Liz McCliment inside Alvin checking her computer on the way down to the seafloor. Because Alvin is so small, only 2 meters (about 6 feet) in diameter, it is hard to take a photo without other people’s feet getting in the picture! You can see Craig’s foot in the bottom left corner of the picture.

Rick Bean, the Third Mate, checks and repacks the firefighting equipment after a Fire and Boat Drill to make sure it is in top condition and ready for use in an emergency.

From left, Tim Rozan, Brian Glazer, and Martial Taillefert carefully remove the plastic cylinder containing the sediment core from its holder. They try very hard not to disturb the core and mix it up as they are interested in the differences in chemistry between different layers.

Don Nuzzio watches as the electrodes are lowered into the core to take chemical measurements every 1 millimeter through the upper 5 centimeters of a core.

Liz McCliment adjusts the position of the electrodes in the core while Martial Taillefert watches the data as they are plotted directly on the computer.

Anna-Louise Reysenbach and Tim Shank study a spiny spider crab brought up by Alvin, as Bob Feldman looks on.

George Luther is excited about one of the microbiological cultures that came from samples collected using Alvin.

George Luther looks at some new chemical scanner data from a core to determine how to slice up the sediment.