Marvin Lilley is an oceanographer who studies the chemistry of hydrothermal systems, looking at the gases emanating from the sea floor off the coast of Washington, and much farther afield. He also develops instruments capable of measurements inside “black smokers” that are currently in use on the Neptune Canada Observatory and soon will be on the U.S. Regional Scaled Node Observatory, also known as The Neptune Observatory, a multi-million-dollar project sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation off the coast of Oregon.