It’s May 2012. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researcher Ruth Curry is on the brink of discovery. Her quest to figure out how water circulates in the deep ocean is nearly complete – all she needs to do is recover the six deep-sea moorings she has strung out along the Bermuda Rise, each containing two years’ worth of data. All is well aboard the research vessel, until the final mooring fails to surface.

This nail-biting video, produced for WHOI’s Oceanus Magazine, tells the tale of technological ingenuity and teamwork that it took to get the last piece to Ruth’s puzzle. It was featured on the WHOI.edu homepage and on the National Science Foundation Science 360 site in July 2013.