Florida Deep Coral Expedition 2005. A hexactinellid sponge. Small juvenile amphipods enter the sponge and become captive as they grow too large to escape from inside the sponge's chambers.

Florida Deep Coral Expedition 2005. The sea as it looked from the starboard starboard side on rough days making , sloshing over our deck and making submersible dives impossible.

Florida Deep Coral Expedition 2005. The dorsal (top) view of a newly discovered amphipod living in a commensal relationship with the bamboo coral Keratoisis flexibilis.

Florida Deep Coral Expedition 2005. The Midas Slit Shell (Bayerotrochus midas). Crawling along the underside of an overhanding rim of a rock wall at a depth of 1,400 ft. along the walls of Jordan Sinkhole, Pourtales Terrace, off the Florida Keys.

Florida Deep Coral Expedition 2005. Solenosmilia variabilis coral. Believed to be the first record of this coral in this region.

Gulf of Alaska Expedition 2004. The CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth) rosette is brought back on deck after having taken water samples and a profile of the water column.

Gulf of Alaska Expedition 2004. Multibeam image of Denson Seamount, looking approximately NW. Our dive target was on the southeastern flank. The sea channel on the right that is about 3,200 m deep.

Gulf of Alaska Expedition 2004. A cross sectional view through a fractured pillow basalt. The outer curved surface is the chilled rind, and the "wedges" that radiate from the center are fractures caused by rapid cooling of molten lava in the cold seawater. The red laser points are 10 cm (~4 in) apart, giving the observers in the submarine a sense of scale.

Gulf of Alaska Expedition 2004. Lovely meter-tall stalked sponge with tiny shrimp as photographed from the Alvin porthole.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. Organisms including a Galatheid crab and what appear to be mussel shells indicating proximity to hydrothermal activity. Galatheid crabs are also known as "squat lobsters." Still image taken by the Medea camera system.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. The different colors that can be seen in this sliced piece of hydrothermal vent structure reveal some of the different minerals that composed the vent wall. Concentric circles of various mineral zones form like tree rings in the chimney wall and evolve with changes in thermal and chemical gradients, as well as changes in chimney wall permeability.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. The calcium carbonate shells of tiny sea creatures living at the sea surface fall to the seafloor as light-colored sediment when these organisms die. As time passes, this sediment accumulates on the surfaces of the volcanic rocks far below.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. The lava flows in the photo above are young, because they show little accumulation of sediment. However, these lava flows appear to be coated with fine brown mud. This brown sediment is particulate iron oxide minerals that have fallen out of the plume of a nearby black smoker. Searching near this location led to discovery of black smokers.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. Deploying the CTD/Niskin rosette cast. Each Niskin bottle on the rosette is remotely triggered to collect water samples at various depths that are tested for their chemical and particle content.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. Minerals precipitating out from hydrothermal vent fluids form a sedimentary blanket over the ocean floor.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. This bathymetric map created using the EM-300 multibeam sonar shows the ridge crest at 4 times greater resolution than previous maps. Seeing the ridge in greater detail enhances our ability to interpret the geological processes that contribute to shaping the ridge.

Galapagos 2005 Expedition. The R/V Thomas G. Thompson, measuring 274 ft in length and operating with a crew of 22, remained at sea for 40 days during this cruise.

Lost City Expedition 2005. This "beehive" deposit has formed on the side of another structure. It emits pH ~10 fluids that are ~90?C. These fluids are nearly particulate-free and can be seen shimmering above the the top of the beehive cone.

Lost City Expedition 2005. This crab was recovered from the edge of the Lost City field in 2003 at a water depth of ~ 750 m. Animals of this size are rare within the field. Although total biomass is small the diversity of fauna is as high or higher than that of black smoker sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Lost City Expedition 2005. One of four pinnacles that form the summit of the 200-foot tall carbonate chimney called Poseidon in the Lost City hydrothermal field. The white chimney in the foreground is actively venting 55øC fluids. As the chimneys age they turn grey to brown in color, such as the one shown towards the back.

Lost City Expedition 2005. This flange has fluids both trapped underneath and flowing through the top of it to form the smaller chimneys on the top. It is about 1 m across.

Lost City Expedition 2005. At 2100 feet below sea level, the water column is completely dark. The small circle of light thrown by the ROV Hercules and her sister ROV Argus provides the only line of sight for a search.

Lost City Expedition 2005. This delicate flange actively vents heated hydrogen and methane rich fluids.

Lost City Expedition 2005. Perspective view of several massifs along the Atlantis Transform Fault. The Atlantis Massif, at the MAR intersection is about 2 m.y. old. The Western Massif is about 10 m.y. old. Shallow (red) areas reach <1000 m depth; deep (purple) areas reach >6000 m.

Lost City Expedition 2005. This photomicrograph shows a serpentinite in a polarizing petrographic microscope. During reaction with seawater serpentine (the grey, "snake-like" minerals) forms what is called a mesh texture around olivine grains. The light colored, round minerals are relict grains of olivine. Field of view is 2.5 mm.

Lost City Expedition 2005. Serpentinized peridotites are the most dominant rock type recovered during past expeditions on the south wall of the Atlantis Massif and form the basement of the Lost City hydrothermal vent field. This outcrop has partially deformed rocks that occur at the top of the massif. The arm of the submersible Alvin is shown on the right.

Lost City Expedition 2005. Serpentinites form when seawater reacts with peridotite - rocks that form the Earth's mantle and have been brought up to the seafloor by tectonic processes. This is a sample of a serpentinite recovered from the Atlantis Massif. Thin fractures in the serpentinite are filled with calcium carbonate. Sample is 16cm wide.

Lost City Expedition 2005. This wreckfish, swimming between carbonate chimneys, is just over 1 meter in length. They are common near the summit of the massif and within the Lost City Field at a depth of ~750-800 m. They routinely followed the submersible Alvin during many dives in 2003. Genus and species - Polyprion americanus.

Life on the Edge Expedition 2005. Juvenile Sailfish (Istiophurus platypterus) specimens caught with Neuston net.

Life on the Edge Expedition 2005. Sample of consolidated substrate collected at the Savannah banks. Attached are several corals, hydrozoans and other small invertebrates. In addition, other animals including polychaete worms were using this rock as habitat.

Life on the Edge Expedition 2005.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. Gorgonians in a shallow reef system in Bonaire.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. A close look at Metallogorgia with a basket star.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. A mola mola soaks up the sun.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. DSV Alvin is launched from the R/V Atlantis for the first dive to Manning seamount.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. Swimmers Mark Spear and Carl Wood, recovering Alvin after dive #3902 on Manning Seamount.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. Crinoids, a sea star, and an anemone on a dead coral skeleton surrounded by several live octocorals at Kelvin Seamount.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. A bushy black coral in its natural environment at Manning Seamount.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. It took the coordinated efforts of two ROV pilots to collect fossil corals with a scoop-action, using a net and the Hercules scissor claw.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. The ROV Hercules recovers the basalt recruitment block experiment that was deployed by the DSV Alvin subsmersible in 2003.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. The ROV Hercules, as seen from the ROV Argus. This photo illustrates the illuminative capacity of the combined systems' HMI lights.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. IFE bosun Mark DeRoche works to secure foam from Little Hercules on top of Argus for a test dive to approximately 4,000 meters depth.

Mountains in the Sea Expedition 2004. Graduate student Mercer Brugler pulls at the highly viscous mucus collected from a bushy black coral.