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The chainsaw prepares to slice into Phang.
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Phang!
by Peter Tyson
July 5, 1998
I'm leaning on a rail high above the fantail of the Tully. A
mile away, the Thompson hovers in a nimbus of mist. It's 11:30
a.m., and a number of us have been here since about 8 this
morning. The sun is trying to force its way through a damp
cloud cover. There's a chill in the air, which my life vest
does little to hold at bay. I'd like to fetch my windbreaker,
but I can't take my eyes off the thumb-thick yellow line
steadily weaving its way through a winch on deck. In the half
hour it's been trailing up from the depths, every pair of eyes
on the fantail have been glued to it.
For if all has gone according to plan, the other end of that
line will hold the sulfide chimney known as Phang.
Phang on the seafloor.
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Phang's evolution from just one of hundreds of sulfide
chimneys on the Juan de Fuca Ridge to the chimney that might
one day stand in the American Museum of Natural History began
yesterday afternoon around 3. That's when
ROPOS,
gurgling and spitting, went into the water for Dive 443. By 7
p.m., its three-chip video camera was imaging this black tooth
jutting from the seabed a mile and a half down. An hour later,
ROPOS had slid the special metal frame over Phang and begun
tightening the cables, garroting the chimney in three
locations. The chainsaw then did its work, slicing into "the
structure." (Package, structure: the scientists have their own
lingo.)
Around 9, the saw suddenly gave out. Had it cut deeply enough
that Phang would snap free when the time came? No one had an
answer.
John Delaney
had a tough decision to make. Should he bring ROPOS back to
the surface, fix the saw, go back down, and cut some more? Or
should he rely on a hunch that chimneys tend to fracture along
certain lines anyway and go for it as is? The former would
take too much time, he decided, and the risk of the latter was
worth it. No stranger to taking chances, Delaney had ROPOS go
on to the next step in the procedure: attaching the yellow
line that snaked away to the line basket. It was the very
basket that
Le Olson had
his wife help him set up and that we lowered off the Thompson
yesterday. Phang was now ready for removal.
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Phang sees the light of day for the first time.
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All we could do was wait for morning. ROPOS was back on deck
just after midnight.
It's now approaching noon, and the chill has finally gotten to
me. I race down the metal steps to the Tully's main lab, throw
on my windbreaker, and race back up to my spot two stories up.
Reeking of diesel, the air shakes with the lawnmower-from-hell
sound of the winch engine. (An earnest man named Duke, who
seems more cowboy than first mate, handed around earplugs
earlier.) Every now and then, hot exhaust from the winch
shoves the cold breeze aside. Below me, the yellow line has
just turned into a blue line, a signal that we're halfway.
Even though it will take a good hour to reel in all 8,000 feet
of line, everyone stares at the water just off the stern.
Everyone's waited too long for this.
Phang on deck.
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Olson, the man in charge of this first-ever operation, darts
back and forth across the fantail, walkie-talkie in hand.
Every now and then he reaches out and palms the line, like a
trainer patting his favorite horse.
I was up till one last night finishing up my last dispatch.
Ten minutes after I lay my head down (or so it seemed), my
alarm went off: 6:30 a.m., time to go to the Tully. The NOVA
film crew and I rode over on the zodiac; this time I was ready
with raingear. Then we began the long wait while the release
on the line basket 7,000-plus feet below was acoustically
triggered and the front end of the yellow/blue line floated to
the surface. Delivered to the Tully by the zodiac a bit over
an hour ago, it was tied onto the winch line, and then a new
wait began.
It's now ending. From the very back corner of the ship, where
Olson and Duke the cowboy have kindly allowed me to stand, I
suddenly see a flash of color in the silver-blue envelope of
the sea. It's the orange glass floats attached to the top of
the frame that ROPOS placed last night over Phang. Then it's
out, Phang, hanging in the air below the A-frame like a
treasure chest. Which, if you ask the scientists now gaping at
it dripping on the deck, it most assuredly is.
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Seamen and scientists alike gather around the
chimney.
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I'm surprised at how moved I feel seeing it come out. After
all, it's just a rock. Or is it? Somehow it seems more like a
thing from another planet. It and all its
hangers-on—fingernail-sized mussels, tiny tubeworms,
mats of microbial life—have entered a strange new world.
Everything's different for them: light, temperature, pressure.
Air! I'm not alone in my awe: I see wonder on the faces all
around me.
Viewing the seafloor through ROPOS' cameras is as thrilling as
watching the rover on Mars. But this is like being there.
Peter Tyson is Online Producer of NOVA.
The Tug of the Thompson (June 23)
The ROPOS Guys (June 25)
In the Juan de Fuca Strait (June 27)
Special Report: A Visit To Atlantis (June 29)
Dive 440 (July 1)
Rescue at Sea (July 2)
What's Your Position? (July 4)
Phang! (July 5)
20,000 Pounds of Tension (July 8)
Four for Four (July 11)
Thrown Overboard (July 13)
Was Grandma a Hyperthermophile? (July 15)
Swing of the Yo-Yo (July 18)
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