Lau Cruise Participants

with genomic approaches to explore the diversity and role thermophiles play in terrestrial and deep-sea hydrothermal systems. During the 2005 research cruise to the ELSC, her lab isolated the first true thermoacidophile from deep-sea vents, which represents a new branch in the Archaea.

Karthik Anantharaman (Univ. of Michigan)

Karthik is a first year PhD student in Greg Dick's

geomicrobiology lab. His primary research interested lie in understanding the physiological function of manganese oxidation, studying its biogeochemical cycling in diverse environments and also in identiication of model systems to understand biomineralization and study biogenic manganese oxides. On this cruise, his primary objective is to sample the rising and neutrally buoyant plumes to look for genetic markers of manganese oxidation.

Chris Avery (Queens University)

Chris is a masters student in mining, focusing on the deep-sea. He is interested in learning more about the unique biology associated with deep-sea hydrothermal vent systems.

Roxie Beinart (Harvard University)

Roxie is a first year graduate student in the lab of Dr. Peter Girguis. She is studying the molluscs (snails and mussels) at Lau Basin that form symbiotic asso

ciations with

chemoautotrophic bacteria. She's especially interested in the role that symbiont physiology plays in the ecology of their host animals. In particular, how the different symbionts influence where their host animals distribute in the chemical gradients at vents.

John "Chip" Breier (WHOI)

John is an Assistant Scientist in WHOI's Deep Submergence Laboratory. H

e is a geochemist; he studies marine particle formation and transport processes, particularly those involving iron

minerals. He is also an engineer and develops specialized sample collection systems to study very dynamic processes such as hydrothermal vent plumes.

Emelia DeForce (Univ. Mass. Boston)

Emelia is a PhD student studying soil microbiology, with a focus on Crenarchaea.

Gilberto Flores (Portland State Univ.)

Gilberto is a PhD student in Dr. Anna-

Louise Reysenbach's lab. He is interested in the ecology of thermoacidophilic microorganisms inhabiting deep-sea sulfide chimneys. On this cruise, he will be collecting sulfide chimneys and using a variety of techniques to examine the distribution and relative abundance of a particular group of thermoacidophilic Archaea.

Wendy Lee (Portland State Univ.)

Wendy is a recent graduate in biology from PSU. She is particularly interested in the natural history of deep sea organisms from microorganisms to

megafauna and hopes to learn as much as possible about field research methods used to study the ecology of hydrothermal vents. On this cruise, she will help out wherever needed.

Paul McGuinness

Paul is a High School Marine Science Teacher and general fanatic about all things marine! He teaches at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Mass. He is a member of the Girguis Lab from Harvard and is helping with setting up and maintaining the experimental systems in "The Van." Paul and Dr. Pete Girguis have collaborated on a number of education outreach projects in the past and through these experiences, Paul is able to develop new and exciting educational programs most students would never be exposed to.

Kristen Myers (Portland State Univ.)

Kristen is a research technician in the lab of Dr. Anna-Louise Reysenbach. She will be assisting in the processing of sulfide samples, culturing of thermoacidophiles, and molecular analyses.

Lise Ovreas (Univ. of Bergen)

Lise's research interests are genetic diversity and population dynamics of microorganisms in their natural environments, population ecology and community ecology; natural variation in the microbial community composition and also the regulation of biodiversity and adaptability of a microbial community to external stress factors.

Anna Perevalova (Russian Academy of Sciences)

Anna's expertise is in isolating members of the Crenarchaeota, a group of poorly represented Archaea from vents.

Karyn Rogers (Univ. Missouri)

Karyn's primary focus will be enriching for and isolating thermophiles that use organic sulfur compounds for metabolic energy.

Darci Rush (NIOZ)

Darci is interested in ammonia oxidizing organisms and will be collecting samples for lipid biomarker analyses.

Jon Sanders (Harvard University)

John is interested in how symbiotic relationships change and are changed by their environment, and along with other members of the Girguis lab, will use a variety of methods to study both the function of these relationships in their natural habitat as well as their evolutionary history.

Alex Slobodkin (Russian Academy of Sciences)

Alex is interested in growing manganese and iron reducing bacteria that can also utilize sulfur compounds.

Tatyana Sokolova (Russian Academy of Sciences)

Tatyana is a microbiologist interested in methane and carbon monoxide oxidizing thermophiles.

Sean Sylva (WHOI)

Sean is a research technician in Jeff Seewald's lab at WHOI and is assisting with the geochemical analyses of the high temperature fluids.

Margaret Tivey (WHOI)

Lucia Upchurch (Portland State Univ.)

Lucia works in Dr. Anna-Louise Reysenbach's lab and the focus of her research will involve the thermocouple array experiments.

R/V TG Thompson Crew:

Phillip Smith - Captain

Robert Symonds - Chief Mate

Eric Haroldson - 2nd Mate

Steven Haugland - 3rd Mate

Robert Worrad - AB

Dana Africa - AB

David Philbrick - AB

Frank Spetla Jr. - AB

David Vander Hoek - AB

Michael Hansen - AB

Paul Morrissey - Chief Engineer

Mark Johnson - 1st Assistant Engineer

Todd Meeker - 2nd Assistant Engineer

Coral Ledford - 3rd Assistant Engineer

Craig Sandvigen - Oiler

Guillermo Alciso - Oiler

Mario Yordan - Oiler

Victoria Simms - Wiper

Sharon Hodge - Chief Steward

Sarah Wicker - 2nd Cook

Michael Beckman - Mess Attendant

Tony Burke- Scientific Marine Technician

Sean Guss - Scientific Marine Technician

Lau Cruise Participants

Return to cruise website