mussels we need for our research. Within minutes of starting our exploration, I suddenly noticed a large crimson squid drifting by the submarine!

The excitement continued as I saw starfish scattered on the sea floor and jellyfish floating by me. During our search, I looked out the window and suddenly saw a couple of deep-sea corals peeking out from behind a ridge. I gasped in excitement to be just feet from an organism I fell in love with as a child. The sub pilot moved us along until we found a large enough bed of mussels where we could collect organisms and deploy equipment. The weather that we were oblivious to in the depths unfortunately took a turn for the worst at the surface so we had to return to the ship a bit early. Luckily, we awaited a warm (or perhaps I should say cold) welcome where I got to participate in the tradition of getting a bucket of ice water dumped over my head immediately following my very first Alvin dive!

Alvin Dive 5060 at GC234

arellas on March 1, 2020July 17, 2020

The day began like many others aboard the R/V Atlantis. Sunrise over some wonderfully calm and majestic blue waters here in the Gulf of Mexico. Breakfast was delicious, rather I should clarify that all of the meals on the ship have been superb, and we are not going hungry. I did have to forgo the coffee with my morning meal, as I was a about to embark on a multiple hour excursion down to about 550 meters in a titanium sphere. This would be my first Alvin dive and I was very much looking forward to it.

After Breakfast we loaded up into the command module of the sub and the crew took over. The Alvin operations crew is a well-oiled machine and got us in the water in a seemingly short amount of time. When we started our descent it only took us about 20 minutes to reach the bottom of the Gulf and a depth of about 530 meters.

We drove around for a minute or two while the pilot got the trim and ballast right and then we headed for the sample site GC 234 (Green Canyon). Dr. Shawn Arellano was on the port side and I was on the starboard side. I used the time that we were driving to the site to get acquainted with the camera system that I would be in charge of. The site had tube worm fields as far as the eye can see. We drove around the cluster of worms looking for a suitable site to deploy some experiments for a colleague working on settlement of a different worm that lives on the shells of clams that lives on the tops of female tubeworms. When a suitable location was found, the pilot maneuvered Alvin’s left arm and grabbed the PVC structures out of the basket and placed them on the sea floor next to a worm bush.

We then drove away from the primary worm bush to look for other sample sites. We were tasked with filming all samples before collection and had to collect some tubeworms with particular sponges on them, brittle stars on soft fan corals, and many samples of carbonate rock. We then happened upon another large collection of tube worms and this one had some of the clams that we were seeking, so we spent some time collecting as many clams as we could. It was in this area with the clams that we were able to find a small aggregation of the mussels on the sea floor that we have been seeking throughout the cruise and collected some of them, but a much smaller number since they were not prevalent.

During the sampling event we came across some large gigantic isopods rummaging around for food on the sea floor. We also saw various fishes and crabs among the large tubeworm bushes. One of the more interesting things we saw was an interesting salp (potentially) that looked like a floating bag but we saw it pumping around the sediment, which is uncharacteristic of salps.

After all of our tasks were accomplished and some fun was had, we dropped our weights and the sub began its ascent from the depths of the Gulf. The Alvin operations crew again did their jobs swimmingly and had us back on deck in a matter of minutes and just in time for dinner. Life for the science crew on the R/V Atlantis is centered around meal times and Alvin dives. When the sub is below gathering samples, we are hard at work sorting and organizing the samples from previous dives. When the sub comes on deck we all spring into action and sort through the fresh biological samples and assist colleagues with any and all tasks that are required of us. This research cruise has been an incredible opportunity to glimpse the life forms that live in the deep ocean.

“Being at sea with friends, both new and old, has been an incredible experience. The ocean truly is in our hands out here.”

Mitchell Hebner

B.S. Marine Biology, University of Oregon

Biodiversity on the Hill

vangaea on February 29, 2020July 17, 2020

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Morning broke with bright sunshine streaming down over a placid Gulf of Mexico. It being the day of my first Alvin dive, I was unable to sleep in. Instead I happily watched the sun rise over the sapphire water as I talked myself out of having my customary cup of coffee in anticipation of being locked in a tube for eight hours. Even a brief delay due to a battery charging malfunction couldn’t dim my spirits. After waving cheerful goodbyes and navigating through a narrow hatch, we three aquanauts were lowered into the gentle waves. As the ballast was blown I gazed in wonder as the last beams of sunlight struggled to penetrate the ever-thickening layer of water above us.

On our way to the bottom I frantically tried to figure out the controls for the multiple cameras I was going to be using to capture our dive. The complex task was only compounded as I was frequently staring out the window in an attempt to soak in the majesty of the bioluminescence flitting around the sub and identify the strange shapes undulating past my portholes. Before seemingly any time had passed we had arrived at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico on one of the trips shallower dives, a paltry 600m below the surface.

The site we arrived at was a methane cold seep named Bush Hill. With a full series of tasks to accomplish, we were dismayed to be greeted with electrical problems almost immediately. While slightly disconcerting, our pilot jumped into action to find a solution, allowing us to continue the dive. Although we had seven hours on the bottom, the time slipped by in an exhausting blur of planting experiments on the bottom, collecting samples, and capturing high resolution footage of everything that we could not fit in the “bio box” that we were bringing to the surface. Although the dive focused on a species of gutless tube worm, Lamellibranchia, and the communities of organisms associated with them, we were graced with the presence of many charismatic megafauna, including deep sea squids, giant isopods and multiple sharks. The work was conducted around the methane seeps themselves and Alvin was quickly covered by small bubbles of methane bubbling through the seabed, bringing with them tiny bits of oil. Based on the sheen coating my camera housing, I appreciate even more, and do not envy the crew that cleans Alvin every night. Too soon our bottom time was drawing to a close, and as we dropped our weights and began to rise toward the sun that was waiting for us, I took a long last glimpse of this alien world that sits so close yet remains out of reach. Tools like Alvin give us a chance to better understand the deep sea, giving us an invaluable window into the work we are engaged in and the astounding levels of biodiversity that exist even in places we cannot fathom.

“The first step to protecting our oceans is understanding. Alvin lets us access new depths and experience the unfathomable.”

Matt DePaolis

Concurrent Law and Master’s Student at University of Oregon

Diving Continues! whoo hoo!!

arellas on February 28, 2020July 17, 2020

Today was a quieter day on the ship because our dive was cancelled yesterday due to bad weather, meaning we did not have new samples to sort through; that being said, there is always work to do on a research cruise! Today was much calmer than the rough seas we experienced yesterday, which was a relief to those of us who were feeling seasick! We measured a total of 500 mussel shells and prepared buckets of seawater in our walk-in cold rooms to be ready for animals to be placed into once Alvin brought up the new collections. Our Chief Scientists, Dr. Craig Young, gave a lecture about the history of oceanography, teaching us all about early deep-sea exploration and how it has changed overtime. The evening was spent sorting through the animals from today’s Alvin dive, which included a variety of snails, mussels, lobsters, worms, sponges and clams. The team finished up the day in the lab by preparing larval traps and settlement arrays to be deployed during tomorrows dive at Bush Hill.

Waiting on the weather paid off today and Alvin went for its second dive of the cruise! Today was a training day for a sub pilot so two pilots (a trained one and almost fully trained one) went on a dive along with this lucky student (Hailey Dearing, right image). It was the second day at The Brine Pool, where we collected and deployed scientific equipment, took more samples, and enjoyed the deep sea and all the crazy creatures. It never got dull watching (and recording) infamous hagfish, known for swimming into the toxic depths of The Brine Pool, and the floating red sea cucumbers that tended to drift/faceplant into the submarine’s cameras. Once back on land, the initiation for new divers commenced! New divers of Alvin get a bucket of ice cold (sea)water dumped on their head at the end of their dive (with their consent, of course!). But, you can’t go for a dive in the ocean and not get wet, right?

"Getting to do scientific research on the RV Atlantis has been an experience of a lifetime! This experience has been fun, interesting, and rewarding and I am so grateful to be surrounded by a group of kind, hardworking people."

Kandace Wheeler

Undergraduate at Oregon Institute of Marine Biology

I wasn’t expecting to get to go on a dive in Alvin so finding out that I was going to the bottom of the sea felt like a dream come true. I thought that nothing could top that but having the opportunity to actually DRIVE the sub for a few minutes was worth everything to get here!

Hailey Dearing

Undergrad at Western Washington University

Waiting on Weather!

arellas on February 27, 2020July 17, 2020

Today was supposed to be the second Alvin dive to The Brine Pool, but due to bad weather, including high winds and waves, the dive had to be cancelled. All day, the ship rocked to and fro, and due to the rolling, the deck had to be closed and a few of our scientists battled with the greatest of sea monsters: sea sickness. On the bright side, this did give us time to work on the rest of the material we acquired yesterday. Most of the day was dedicated to identifying larvae from the first dive under microscopes, especially the Bathymodius larvae, from brine pool mussels. Another project included looking through yesterday’s videos to identify important or interesting clips, which will be used for data and for beautiful highlight reels. Finally, we finished measuring and shucking mussels to store tissue samples.

"Although I am disappointed about today’s dive being cancelled, because I was the one assigned to go down today, I had a lot of fun looking through the videos. There was this one amazing clip of Hag fish eating a dead fish carcass, as well as a beautiful video of a sea cucumber bumping into one of Alvin’s cameras."

Glenna Dyson

Senior at Western Washington University

"Today I had the time to identify a deep sea hydroid that has been observed growing on the tube worms, clams, and mussels of the brine pool. As it turned out, it was actually a species that’s found virtually everywhere. To a species that hardy, perhaps living next to a brine pool is just another challenge."

Jackson Hoeke

Senior at University of Oregon

First Alvin dive

vangaea on February 26, 2020July 17, 2020

We arrived at our first dive site at 07:15 this morning, after steaming for nearly a day to get here. The Brine Pool. Months of preparation, and dozens of people traveled here to witness the event. By 08:00, Alvin was in the water with two eager scientists and a basket full of experiments to deploy.

Meanwhile, Dr. Craig Young gave the first at-sea lecture in the Deep Sea Ecology course. The students learned how brine pools are formed and how to identify all the methane seep invertebrates we planned to collect.

It was all hands on deck once the Alvin came back, bioboxes full to the brim with deep-sea mussels, clams, and snails. The students cleaned and sorted the animals into cold seawater for upcoming shipboard projects.

"The best part of the dive was finding a patch of mussels covered in my favorite snail, Bathynerita naticoidea"

Ahna Van Gaest

Today we set sail on the RV Atlantis!

arellas on February 25, 2020July 17, 2020

To see us off on our voyage, a friendly pod of bottlenose dolphins raced alongside our bow, leaping with the same excitement we felt as we departed Gulfport.

Since it’s the first time at sea for many of us, our briefings including a safety meeting. We got to try on our lifejackets, and some oversized “Gumby” (Survival) suits. We learned how to save our fellow scientists when someone inevitably falls overboard(just kidding!), as well as how to escape our living quarters through a secret hydraulic door, inspired by the demise of the Titanic.

We were also briefed on the myriad ways we could make use of the high-definition cameras on the Alvin, including some that can pivot all the way around to look behind the state-of-the-art submersible. We can utilize technology to document our expeditions while we deploy our collection gear and explore the briny depths.

After a quick pre-dive briefing, we feel ready for our first dive tomorrow! Our destination: A brine pool about 700 meters (2300 feet) deep surrounded by mussels, tubeworms, and perhaps things yet unseen… Brine pools are deep sea “lakes” filled with salty water so dense they lie on the bottom of the ocean. These pools have high concentrations of methane that feeds chemosynthetic bacteria that support unique ecosystems of specialized animals that call these pools home. Even though the site is so deep, it will be one of our shallower sites we visit over the course of our long voyage!

Author’s Highlights:

“My obsession with the ocean in finally satisfied, no land in sight, and hopefully no seasickness in the future.”

Dexter Davis

Junior at Western Washington University

“The only thing more exciting than setting sail on an adventure, is being sent off in style by a pod of dolphins. It certainly started the day off right!”