My Journey to the Bottom of the Sea

[Ralphie]

My Journey to the Bottom of the Sea

Hi All. I know I don’t post often but GC told me that some of you would like to hear about my submarine adventures over the last month so I thought I’d post this summary of my journey to the bottom of the sea. So I sailed on the Research Vessel Atlantis which is the mother ship of the submarine Alvin. Our expedition was to the what’s called the Juan de Fuca Ridge System about 200-300 miles off the coasts of the state of Washington and Canada. The Juan de Fuca plate is one of the smallest of the Earth’s plates sandwiched in between the much larger North American and Pacific plates. Where the plates come together and spread apart, you find areas of hydrothermal vents/volcanic activity and it is here where lots of interesting and amazing animals dwell. The purpose of our expedition was to explore some of the hydrothermal vents at the Juan de Fuca plate and to bring some of the animals and bacteria that live there back to the ship to study them in the lab. Alvin is one of just a handful of submarines that can dive to some of the deepest parts of the ocean. (It can go as deep as 4,500 meters or 14,764 feet). It’s a small submarine. It only holds three people, 1 pilot and 2 scientists. The original submarine was built back in 1964 but it has all new parts now. It consists of a titanium sphere surrounded by lots of hydraulics and robotic controls that the pilot can use to deploy scientific equipment and collect samples. I got to experience my first dive and it was fantastic! It was dive 4240 and took place on Sept. 5, 2006. We dove to a depth of 2,276 meters, almost 1.5 miles below the surface. I was very excited in the days leading up to the dive. We first received an orientation telling us about what its like to dive in Alvin. It takes 1.5-2 hours to get to the bottom and about 2 hours to get back. You have about 4 hours to actually explore once you get to the bottom. The sub can only actively stay down for about 8-10 hours. It actually runs off of golf cart batteries! The sphere is really tiny, imagine about the size of the inside of a VW Bug. There are also three viewing holes for each person to look through, each about the size of a small plate. There are also lots of cameras hooked up to computer monitors for us to view what’s going on outside the sub. Before the dive they tell you what to do in case of an emergency. For example, if the pilot is unconscious, there is enough oxygen to last 3 days. During those three days you are supposed to read a manual, kept inside the sub, and learn to operate the sub yourself. I’m not joking. The sub is owned by the Navy, so you can imagine how thick the manual is. Most of the critical info starts at page 57, but you have 3 days! The actual dive was great. Once you get below 1000ft the light from the sun completely disappears. But it is not dark. The are thousands of small lights being made by tiny animals and algae that live in the water column, small jelly fish, shrimps and fish that are what’s called bioluminescent, meaning they can make light. It was one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen observing this symphony of lights that was being played before me. As we descended the pilot talks to the ship using a hydrophone. It transmits the speakers voice using sound waves through the water. The receiving end hears an other-worldly aqua-man-like voice on the other end. It was really cool. The sub uses sonar to judge how close it’s getting to the bottom. The last thing you want to do is hit the bottom too hard or come down on top of an active volcanic chimney! As we got closer we watched out of the viewing holes for the bottom. Finally we saw it. We had landed about half a kilometer from the vents on what looked like another planet. Large rolling fields of jumbled rocks. It was very dark and there were a few odd animals like barrel sponges, large spider crabs and long, white eel-looking albino fish swimming near by. It was an alien and lonely looking sight. These animals spend their entire lives in the dark, never encountering light, except for the very few human visitors who wander into their world. We had landed in what’s called the Mothra field (in honor of Godzilla) and were interested in visiting a series of vent chimneys called the Faulty Towers Complex. We had coordinates to Faulty Towers and started off in that direction. As we approached the vents, the terrain changed dramatically. You could see signs of life sprouting up as we got closer, lots of crabs and small clumps of tube worms. Then we saw it. An amazing series of chimneys, covered with life and actively spewing what looked like thick clouds of black smoke. It was an amazing sight and one that I’ll never forget! Here in the cold depths of the ocean, surrounded by what can best be described as a desert, was an oasis, a Garden of Eden, teeming with life. There were thousands of bright red tube-worms, crabs, snails, worms and fish. Unlike the rest of life on this planet, these animals live off the energy released from the center of the Earth and not the energy of the Sun. We spent several hours exploring this amazing environment, deploying instruments to analyze the chemistry of the vent water and collecting critters to bring back to the ship to study. All-in-all it was an amazing experience and one I hope I'll be able to do again in the future. I wish you could all have been there to see it!

Ralphie