Dive
R852's first target, Sully Vent. Three orifices are venting mineral-laden
hydrothermal fluid that looks like black smoke.
The
Thompson arrived at the Endeavour site at 2030 PDT and began ROPOS dive
R852. The objectives for this dive were to deploy 3 Resistivity-Temperature-Hydrogen
(RTH) probes,
take some high temperature fluid samples, recover a hydrophone and recover
an elevator mooring which was not able to be recovered on the last expedition.
The dive took place in the Main Endeavour vent field which extends for
500 meters along the ridge axis. The dive concentrated on a few high temperature
hydrothermal vents in the southern portion of the Main Endeavour field.