Dear Dr. Avent,
 
At 05:25 PM 5/26/98 -0400, you wrote:
 
....
>     Incidentally, similar forms have been found here in the Gulf of Mexico
>     at cold seeps at less than 1,000m depth.  But here they eat natural
>     hydrocarbons seepage (methane) rather than hydrogen sulfide.
>
>     This ain't Sanibel Island, baby!  You thought Janthina had strange
>     habits.
>
>
>     Robert M. Avent, Ph.D.
>     Oceanographer
 
It is fortuitous that you should mention Sanibel, deep-sea, and methane
cold seeps in the same message. This July, The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
will be engaging, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, in a
series of submersible dives that will include the "shallow" (less than
1,000 m depth) cold seeps in the Gulf of Mexico. The Wood Expedition, as we
call it now, has been fully and generously funded by Mrs. J. Howard Wood,
widow of the late Chicago Tribune publisher and long-time Sanibel/Fort
Myers winter resident. We will be diving for five days using DSV Johnson
Sea-Link (with RV Edwin Link as her mother ship), looking specifically for
mollusks. Mrs. Wood has also kindly funded a new Shell Museum exhibit on
deep-sea mollusks. The exhibit will include actual specimens, photos, and
video material produced from the Wood Expedition, but I will also use my
experience researching abyssal and hadal gastropods to complement the
display. As a side note, anyone interested in deep-sea mollusks is welcome
to check the summary I prepared about these diverse and fascinating
organisms for Conchnet, the COA website. Find it at
http://coa.acnatsci.org/conchnet/deepsea.html. In any case, Sanibel may be
physically distant from the deep-sea, but at the Shell Museum we have a
special place in our hearts for them!
__________________________________________________________________________
Jose H. Leal, Ph.D.
Director, The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
Editor-in-chief, THE NAUTILUS
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3075 Sanibel-Captiva Road
Sanibel, FL 33957 USA
(941) 395-2233; fax (941) 395-6706