Summary

Chapter 6 begins with the ship between the mid-Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. The narrator enjoys seeing Amy, the female scientist in charge of the submersible Scintilla, and explains how algae is a false term that covers a huge range of organisms (59). She meets Stefan, the Endeavour’s captain, and realizes he is the same man she met late one night at the bow of the ship. Leigh learns more information about the vent: A telecom company found it while putting cable on the seabed three months before. Satellites put the trench’s depth at 12 kilometers, deeper than any other in the ocean. Scientists wondered why no one had noticed it before. The World Trade Organization put an embargo around the site so it could be studied.

In Chapter 7, the ship approaches the vent, within hours of reaching its perimeter. Members of the...