May 17, 2021: Dawn
Image courtesy of Chris German, INSPIRE: Chile Margin 2012 Expedition, NOAA-OER. Download larger version (jpg, 2.6 MB).
Jolted by the planet's biggest earthquakes, sequestering massive reservoirs of methane, while slowly swallowing a mid-ocean ridge, the Chilean margin offers an inspiring natural laboratory for investigating the complex interactions among solid earth, the deep ocean, and the biosphere.
The INSPIRE: Chile Margin 2012 expedition was a follow-up to a 2010 expedition (INSPIRE stands for “International South-East Pacific Investigation of Reducing Environments”) to study this unique environmental setting. During the 10-day expedition in 2012 on Research Vessel Melville, scientists searched for strange new biological life forms, communities, and ecosystems dependent on as-yet-unknown conditions using autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry in combination with instrumentation to measure conductivity, temperature and depth; a multicorer; and a towed camera system.In this image, the team is greeted with a beautiful dawn and clear skies after some rough weather resulted in delays.
From: Like Coiled Springs.