In October 2013, a British research vessel carrying a team of scientists set sail from Santa Cruz, on the island of Tenerife, Spain. Its destination was the Caribbean island of Trinidad, by way of a deep scar in the seafloor known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
On board was biogeochemist Kate Hendry, then a professor at the University of Bristol, UK. Hendry was interested in the chemistry of seawater – how nutrients and other important compounds circle the world’s oceans, and how changes in temperature and chemistry can disrupt this finely tuned system.