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Water, water everywhere, but not a clam in sight... Today, we have continued our search for new vent and seep sites by diving at the Tamayo fracture zone. What is a fracture zone? Put simply, it's a fault that connects two regions of a spreading center. For example, imagine the letter "Z." Now imagine that the top and bottom lines are geologic spreading centers, where lava comes up and new earth is formed. If that's the case, the middle line of the "Z" would be stretched and crushed and deformed as the upper and lower lines expand. That's the sort of zone we are looking for on this dive. These regions often have venting or seepage of chemically-altered fluids that have formed within the crust, and many unique organisms and communities flourish where venting and seeping fluids mix with ocean water. In the case of the Tamayo fracture zone, or TFZ, beds of clams were discovered here when scientists first visited this site years ago, and these clams are good indicators of seepage. This is what we came to find. The scientists who first visited this site published information on where they found the TFZ and the clam beds, and we used this data to chart a course on the ocean floor that would allow us to survey as wide an area as possible. The ship's crew and ROV pilots did a great job of "flying" over the site and allowing us to look for clam beds or other signs of venting or seepage. We spent many hours scanning the bottom of the ocean, and did not find any obvious signs of recent seepage. Usually, we will see some clams, bacterial mat, crabs, or even tubeworms. This time, it was water and mud but no vents or seeps. |
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When you get right down to it, ocean exploration is one part planning, two parts luck, and three parts seasickness medicine (just kidding). One thing is for sure, you never know what you're going to find. |