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InteractiveOceans
@ooi-cabledarray.bsky.social

Pythia’s Oasis (discovered in 2014 and recently in the news again) is a unique, high-flux methane seep site located 50 miles off the OR coast, with fluid chemistries unlike any yet observed in the world’s oceans. 🚢🧪🌊 Credit: UW/NSF-OOI/CSSF; V15 and WHOI; V16, V17, edited by E. Pinneo, UW

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InteractiveOceans
@ooi-cabledarray.bsky.social

It was discovered by UW undergrad Brendan Philip in 2014 while tracking methane bubbles that naturally stream out of the continental shelf seafloor. Unlike typical cold seeps, Pythia's emits warm low-salinity fluids 4 times above background temperatures at the highest rates yet observed in Cascadia.

InteractiveOceans
@ooi-cabledarray.bsky.social

The main Pythia’s vent (a “hole in the bottom of the sea” with intense venting) was first directly imaged in 2014 with the Canadian ROV ROPOS. In 2017 and 2019, during an NSF-funded program using the WHOI ROV Jason, they found a colony of sea anemones living right next to the vent outflow!