{"id":35812,"date":"2019-10-29T16:12:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T23:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/?p=35812"},"modified":"2019-10-29T16:12:52","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T23:12:52","slug":"catching-up-at-octopus-mound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/catching-up-at-octopus-mound\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Up At Octopus Mound"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <em>JOIDES Resolution<\/em> has started to drill at a new site: Central Seep, a.k.a Octopus Mound, a cold methane seep centrally located in Guaymas Basin, approximately equidistant from Baja California and Sonora. Octopus Mound was mapped in 2016 with AUV <em>Sentry<\/em> and visited by submersible <em>Alvin<\/em>. It contains classic cold seep fauna with methane-oxidizing <em>Lamellibrachia\u00a0<\/em>tube worms, ampharetid worms, galatheid crabs, and lots of seafloor carbonate.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_35815\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35815\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35815\" src=\"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct25CoChiefChiselling-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct25CoChiefChiselling-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct25CoChiefChiselling-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct25CoChiefChiselling-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-35815\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Andreas Teske.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At a safe distance of three miles from the methane-rich and potentially explosive mound, we are drilling into a shallow gas-rich zone, presumably with methane hydrates not far below the surface, but no rocks or hard minerals. Although this is supposed to be a cold seep site, the high heat flow of Guaymas Basin is instantly noticeable; the temperature goes up by approx. 20\u00b0C over 100 meters. No proper cold seep would do this. But Octopus Mound hides a secret that will by now not surprise anyone \u2014 it sits on top of a very deep sill. No worries, we will not drill it.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_35817\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35817\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35817\" src=\"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct24MoreChiselling-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct24MoreChiselling-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct24MoreChiselling-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct24MoreChiselling-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-35817\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Andreas Teske.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While methane-soaked cores are coming up, some microbiologists are still frantically chiseling the Ringvent cores into small bits and divide them up for a grand communal microbiology project \u2014 a multi-investigator assault on potential microbial life that might survive or thrive in the Ringvent sill. Recruited by Chisel Masters Ginny and Yuki, the co-chief is now hammering away at rock-embedded sediment veins \u2014 they are easy to crack but take some time to extract. A somewhat determined facial expression is also said to be essential when cracking rocks.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_35816\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-35816\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35816\" src=\"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct25Laurent-Happy-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct25Laurent-Happy-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Oct25Laurent-Happy-768x1024.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-35816\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Andreas Teske.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This special animation program of\u00a0rock exfoliation ergotherapy\u00a0is brought to you by IODP, to enhance hard rock appreciation among sediment microbiologists. The unintended side effect will be a renewed appreciation of soft sediments.<\/p>\n<p>When the rock is finally ground into reasonably fine chunks, it is mixed into selective media that promote the growth of anaerobic deep subsurface microorganisms, such as sulfate reducers or methanogens. The resulting deep rock smoothie is divided up among the respective science parties who want to try their luck; something should ultimately grow. Laurent is looking forward to a nice crop of subsurface microbes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>This blog post <a href=\"https:\/\/expedition385.wordpress.com\/2019\/10\/25\/oct-25-catching-up-at-octopus-mound\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-slimstat=\"5\">first appeared<\/a> on Oct. 25 on my daily blog of EXP385. Make sure to go to <a href=\"https:\/\/expedition385.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-slimstat=\"5\">expedition385.wordpress.com<\/a> to read the latest updates of this expedition!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The JOIDES Resolution has started to drill at a new site: Central Seep, a.k.a Octopus Mound, a cold methane seep&#8230;  <\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/catching-up-at-octopus-mound\/\" title=\"Continue reading Catching Up At Octopus Mound\">Read more<i class=\"fa fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":35814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400,2403,2910,1892,1889],"tags":[2944,2907,640,2915],"class_list":["post-35812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-expeditions","category-geochemistry","category-guaymas","category-microbes","category-volcanoes","tag-cold-seep","tag-exp385","tag-microbiology","tag-sill"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joidesresolution.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}