Just after 2:00am in the E/V Nautilus Control Van, our team is conducting business as usual: the ROVs are stationed roughly 3,000 feet below the ship, gathering samples of methane-rich mud from the ocean floor. I zoom the camera out to a wide angle view as pilot Dan Cormany skillfully guides a sediment core back into the rack on the front of the ROV.

While Dan secures the tube, Chief Scientist Andrew Thurber provides a running commentary that is both informative and entertaining. He tells us one milliliter of mud contains a billion bacteria. He details the myriad interactions between microbes. And he gives a vivid description of his favorite one, which sounds like something straight out of a science fiction movie:

“Bacteriovorax finds other bacteria that it wants to eat. It rams it, then spins into the cell like drill. Once it gets inside, it eats everything, replicates, and then exits.”

Before this expedition, collecting mud might have sounded a bit mundane. Not anymore.