IT WAS shortly after midnight on 4 December 2000 when Gretchen Früh-Green, a usually cool-headed Swiss geochemist, came running into my cabin in a state of excitement.
We were several days into a month-long voyage to explore a rugged underwater mountain called the Atlantis Massif, which rises up from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. She had spotted something that she thought I really ought to see for myself.
During the day, members of the 25-strong international research team would dive down in the submersible “Alvin” to study the mountain, and at night we dragged a camera behind the boat, projecting images…
