SGER: Temperature Arrays for Investigation of Active Sulfide Structures

这个探索性研究小额资助（SGER）项目涉及机会性和高风险的研究，研究海底热液喷口区活跃生长的硫化物矿床中控制微生物群落分布和丰度的相关过程。在合作的海上考察中，从海底恢复几个大型活动硫化物结构，并在这个不断演变的栖息地中对表层大型动物群落和微生物活动的分布、丰度和群落动态进行创新研究，研究人员将利用恢复事件作为扰动实验来检查附近流出点的管道，并跟踪硫化物栖息地沉积物的最终再生。为了获得这些信息，研究人员为蜘蛛温度阵列的开发和部署提供了资金，这是一个用于监测硫化物结构在一年内再生的原位树桩温度包，以及一个延时摄像机，可以对硫化物的生长和生物群落的重新定殖进行可视化监测。该研究结果将对金属矿床的形成、微生物在热液系统中的作用以及受扰动海底热液系统的移动物理和化学具有重要意义。

9817065DelaneyThis Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) project involves opportunistic and high risk research into the linked processes that govern the distribution and abundance of microbial communities within actively growing sulfide deposits on seafloor hydrothermal vent fields. Building upon a collaborative seagoing expedition to recover several large active sulfide structures from the seafloor, and to conduct innovative research on the distribution, abundance and community dynamics of surficial macrofaunal communities and microbial activity within this evolving habitat, researchers will utilize the recovery event as a perturbation experiment to examine the plumbing of nearby outflow sites, and track the ultimate regrowth of the sulfide habitat-deposit. To obtain this information funds are provided for development and deployment of a spider-temperature array, an in-situ stump temperature package for monitoring regrowth of a sulfide structure over a one year period, and for a time lapse camera, which allows visual monitoring of sulfide growth and recolonization by biological communities. The results of this research will bear significantly on the formation of metal deposits, on the roles of microorganisms in hydrothermal systems, and on the shifting physics and chemistry of perturbed submarine hydrothermal systems.