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Vacuuming on the Sea Floor

WHOI postdoctoral fellow Chip Breier is working to put a new deep-sea particle sampling device on the remotely operated vehicle Jason to collect samples in hard-to-access places. For example, the vehicle can use its manipulator arm to thrust a particle-collecting vacuum tube right into rising hydrothermal vent plumes, where emerging vent fluids mix with seawater and a flurry of intriguing chemical reactions take place.
(Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)