Deployment: TN253

This expedition to Axial Seamount (Axial 2010 or TN"253) on R/V Thompson with ROV Jason (August 26 to September 7, 2010, Newport to Astoria) included two different but complimentary projects funded by the National Science Foundation. One project is continuing a decade"long time"series of pressure measurements at an array of seafloor benchmarks to measure volcanic inflation at Axial (Bill Chadwick and Scott Nooner, co"PIs). The other project is focused on coordinated fluid chemistry and microbiological sampling at hydrothermal vent sites utilizing new methods of sample collection and analysis (Julie Huber and Dave Butterfield, co"PIs).

The cruise accomplished six Jason ROV dives, the first two for fluid sampling, followed by one long dive for the pressure measurements, and ending with three additional fluid"sampling dives. In between ROV dives, we deployed and recovered six instrumental moorings (4 ocean"bottom hydrophones (OBHs), 1 bottom pressure recorder (BPR), and 1 remote access fluid sampler (RAS)), deployed six new cement benchmarks to improve the repeatability of the pressure measurements, conducted three CTDs, and collected EM300 multibeam sonar bathymetric data. The expedition was very successful and all our goals were achieved, thanks to the combined efforts of the science party, the Jason team, and the ship's crew.

Cruise information and original data are available from the NSF R2R data catalog.