The NeMO Net system was deployed in 1500 meters of water on the SE flank of the Axial volcano approximately 300 miles west of Newport, Oregon on September 9, 1999. The system was deployed using the ROV Jason and Medea system from the R/V Thompson.

Nascent Vent is about a football-field-sized area on the east side of the 1998 lava flow. It was so-named on its discovery in 1998 (by the remotely operated vehicle ROPOS) because of the very young tube worms that had begun to colonize the surface of the lava flow. The warm water emitted from the interstices of the lava is rich in hydrogen sulfide, which the worms are able to utilize by bacterial chemosynthesis. The Nascent vent site is an ideal place to study the succession of organisms that colonize new vent sites following an eruption. The colonization of the new surface is probably from larvae that was transported by currents from several hundred meters east and northeast from more "mature" vents that were not covered by the lava. The photographs and temperature data collected over the next year will be used to study the effect of temperature (which may also be an indicator of flow rate) on the growth of the tubeworms. Observations with ROPOS at the site in 1998 and 1999 indicate that the worms may have doubled in size in some cases at this site.