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Occupational Hazard

This fluid temperature logger got a little too close to a hydrothermal vent and melted; or better to say, the vent got too close to the logger. Deployed in November 2006 at the “Pvent” site along the East Pacific Rise (near 9º 50′ N), the logger was placed to take the temperature (every 15 minutes) of the fluids venting from the seafloor. When researchers (led by Karen Von Damm of the University of New Hampshire) returned a year later, they found that the ultra-high molecular weight polyurethane cover (white) had melted when the logger was caught in a change in the superhot flow. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)