Desert snow?

A trip to the snow? Actually, it’s mineral, not ice, as WHOI graduate program student Evelyn Mervine collects recently-deposited carbonate from a highly alkaline spring in the Samail Ophiolite—an area of uplifted ocean crust in Oman. Mervine studies the formation of travertine, which draws the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air, and its role in the global carbon cycle.
(Photo courtesy of Evelyn Mervine, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)