Image

Oxygen On Tap

This small device allows scientists to measure oxygen levels in fluids collected at the seafloor under very high pressure. Designed by WHOI scientists Craig Taylor and Jeff Seewald, as well as graduate student Jesse McNichol, it is now being used for the first time during a Dive & Discover cruise to hydrothermal vents in the eastern Pacific. Samples of hydrothermal fluids are brought to the ship in an instrument that maintains them at about 3,500 pounds per square inch, ambient pressure at the vents. Small amounts of fluid are then drawn into this device, where an oxygen-sensitive sensor determines how much of the dissolved gas is in the sample.(Photo by Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)