Ashes Vent Field

The ASHES hydrothermal field is located near the base of the western caldera wall of Axial Seamount at a water depth of 1,552 meters. It hosts numerous active hydrothermal sulfide chimneys, myriad lower temperature diffuse flow sites, and abundant vent biota. The focused study area is at the ~4 m tall, actively-venting sulfide chimney called “Mushroom” and a diffuse flow site adjacent to the base of the chimney. Instrumentation at this site is focused on understanding linkages between local and far-field seismic events on fluid chemistry and temperature, chimney evolution, and impacts on vent biota. Seafloor instruments at the ASHES site are attached to a Medium-Power junction box (MJ03B) through a series of electro-optical cables. A ~4 km long extension cable from Primary Node PN03B provides significant power (375 V) and bandwidth (1 Gbs) to operate the instruments and transmit data to shore. In addition to geophysical and temperature monitoring instrumentation attached to MJ03B, the site also hosts a high-definition video camera linked to shore via a separate cable that provides 10 Gb bandwidth from PN03B. This allows full-resolution video to be transferred in real-time to shore, along with communications for the lights and pan-and-tilt capabilities.