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The CTD (temperature, conductivity, depth) rosette sampling system being lowered over the starboard rail of RV Melville. The long gray cylinders on top are the Niskin sampling bottles that we use to collect water. Each bottle has a volume of 2.5 liters. The metal cylinders below the bottles are the pressure cases for the various sensors. All the signals from the CTD are transmitted up the coaxial cable and into the computer that Rob Palomares operates during the lowering. Rob can trigger each bottle so that it closes and captures a sample. We took samples very close to the seafloor, about 5 meters above the diffuse flow hydrothermal field that we observed with Argo II, and then at selected depths up to 300 meters above.

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