Crustal Dynamics Research Blog

Photo showing red and orange mat atop of a bridge held up by pillars.

One of the groups on the ship is interesting in the microbiology associated with the hydrothermal vents in the area. Biology on land and in surface waters get their energy from the sun and since there is no sunlight that reaches the bottom of the ocean, the microbes at Axial have evolved to thrive on different energy sources. These sources include rock, and gas combinations like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and methane. This research group is studying microbes living near vents with low hydrogen values. The high temperature loving microbes that live at the vents “eat” hydrogen and carbon dioxide to produce methane. These microbes are called methanogens, since they produce methane, and the group is trying to help understand how these microbes live near the vents. One possibility is that there could be other microbes in the vents that create hydrogen allowing the methanogens to live compatibly at the same vents with one creating the hydrogen and the other utilizing it. Another microbe they are studying “eats” rocks and produces magnetite (a magnetic mineral), it is pretty awesome!

Taking a syringe sample of red mat.

In a previous blog post a project involving searching for bacteria that can help develop new antibiotics was mentioned. This involves searching for blue and red bacterial mats, taking syringe samples of them, culturing them, and extracting their DNA. Studying bacteria near hydrothermal vents for medical purposes has not really been done, so this is new and exciting research taking place. The goal is to extract chemicals of the bacteria and expose them to several types of cancer, E. coli, cholera, and Staph infection to see if the bacteria stops the growth of the disease. Searching for the red mat on the seafloor was difficult at first, but worth the wait. The Jason crew was given a latitude/longitude coordinate from a previous group who saw the red mat about a month ago. Upon arriving at the location there was no red mat in sight, so Jason drove around for about an hour before finding a small section with bright red mat. A sample was taken, and Jason continued to explore the area when all of a sudden there was an impressive scene of basalt pillars and bridges covered in bright red mat!

 There are innovative and interesting science advances that are happening right now aboard the ship and it is exciting to be a part of it!

Q: What are the duties of a Jason:

• Pilot: The pilot could be considered the watch leader for the group. He is responsible for the ROV at all times, as well as managing the navigator and the engineer to safely maneuver and accomplish all science objectives. He is the one who moves Jason’s arms with the joystick to put science gear in place and complete everything the science watch leader asks.
• Engineer: The engineer is really like a right-hand man and more of a co-pilot than an engineer. He can use the manipulator to drive the ROV, like the pilot, which allows him to take care of things when the pilot needs an extra hand or extra set of eyes. The most important jobs of the engineer are managing the power, keeping an eye on the functions of the vehicle (leaks, etc.), and making sure that Medea is at a safe height in relation to Jason.
• Navigator: The navigator is in charge of the positioning of the ship, during ROV operations. He has to make sure that the ship is in a place such that Medea is in a spot where the pilot can safely maneuver Jason. This can be a complicated task since Jason and Medea are dangling from a cable about a mile below the ship. To track the position of the ROV from the ship we use a USBL (ultra-short baseline) system. To use this system we put a pole in the water with a head on it that sends acoustic signals out to Jason and Medea and listens for their replies. The timing and direction of these replies tell us their position relative to the ship. Since we know the GPS location on the ship, the USBL system can then place Jason and Medea in the real world. The uncertainty is generally about 10 meters, so we have a really good idea of where Jason and Medea are at all times. This system is crucial for scientists because if we find a vent, or place a benchmark on the seafloor, we can get the actual GPS coordinates and make sure that anyone will be able back to the same location in future. The navigator is also in charge of being the DJ in the control van, this can sometimes be really good, or terribly awful.

Q: What is your educational background and how did you get to where you are today?

Korey

A: I graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee with major in computer science and a minor in electrical engineering. While in school, I joined our university’s MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) ROV team out of Monterey Bay. I was the president for three years and went to three international competitions. For the competitions, each team had to build a small ROV to accomplish some task, one year it was operating underneath ice. Being in this organization allowed me to understand what really goes into operating and building an ROV. In addition to being involved with the MATE ROV team, I was working for the WATER institute (now the school of freshwater sciences) and got a job helping to design, build, maintain, and deploy a scientific buoy array. After graduation, I knew I wanted to work with ROV’s and thought I had a pretty good background to accomplish this. I went to apply for jobs and found a posting for an electronics guy working with the Alvin submarine. I filled out the application, sent in my resume and within 3 days I got my first call for an interview. It took 8 months to get through the whole process, but eventually I got hired! I worked there for about 3 years then moved over to working with the Jason ROV crew.

Q: What is the most exciting part about your job?

A: The fact that I get to operate a $6 million vehicle–piloting Jason makes me really happy! The technology that goes into being able to sit on the ship miles above Jason and the seafloor, manipulating an arm to just even push a star fish out of the way blows my mind.

Q: How often are you out at sea each year?

A: About 5 or 6 months out of the year, and I love it. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t.

Q: How long have you been working with Jason?

A: About 2 years.

Q: What has been the best science moment you have been involved with?

A: Working in Alvin I helped discover a couple species of mussel when we were on a dive with an astrobiologist (looks at the seafloor and vent areas to study similar environments to other planets). It was my 3^rd dive in Alvin and she asked me to take a push core of part of the bacterial mat that had mussels. We brought it up to the deck and turns out, it was a species they had never seen before!

On a later Jason dive I was a part of, she was out with a group and we found another new species of mussel!

Q: What exciting places have you visited because of your job?

A: Guam, Tokyo, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Newfoundland, The Azores, Bahamas and Barbados!

Dr. Nooner, what have you accomplished so far during the pressure dive?
“We have visited the majority of the benchmarks and made pressure measurements at them. In 2011 an eruption at Axial buried two out of six benchmarks that we had in place at the time (along with one BPR, one hydrophone, and a fluid sampler). We have put in new benchmarks for the two that were lost and an additional four to expand the network. For the first visit at each of these new benchmarks we have to move them to a stable, flat location where they will spend the rest of their lives growing old. Then we release the floats which pop up to the sea surface and are recovered by the deck crew onto the ship. This takes a fair amount of time, so this first circuit is a long one.” –Dr. Nooner

Dr. Nooner plugging in the MPR’s just before the launch.

So far our Jason dive is going very smoothly, we have successfully made pressure measurements at 9 benchmarks over the last 24 hours. We are making measurements at each benchmark beginning in the center of the caldera and moving north then east and south in somewhat of a question mark pattern covering all ten benchmarks as efficiently as possible. We are hoping to traverse the course (down and back up) two full times totaling four measurements at almost every benchmark within these 5 days.
For these ROV based measurements, we are using what we call Mobile Pressure Recorders (MPR’s) which are carefully placed in the black rectangular indentions on the benchmarks for about 20 minutes allowing the pressure sensors to stabilize. Essentially, these instruments measure the pressure at that particular location on the seafloor. The benchmarks make sure that we are measuring the pressure at precisely the same location each time we come here. Two of the problems faced by using MPR’s are accounting for tides and drift. Making multiple measurements at all the benchmarks over a short period of time (hours to days) allows us to calculate the drift. The tides are dealt with using a small tide gauge that we leave on the seafloor for the duration of the survey. Once the data is brought back to the lab it is corrected for tides and the pressures are converted to a corresponding depth in meters. We then use the depths to monitor the inflation or deflation of the volcano. Since Axial erupted in 2011 the volcano is currently re-inflating as magma makes its way from deep within the Earth and into the magma chamber, priming it for its’ next eruption!

Jason being lowered into the water for the pressure dives.

Data from the MPR’s is useful for long-term inflation and deflation cycles but since measurements can only be made every year or two (when there is funding for a cruise), Bottom Pressure Recorders (BPR’s) are left on the seafloor for an extended period of time. BPR’s also record pressure in a specific location on the seafloor, but unlike MPR’s they are battery powered and record a measurement every 15 seconds. The main reason that BPR’s cannot solely be used is because the drift of the instruments cannot be distinguished from motion of the seafloor. We constraint this drift using our MPR measurements. Back in the lab, the BPR data is corrected for tides and converted to a corresponding depth. Since these instruments are left on the seafloor for 1-2 years, they are critical for collecting rapid inflation or deflation events, such as an eruption (BPR data confirmed the 2011 eruption).

Combining the data received from both MPR’s and BPR’s proves to be the most efficient and effective way to monitor the overall inflation-deflation cycle of Axial.

Dr. Nooner, as head scientist for some of the dives, what is your role in the control van?

“I am in charge of all science that gets done during that dive. The Jason ROV is controlled by highly skilled pilot, navigator, and engineer without whom we could get nothing accomplished. However, they do not know the science objectives and goals and it is my job to tell them where to go, what instruments to deploy, what samples to collect, what video to collect, and anything else that is needed to accomplish the science.” — Dr. Nooner

In a previous post, I told you all the cool facts about ROV Jason and mentioned that it takes a crew of six people to run the whole operation for just four hours. Jason is not permanently on the Thomas G. Thompson, but is able to travel between different research vessels, which takes a lot of equipment. Everywhere he goes, there are three large sheds (made from shipping containers) that move with him; two are full of tools, parts, and equipment, while the other contains the controls and monitors used whenever Jason is submerged.

Part of the Jason Control Van showing some of the monitors.

This last shed, which is two shipping containers put together, is called the Control Van. It is equipped with about 40 screens (TVs and computers) that display live feed from the cameras attached to both Jason and Medea. The six people that sit in the van at one time include the pilot, navigator, engineer, head scientist, data logger, and video logger.

As part of my role on this cruise, I am one of the video loggers. This entails sitting in the van for four hours at a time checking to make sure the video feed is recording on the DVD’s at all times. There are two large DVD recorders that each record up to six DVD’s at once. When I first get into the van for my watch, I ensure that the recorders are loaded properly with six disks then sit around and wait for Jason to be deployed into the water. Once he is near the seafloor, I start all six of the DVD’s in one of the recorders and log the start date and time onto a spreadsheet. Each DVD records two hours of video, so once it has been one hour and 58 minutes, I begin recording the second set of DVD’s and log the start date and time for those. After a set of six has been recorded, I print labels onto the disks and set them aside. In addition to monitoring these disks, I also aid the data logger in recording written notes while she logs them onto the virtual van website.

The data logger is responsible for entering scientific notes about the dive and samples taken into the Virtual Van website, which is our data logging system for each dive. This system captures still images from three of the cameras at a set interval (about one a minute) and loads these onto the website. Any time the data recorder enters text, it is associated with one of the images.

Here is a link to the Virtual Van website where you can check out some interesting images from previous scientific expeditions. http://4dgeo.whoi.edu/jason/ The website is available for public and scientific use.

Until next time!

Elisa

ROV Jason being lowered into the water.

Jason, the Remotely Operated Vehicle that is being used throughout this research cruise. He is an impressive robotic submarine that is 3.4 m in length, 2.4 m in height, 2.2 m wide, and can reach depths up to 6,500 m which covers most of the seafloor. Jason weighs a little over 4,000 kg and usually travels at about 1.0 knot (about walking speed).

In order to eliminate the shock that would be felt from the ship, Medea, Jason’s dive partner, is attached to the ship by an electro-optic steel-armored cable. Beneath Medea is another cable that leads down to Jason. This one is a 55 m neutrally buoyant fiberoptic cable that allows him to roam freely away from Medea without feeling the movement from the ship.

Jason has six color video cameras and one still camera that all aid in monitoring the equipment he carries as well as what and where to sample, and the surroundings. There is an imaging sonar and a multibeam sonar for mapping the seafloor and he is equipped with two robotic arms that are controlled from a room on deck. These arms allow samples to be collected and equipment to be used or moved into vent openings and other small areas. Jason has two kinds of water samplers on board; one of them collects up to 500 mL of fluid and is able to withstand the hot waters associated with hydrothermal vents. The other sampler can collect about 140 mL but keeps a high pressure on the water and dissolved gases as the sample comes up to the surface.

Medea entering the water, Jason is just visible underneath the surface.

Using Jason is a massive operation that takes a lot of people. At a minimum, he needs a pilot, a navigator, an engineer, and three scientists to record data, monitor video feed and decide where to go and what to do. He can work up to 24 hours a day but that means that teams have to rotate approximately every four-hours. This is usually done by each team having two four-hour shifts each day, which means that there have to be 18 people on board (9 Jason crew and 9 scientists). For this trip, there are two projects that each have three 16-hour dives and our project, which has a 5-6 day continuous dive.