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I am one of Miss Sheild's seventh grade students in Lexington, MA. In the slide show on June 3, there was a picture of brittle stars. It also mentioned that the day was a success for the biologists who collected organisms like brittle stars. What other types of organisms do the biologists collect to study?
Thanks for your time,
Christina Finch

Hi Christina,

My name is Jon and I am one of the biologists on board the Atlantis. Besides brittle stars, we have collected many kinds of sponges, several soft corals, a few snails, some bristle worms, a couple of sea urchins, a few crinoids, a fish, and many different species of very small and sometimes obscure invertebrates. This is far from the complete diversity of animals we see on the seamounts. There are many, many other species we have seen on the seamounts from video camera images, towed cameras, and by just looking out the viewport of the sub.

Cheers,
Jon Moore

How did you guys find Medusa's head on a coin?
Michael Tamsi student of Westborough Middle school

Hi Michael,

I found the medallion in a store on Newbury Street in Boston. As a kid, I was always interested in the classical myths and the story of Medusa is a really cool one. In graduate school, I started working on corals and a friend pointed me to the section in Ovid where Medusa is slain and her blood creates coral in the ocean. A few years later, I was in this amazing shop, the Gargoyle Store (I don't know if it is still there), just poking around on a Saturday and I found the Medusa circle. It has been in my office ever since. That is, until we came out to sea and then sacrificed it to Poseidon the other night. I'll miss having Medusa around, but if that brings us better weather it will be well worth it.

It's funny how sometimes we are not that different from the early Greek mariners.

Regards,
Jess Adkins
Chief Scientist

I'm a 7th grader in Miss Sheild's science class at Clarke Middle School in Lexington, Massachusetts. I've been wondering if you have discovered any new species of animals while on your expedition in the New England Seamounts? If yes, have you named them yet?

Lauren Salter

Lauren:

Great question. It turns out there's the chance we have already picked up some new species! We don't have the technology on board to be certain, so we'll have to wait until we get back to the laboratory and do further tests.

But we do have several obscure protozoans called xenophyophores, single-cell organisms the size of a golf ball or so, that may be new species. We'll have to wait to be sure (and to come up with names), but isn't that exciting?

Joe Appel
Dive and Discover writer

Hello, my name is Amudha. I live in Lexington, MA and right now I am in Clarke Middle School. I am in seventh grade. Can you tell me, how fast is a knot?

Hi, Amudha

Thanks for your question to DiveDiscover. One knot is a speed that is a little bit faster than one mile per hour. A knot equals one nautical mile per hour, and a nautical mile is 1.15 times the length of a mile that we use on land (also called a statute mile).

The way the term "knot" came into use is interesting. In the days of sailing ships, they would measure their speed by throwing off the side of a ship a piece of wood that was attached to a rope that had knots tied into it at regular intervals. As the ship moved through the water, the "log-line" was unreeled, and by counting the number of knots that went by in a certain amount of time, they could calculate how fast the ship was going through the water. We don't use log-lines these days, but we use the term "knot" all of the time to measure the speed of ships and other things moving through the water, such as Alvin. We also use the term "log" when we make observations on cruises.

Best wishes,
Dan Scheirer
Co-Chief Scientist

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