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A middle school student in Carolyn Sheild's Lexington, Mass. class decorates a Styrofoam cup that we will shrink on the seafloor during tomorrow's dive in Alvin. In this video, the student explains her interest in deep-sea research.

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These purple fish are called Bythites hollisi. They live only at hydrothermal vents on the East Pacific Rise and the Galapagos Rift. They are fast swimmers, so they are hard to catch with a special “slurp” machine mounted on Alvin.

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Red-tipped worms emerge from their white tubes. The shimmering water is due to warm, clear fluid flowing from cracks in the seafloor.

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We have been trying to catch fish living at vents on the Galapagos Rift for Kate Buckman's biology research, but the slurp on Alvin used to suction them has been in a slump. Here, purple fish called Bythites hollisi escape the slurp.

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Fish and crab meet at the Rosebud hydrothermal vent field. Tubeworms and mussels live in cracks where the vent fluids exit the seafloor.

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An amphianthid anemone lives among live mussels at the Rosebud hydrothermal vent field.

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Two days ago, divers in Alvin spotted this octopus from the viewport. Notice its eye and the two fins on the sides of its mantle. Divers said that when the octopus spread its tentacles, it appeared to be the size of an umbrella.

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Alvin’s manipulator arms breaks off a piece of a sheet flow from the edge of a collapsed pit.