Cruise Log: August 1, 2008
Lost City Life Unlike Lucky Strike where we saw an abundance of shrimp and mussels, the visible marine life at Lost City was not that evident at first. Just on the periphery of the high-temperature fluids and the fresh carbonates at Lost City (see update from July 30th), we found some older carbonate and dead corals. At this same spot, Breea Govenar saw a few anemones and assumed that if there were one or two individuals visible, there may be smaller animals on the porous substrate that we couldn't see. We used the suction sampler to "slurp" the carbonate cobble and only saw bits of rock going into the collection chamber. However, after sieving the sample through a fine mesh screen, a world of diversity was revealed under a dissecting microscope. There were 100s of animals representing a wide range of taxa: amphipods, copepods, gastropods, polychaetes, platyhelminthes, nematodes, sponges and foraminefera. |
Mussels at Lucky Strike |
Slurping smaller animals associated with the carbonates at Lost City. The 2 red dots are lasers that are 10 cm apart and help us know what the size of things are at the bottom of the ocean. |
Lost City gastropod (less than 1 mm) |
Lost City amphipod (less than 1 mm) |
Lost City sponge (less than 1 mm) |
Lost City gastropods (snails < 1 mm) |
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