Today, Alvin Pilot Bruce Strickrott's gave a talk entitled "DSV2 Alvin: 40 Years and Counting." I thought this was an interesting topic, of which I had many questions. I thought you also might have questions, so here's what I learned today.

The idea of Alvin began in the 1960s and was put into motion by a man named Allyn Vine. Vine worked tirelessly to try and work out a submersible rental agreement with the Office of Naval Research, but it was not to be.

In 1962, Vine's group, based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, called for bids to build a 6,000 foot submersible. Eventually, they went with a design called "SeaPup" by a man named Bud Froehlich. General Mills (that's right, the cereal company) won the bid to build the sub for about $500,000. Alvin is really made up of two parts. The part that houses the observers and pilot is called the sphere. Originally, General Mills contracted to build three steel spheres. The sub that was to become Alvin received one of these spheres. The other two were used for the Navy submersibles SEACLIFF and TURTLE.

In 1964, the submersible was delivered to the Woods Hole group, who were now calling themselves the Deep Submergence Group. They started using the name Alvin for the sub, which is a contraction of Allyn Vine's name and also a reference to the popular cartoon character. There were people both for and against this name, but it stuck! The first Alvin dives were tethered dives made to about 70 feet deep. The first untethered dive in the ocean only went to 35 feet.

In 1965, the support ship R/V Lulu was built out of surplus Navy pontoons. Lulu was described by Second Mate Craig Dickson as, "Horrendous -- a most uncomfortable ship. The berthing quarters were in the pontoons and there was very poor ventilation. When the galley made cabbage, you smelled it everywhere."

The following year, Alvin's services were called upon to recover a hydrogen bomb that had fallen off a ship close to the coast of Spain. During the next two months, Alvin was operated off of a Navy vessel, searching for the bomb. The bomb was located, but during recovery, it was lost again in deeper water. Finally, the bomb was found again and successfully recovered.

In 1967, Alvin's most memorable event was when a swordfish attacked the submersible and became caught in Alvin's skin. The fish was cut loose and cooked for dinner that night! In 1968, Alvin's cradle support cables failed and Alvin slid into the water. Fortunately, the pilot sustained only minor injuries, and no one else was injured. Unfortunately, rough weather prevented the recovery of Alvin for ten months. Eventually, Alvin was recovered by the DSV Aluminaut (owned by the Reynolds Aluminum Company). Interestingly, the submersible was in pretty good shape (except for the sail on top). Even the lunches inside the submersible were edible (although a little soggy). This event led to the discovery that near freezing conditions and a lack of oxygen could be used to preserve things -- a significant contribution to the sciences of biology and chemistry.

In 1971, Alvin returned to diving, following a ten-month overhaul. Then, in 1973, Alvin received a new titanium sphere and a variable ballast system, which improved the depth rating of the submersible to 12,000 feet. In 1977, Alvin passed through the Panama Canal so scientists could do some geology work at a place called the Galapagos Rift. An abundance of life was found close to the warm water vents. Since no light could penetrate this far, it was hypothesized that this life wasn't based on photosynthesis, but rather chemosynthesis. More dives explored the East Pacific Rise and discovered similar vent sites teeming with fascinating creatures.

In 1982, Alvin received a new support ship called R/V Atlantis II. This vessel was equipped with an A-frame, which allowed single-point retrieval as opposed to the elevator system used before this time. In 1986, Alvin made headlines again with the discovery of the RMS Titanic, while testing out a prototype robotic vehicle named Jason Jr. After that, Alvin was back in the Pacific, exploring the hydrothermal vents for two years. The remainder of the 1980s was spent much the same, exploring the hydrothermal vent communities of the Pacific.

The 1990s began much the same way. In 1994, the submersible received another upgrade, improving the depth limit to 4,500 meters. That same year Alvin celebrated its 30th birthday! The following year, 1995, Alvin recorded Dive number 3,000. 1995 also saw some major improvements to the submersible's camera and lighting equipment. In 1997, R/V Atlantis began its service as the support ship for Alvin. In April of this year, Alvin made its 4,000th dive, and in June it celebrated its 40th birthday.

Bruce concluded his talk by providing a glimpse at the future of the program. A replacement submersible is currently being planned with some amazing features and capabilities, including an increased depth range, advanced communications systems, and more viewing ports for the observers. If the past is any indication of what the future will be, I can say with complete confidence, that the future is indeed full of many discoveries for you future explorers ...

It's our last dive at 9º north, and there is much to be done. First and foremost on the schedule is the placement of the marker for Michael Silva, Captain George Silva's son, at Michael's Vent.

In the sub today with Pilot Anthony Tarantino are Frank Stewart, who is on his second dive, and Shellie Bench, who will be diving for the first time. Everyone is a little nervous. It's a little like driving around doing errands before a party, with just a little time to spare, and a definite deadline. This time, if power runs out, a job left off the list can't be done tomorrow; it just won't get done.

There are sample-gathering instruments -- prototraps, frying pans, and fries -- to recover as well as Alvinella to be collected along with the water-sampling sips from their tubes. These sips provide information such as the temperature and chemistry of the water that are required to understand the environment that the Alvinella are living in.

While Alvin is down there working, Dr. Craig Cary gives an hour-long seminar on his research and explains in detail why studying the hydrothermal vents is important in his work. This is the first in a series of seminars on subjects in the scientists' areas of expertise. We'll be hearing from many of them in the week to come.

Not all of the seminars will involve the primary area of study; Dr. Joe Grzymski is going to speak on coffee roasting, an activity that we've all enjoyed the fruits of. It's about time we learned to do it ourselves!

Along with his scientific equipment (Joe works with Dr. Alison Murray at the Desert Research Institute), Joe brought along a stereo system, an extensive collection of music arranged alphabetically (from Abba to the Zambonis), and some cuddly toys in odd shapes. It turns out that the toys are in the shape of famous microbes -- including Porphorymonas gingivalis, the bacteria that causes bad breath, and Helicobacter pylori, the one that causes ulcers. They are surprisingly cute.

Today is the day I've decided to begin wrapping my head around the work being done by the group led by Craig Cary and Alison Murray. They are studying the metagenome of the epibiont symbiosis of Alvinella pompejana. Say what? I decided that this would be a test for my SAT vocabulary skills. How are you doing on the etymology (to throw you another fifty-cent word) on those?

Let's start with the easy words -- Alvinella pompejana. You've seen them all over this Web site, the same way they're all over the hydrothermal vents. It's a toss-up which word origin is easier to determine.

Alvinella: Hey, where do you think that word came from? You're right. These worms were named after the sub that helped find them. (For a clue about where the name of Alvin came from, check out Mike's journal and the Alvin section of the Web site.)

Pompejana: Sounds like ... ? Pompeii. Pompejana is a Latin word that means 'of Pompeii.'

Organisms of any sort are known by the name of their genus and species. Alvinella is the genus, and pompejana is the species.

Now, take a deep breath and attempt two more words: epibiont symbiosis. Can you see a relationship between them? I see bio right in the middle; as in biology, which means the study of life. Its meaning is easy enough to figure out: bio means life. So how come there are different endings?

If you've been reading this Web site closely, you've probably seen the word symbiont too. Biont means, more or less, 'something that lives.' Something that lives how? Something that lives where? That information is in the other part of the word.

Mike League tells me that epi means on the outside, or on the back. When I think of other words that start with epi, the one that comes to me most quickly is epilogue. In a book, the epilogue is an afterword, something that adds a point or two to the end of a book. So it makes sense to me that thing Craig, Alison, and company are studying is on the outside, or back, or behind, of an Alvinella. That's where the bacteria everybody is excited about live.

Symbiont comes more easily, too, if I think about other sym words in my non-science world: sympathy, which means "feeling with someone" and symphony, which means "sounds working together." Because I know a little bit about Alvinella by now, I realize that the symbionts are things living together with Alvinella -- and that they're the things living on their backs. But hey, the word is symbiosis, not symbiont. That's okay. I believe osis means the state of things -- as in diagnosis.

Okay, so we've got something living on the back of Pompeii worms in a state of togetherness. What on earth is the metagenome of this situation? I know what a genome is -- it's the picture of an organism's DNA. But a metagenome? I think I might start to hyperventilate at this point from all these words. I try thinking of other words I know that have the word meta in them. Metal. Metabolism. Metacognition. Metastasize. Never met a word I didn't like -- until now.

Excuse me while I go upstairs to the dictionary in the ship's library.

Oh. Well. Did someone say 'ground-breaking' science? The Oxford Illustrated Dictionary doesn't include it, although it does have a picture of a mermaid playing a viola -- something else I haven't been able to find here at the East Pacific Rise. The word metagenome doesn't appear in any of the library's dictionaries or encyclopedias, even the Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, which was published just three years ago, in 2001. Let me go investigate some more. (How cool is it for me to be on this boat with not only a library at my fingertips, but the actual scientists who coined phrases?)

Metagenomics is such a new field that the first paper published on it -- and there have only been three on this subject -- came out in February, 2004.

"It means many genomes," Alison Murray says, explaining, "Up to now we only looked at one genome. Now we're looking at many." She says that the term metagenome itself is somewhat misleading -- because it isn't just about a lot of metagenomes, it's about many genomes within one environment."

I asked how many they meant by "many genomes."

Joe Grzymski adds, "It's about many genomes being sequenced simultaneously, with no clue what pieces go where." Normally you take one genome, divide it up, and try to put it back together in a logical way. Metagenomics is more challenging, because it involves chopping up an assortment and trying to put it back together.

Fully a third of the scientists on this ship are involved in research on the metagenome of the hydrothermal vent environment. Coming tomorrow: a scorecard of who does what.