The moment of truth arrived. The crux of the experiment was
to
recover (in one piece) the sulfide structure grown around the thermocouple
array (see deployment). We needed to compare the measured temperatures from the
thermocouples with the minerals and microbes in the solid sulfides.
Questions plagued us—will it work, or will the newly grown chimney fall to pieces
en route to the
white plastic biobox waiting in the drawer? Meg Tivey
started to explain to Chief Pilot Buck Reynolds
what needed to be done. Buck
reminded her that we had been through this in multiple planning sessions. The only thing left to do was to make it work.
Everyone in the
control room went silent and held their breath in as the ROV manipulator gently tugged the thermocouple array from the chimney. Amazingly, a
melon-sized piece of sulfide came with the thermocouple. We all cheered then fell silent as we watched
the thermocouple and its cargo as they were
slowly carried to the drawer and carefully placed into the biobox (see
left). Once the package was safe, the real cheering
began and as well as promises of free beers for all. We completed the remaining work in high spirits and headed for port.
Once the ROV was on the ship, celebrating had to be put on hold again.
The sulfide needed to be sampled for microbes immediately. The entire biobox
(see below left) was carried into the lab and the array removed (see below
right). The sulfide was examined, mapped out, and then subsampled by
Stakes, Tivey and
Reysenbach.

The cruise was a great success for all the
scientists.
Stakes, Tivey, and Reysenbach’s grad student,
Page, look forward to collecting the
final arrays in two months at the end of the GOC expedition.
- Debra Stakes

From left: Wheat,
Koski, Reysenbach,
Page, Preston,
and Osorio
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