The American expedition began July 5 from the Azores when Research Vessel Atlantis departed Ponta Delgada on a day cruise to explore the eight known hydrothermal vent sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, all discovered since Scientists diving in Alvin found the first hydrothermal vents in the Pacific Ocean near the Galapagos Islands in and has since found more than two dozen sites in the Atlantic and Pacific containing some species of animals never known before, including foot-long clams and mussels and red-tipped tube worms that grow in some vent sites up to 10 feet in length.
Dramatic black smokers full of minerals, spewing the hottest water even found in the open ocean at close to degrees Celsius degrees Fahrenheit , have been discovered by Alvin at Pacific vent sites.
However, the two subs never worked in sight of each other. The two Russian submersible MIRS have worked closely together, but the joint dives July 11 and 12 are believed to be the first time deep-sea subs from two nations have done so. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a part of the Mid-Ocean Ridge, a 46,mile long undersea mountain range that circles the earth like the seams on a baseball.
Scientists estimate that less than one percent of the entire ridge system has been explored. Both Alvin and Nautile have worked on the ridge before, but rarely in the same location and never before in sight of each other.
There are only six human-occupied subs in existence that can dive deeper than 10, feet. Atlantis and Alvin will head south to dive on other vent sites along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge beginning July 13, while the French will remain at the Rainbow site for further studies. Following completion of their vent work, Alvin and Atlantis are scheduled to arrive in Bridgetown, Barbados, August 1.
The ship and sub will then travel to the Pacific to begin a two-year diving research program. Media Relations Office media whoi. He uses techniques that span isotope geochemistry, next generation DNA sequencing, and satellite tagging to study the ecology of a wide variety of ocean species. He recently discovered that blue sharks use warm water ocean tunnels, or eddies, to dive to the ocean twilight zone, where they forage in nutrient-rich waters hundreds of meters down.
A second Johnson Sea Link was built in Holding a crew of three, it is highly maneuverable and includes a small, telecontrolled robot called Robin that can inspect and image areas inaccessible to the submersible itself. Data and imagery from the deep may be sent to the surface via an acoustic transmission unit.
In , Nautile, whose manipulation system includes two mechanical arms and a retractable sampling basket, was used to recover thousands of artifacts from the Titanic. Each vehicle has an iron-nickel battery with a capacity of kilowatts, which is twice as much as is available for other submersibles in the same dive range to 19, feet.
In the SMARTIES work area, the 23 planned dives are designed to study the mapped and sampled structures in previous cruises and confirm their nature: large detachments bringing deep rocks, especially the mantle, to the surface.
Most dive sites are on topographic highs that we think correspond to these detachment surfaces, some old and, hopefully, some active. One site, with four dives, aims to obtain a profile of the crust and upper part of the mantle on the wall of the transform fault of Romanche.
This section will be made along the seismic line realized by the ILAB project, intended to image the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary and will be able to provide the true geologic section corresponding to the seismic section, improving the models. It is one of the very few manned deep-sea submarines.
Three wide-angle viewports and LED searchlights provide a direct view of the seabed.
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