Johnson-Sea-Link Submersible

The first time biologist Mandy Joye dove to the deep sea in the Johnson-Sea-Link submersible (pictured here), she had never seen the bubbles of a methane seep. But after that fateful day in 1994, she was entranced. Instead of studying the mussels and other animals that survive in the cold, dark, deep ocean by feeding on methane, she focused on a different group of organisms: microbes that consume methane, also called methanotrophs. Find out more about Dr. Joye and her research on methane-eating microbes after the Gulf oil spill.