Leg 1
A scarred octopus
Deep-sea octopuses (Graneledone boreopacifica) sometimes lurk among the basalt cliffs formed by underwater eruptions at the summit of Axial Seamount (off the coast of Oregon) like this scarred individual seen during the 2022 OOI Regional Cabled Array Operations and Maintenance expedition.
Read MoreHydrothermal vents- active and dormant
Two hydrothermal vents at Axial Seamount visited by the ROV ROPOS during the OOI Cabled Array O&M cruise show the difference between an active “black smoker” vent hosting chemosynthetic life and a dormant vent covered mostly in white bacterial mats.
Read MoreWork in the lab
Leg 1 Co-Chief Scientist (and former Grays Harbor College Prof) Julie Nelson helps VISIONS’22 students from UW run chemical analyses on the verification water samples collected at the Axial Base site.
Read MoreBiofouling challenge
Top view of the OOI Oregon Offshore Shallow Profiler Mooring shows the difference between a new set of instruments (top), 8 years spent at 200m (center) & 1 year of biofouling (profiler pod at bottom). All sensors were swapped out over the last 24 hrs.
Read MoreFlytrap anemones and glass sponges
During the first dive of the OOI RCA O&M cruise, the ROV visited an underwater microphone (hydrophone) tripod on the seafloor at the OOI Slope Base site. The instrument is surrounded by flytrap anemones, some attached to the stalks of glass sponges.
Read MoreROPOS ready
The Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility (CSSF) Remotely Operated Vehicle ROPOS was launched August 9 on the first dive (R2201) of the OOI RCA Operation and Maintenance cruise. It is carrying a tool basket containing an instrument tripod to be deployed at the Slope Base site (2900 m depth).
Read MoreStudents aboard
Leg 1 VISIONS students on the 2022 OOI RCA O&M cruise pose on the bow as the R/V Thomas G. Thompson steams out of Newport. Students work with UW researchers, engineers, and the ship’s crew to learn all aspects of marine research, ship ops, and life aboard a research vessel.
Read MoreWet Lab view
On this cruise, most of the work occurs on deck as the team deploys and recovers oceanographic moorings. However, at each site, the team takes water samples to compare to the deployed mooring instruments. Here , Marnie Jo Zirbel caps a sample bottle in the wet lab while Jonathan Whitefield goes to draw another seawater…
Read MorePre-deployment checkout
Each OOI oceanographic mooring carries more than 20 sensors and takes months to prepare for deployment. To make sure everything is working and ready to deploy, Akhil Salim and Kristin Politano review the checklist at the mooring’s bottom lander. In the foreground (red disks), is the top of an acoustic Doppler current profiler. It looks…
Read MoreWorking to the weather
Spring in the North Pacific can bring pretty high winds and seas. When the Endurance 16 team gets good weather, they press on through long days. Here Alex Wick and Kristin Politano get a subsurface float into position on the R/V Sikuliaq during an evening mooring deployment on the OOI Spring Endurance cruise.
Read More