Deep Sea Vents: Inside the Sub

music
ambience Submersible, Alvin

We’re on board The Alvin — one of the deepest diving submersibles in the world, heading to a depth of over a mile and a half beneath the surface. It’s part of study of hydrothermal vents – where the water pressure is incredibly high, and temperatures can reach extremes of heat and cold. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Craig Cary is an associate professor at the University of Delaware. He tells us what it’s like to dive to the very bottom of the ocean.

“By the time you get down around 500 to a 1000 meters, under the sea surface it’s getting pretty dark. But that’s when the really interesting things start coming up, because you start looking out of your port, with all of the lights off, and all of a sudden all the bioluminescents — the organisms that live in in the mid-waters. start to reveal themselves and you get a chance to see alive some organisms, that you’ve only seen in pictures For instance, you’ll see these fang-toothed fish and viper fish and bioluminescent squid And then once you get to the sea floor, it turns into another entire environment — very barren until you actually enter into the vent site. All of a sudden it becomes this very lush, thriving community.”

“Working in the submersible is exciting, but it can be extremely tiring.. You’re very hot at the surface, and as you get down it gets very cold and it starts to sweat inside the submersible. But most of the time you’re not you’re not watching or even thinking about this stuff, you’re paying to to gauges and to monitors and to camera position and to acquiring the data that is immediately being fed to you by the submersible and you need to get this stuff into a place where you can use it. ”

To find out what Craig Cary’s discovered on his latest dive, please visit our website at pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

music

Deep Sea Vents: Inside the Sub

Hear what it is like to dive to the bottom of the ocean in Alvin.
Air Date:01/17/2005
Scientist:
Transcript:

music
ambience Submersible, Alvin

We're on board The Alvin -- one of the deepest diving submersibles in the world, heading to a depth of over a mile and a half beneath the surface. It's part of study of hydrothermal vents - where the water pressure is incredibly high, and temperatures can reach extremes of heat and cold. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Craig Cary is an associate professor at the University of Delaware. He tells us what it's like to dive to the very bottom of the ocean.

"By the time you get down around 500 to a 1000 meters, under the sea surface it's getting pretty dark. But that's when the really interesting things start coming up, because you start looking out of your port, with all of the lights off, and all of a sudden all the bioluminescents -- the organisms that live in in the mid-waters. start to reveal themselves and you get a chance to see alive some organisms, that you've only seen in pictures For instance, you'll see these fang-toothed fish and viper fish and bioluminescent squid And then once you get to the sea floor, it turns into another entire environment -- very barren until you actually enter into the vent site. All of a sudden it becomes this very lush, thriving community."

"Working in the submersible is exciting, but it can be extremely tiring.. You're very hot at the surface, and as you get down it gets very cold and it starts to sweat inside the submersible. But most of the time you're not you're not watching or even thinking about this stuff, you're paying to to gauges and to monitors and to camera position and to acquiring the data that is immediately being fed to you by the submersible and you need to get this stuff into a place where you can use it. "

To find out what Craig Cary's discovered on his latest dive, please visit our website at pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet is made possible by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.

music