Frontispiece. Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC) submersible Shinkai 6500 (Dive 351) bottom photograph of the megafaunal community at Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1200 on the summit of South Chamorro Seamount, a serpentine mud volcano on the southern Mariana forearc. The submersible’s manipulator arm is holding a push core to sample a small carbonate chimney (white mound immediately below core tube) at the edge of a narrow vent fissure in the serpentine muds. Mussels, likely of the genus Bathymodiolus, galatheid crabs, tube worms, crinoids, and gastropods are the surface manifestation of the biological community supported by the slab-derived fluids emanating from this spring (Fryer and Mottl, 1997). A microbial community recovered in Hole 1200D, near this location, persists to 20 meters below seafloor and provides the base of the food chain supporting the surface megafaunal community.

Fryer, P., and Mottl, M., 1997. Shinkai 6500 investigations of a resurgent mud volcano on the southeastern Mariana forarc. JAMSTEC J. Deep Sea Res., 13:103–114.