After five days of wending, weaving—and occasionally wiggling and wobbling when necessary—through the Arctic Ocean ice pack, the icebreaker Oden today reached 85°N 85°E, where many signs indicate that an active seafloor volcano lies below. If we are going to find hydrothermal vents, this is the best spot to look, and with only about two weeks left, the clock is ticking and there’s no time to lose. As soon as we arrived, a team was ready to cast our first hydrothermal plume-finding instrument, the Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth device, or CTD, into the water. And everyone else mobilized, girding their vehicles, their instruments, and themselves for the intense hunt that begins now.
Read on about our adventure in the slideshow below. Can't see the slideshow? Get the Flash plug in »
