Image

Loaded to Dive

WHOI electronics technician Casey Agee helped load a set of isobaric gas-tight samplers (IGTs) onto a platform in the front of the remotely operated vehicle Jason during a 2014 expedition to the East Pacific Rise. The instruments were developed by WHOI scientist Jeff Seewald and WHOI engineers Kenneth Doherty, Terence Hammar, and Stephen Liberatore to explore life sustained by chemicals venting from the seafloor. They are made of titanium and are able to maintain samples of hydrothermal vent fluid at the intense pressure of the deep sea during the trip back to the surface. (Photo by David Levin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)