Alvin 6500

Don Nuzzio helps retrieve samples from Alvin’s science basket after a dive that carried his in-situ chemical probe (inset) to measure fluid flow from hydrothermal vents at the Von Damm vent field. (Photo by Marley Parker, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) A warm morning breeze, thick with humidity, washes across the aft deck of R/V Atlantis…

Bob Waters uses the Alvin manipulator arm to pick up a rock sample from the ridge. (Courtesy of Anna Michel, WHOI and Adam Soule, URI/NSF/HOV Alvin, 2022 © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) The view out of Alvin’s port-side window, at 5300 meters depth in the south-central Mid-Cayman Trough, reveals a pockmarked tan surface, like toasted…

Click image to expand I Was A Kid sat down with National Deep Submergence Facility chief scientist and WHOI engineer Anna Michel to explore her path to becoming an engineer, an ocean researcher, and now diver in Alvin.

NDSF Chief Scientist for Deep Submergence Anna Michel’s first dive in HOV Alvin; volcanologist Ken Rubin explains a veined deep sea rock; pilot Danik Forsman navigates Alvin in unknown terrain.

In the ship’s Main Lab, members of the Alvin team and the science team gather for the post-dive meeting. Adam Soule runs through the events of the dive. At the end, he compliments Nick O’Sadcia on his piloting of the sub and asks him to talk briefly about how it felt to operate the sub…

WHOI engineer and chief scientist of the National Deep Submergence Facility, Anna Michel, stands in front of Alvin. (Photo by Marley Parker, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Dr. Anna Michel became Chief Scientist of the National Deep Submergence Facility in 2021. This is her first expedition with Alvin.    For folks who aren’t familiar with the…

WHOI geochemist Frieder Klein uses a rock saw to slice through one of the rock samples collected from the edge of the North American continental plate during his Alvin dive. (Photo by Marley Parker, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) In the ship’s Wet Lab, Ken Rubin holds a chunk of rock that Frieder Klein has just…

Ashley Burkett exclaims with delight as she plucks foraminifera from a glass sponge collected from the sea floor. Marley Parker © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution In Atlantis’ Main Lab, Ashley Burkett, peers into her microscope and pokes at the glass sponge sitting on the stage.  “Yes!!” she exclaims, keeping her eyes trained on the ocular…

Click image for larger view. Willamette University environmental microbiologist Rosa León-Zayas describes her path, from a young girl living in a small town in Puerto Rico who first dreamed of being a surgeon, to a graduate student building a new community around her. Read her full interview at IWasAKid.com.

The R/V Atlantis deck team successfully recovers the Deep Sea Autonomous Profiler (DAP) on the evening of Thursday, July 28th, 2022. (Photo by Marley Parker, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) On the back deck of R/V Atlantis, several members of the science team don work vests and hard hats and peer over the starboard rail. A…