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Tubeworms

Tubeworms
Tubeworms
Tubeworms
Tubeworms
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Tubeworms
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05/26/2002
media/tubeworms/tubeworm2_300dpi.jpg
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Information that appears with image on Ocean Pulse:
Diving to the Rosebud Vents Galapagos Rift
In 2002, researchers diving in the submersible Alvin returned to the Galapagos Rift, a mid-ocean ridge about 250 miles from the Galapagos Islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean where hydrothermal vents and exotic organisms were first found in 1977. They discovered that seafloor lava had paved over a hydrothermal vent site called Rose Garden, named for its abundant communities of red-tipped tubeworms, mussels and clams the size of dinner plates, and other animals. But a few hundred feet away, tiny animals had begun to colonize a new vent field the researchers named Rosebud. On May 20, scientists will return to the site to see how the hydrothermal community has evolved at Rosebud during Dive and Discover? Expedition 9. Researchers will again use Alvin to see what chemical, microbial and geological changes have occurred, make detailed maps of the animal distributions, and take high-resolution photographs to create photomosaics of the seafloor. They will also sample the animals and lava flows, deploy time-lapse cameras, larval traps, and chemical sensors directly at the vents, and search for new animal communities and black-smoker vents along the Galapagos Rift. Students and the public can join the expedition May 20-June 3 at Dive and Discover.
Image Of the Day caption:
Deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites host dense communities of animals in a food web built on chemical energy from beneath the seafloor. These sites experience frequent disturbances, like volcanic eruptions, that sometimes wipe out entire communities. Learn how a site on the East Pacific Rise was recolonized by distant populations of animals after a 2006 eruption and how its transformation has added to our understanding of how these communities persist in this unstable environment at the final Science Made Public talk of 2014, led by WHOI biologist Susan Mills. This talk will be held in Redfield Auditorium at 45 Water Street in Woods Hole.
Photo courtesy of WHOI Archives
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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