title: microbial communities in sponge samples from Gulf of Mexico
organism: marine metagenome
description: Tubeworms with sponges were collected in September 2009 using the manipulator arm of the Johnson Sea Link manned submersible at two different cold seep locations on the upper Louisiana slope in the Gulf of Mexico: Bush Hill (BH; 27o 47' N, 91o 30' 24"W) and a site in the Green Canyon oil leasing block known as GC234 (27o 44.4'N, 91o 13.3'W). Both sites lie at approximately 550 m depth with an ambient temperature of ~7 oC and are about 28.5 km apart from one another. Tubeworms with sponges were recovered to the surface in a thermally stable acrylic box. Upon recovery, tubeworms and sponges were maintained alive in separate containers of filtered seawater at ambient temperature until sample processing.