Geology & Geophysics
Explorers to Use New Robotic Vehicles to Hunt for Life and Hydrothermal Vents on Arctic Seafloor
Researchers will probe the Gakkel Ridge during expedition that begins on July 1.
Read MoreWHOI Geologists Compile Longest Ever Record of Atlantic Hurricane Strikes
The frequency of intense hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean appears to be closely connected to long-term trends in the El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation and the African monsoon, according to new research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Geologists Jeff Donnelly and Jonathan Woodruff made that discovery while assembling the longest-ever record of hurricane strikes in the Atlantic basin.
Read MoreDeep Ocean Waters Don’t Run Still
The ocean’s circulation is thought to play an important role in our climate by transporting heat from tropical regions toward Earth’s poles. Of particular interest is the circulation in the…
Read MoreThe Lo-o-o-ng Core
Since the early part of the 20th century, scientists have been going to sea on ships equipped with long, hollow pipes called corers. These corers are used to collect seafloor…
Read MoreA Ridge Too Slow?
Ever since scientists first discovered vents gushing hot, mineral-rich fluids from the seafloor in the Pacific Ocean 30 years ago, they have found them in various places along the Mid-Ocean…
Read MoreCell-sized Thermometers
Climate shifts are a repeating feature in Earth’s history, but humans have added so much greenhouse gas (especially carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere that climate is warming in our lifetimes.…
Read MoreScientists “See” New Ocean Floor Just Before and After It Is Created
A multidisciplinary research team from six institutions has for the first time successfully anticipated and then chronicled a seafloor eruption along the global mid-ocean ridge, the most active volcanic system on Earth. The event along the East Pacific Rise has provided researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) with a rare opportunity to observe what happens in the immediate aftermath of an eruption.
Read MoreA Rare Glimpse Into the Ocean’s Crust
About one and a half million years ago, a great hidden piece of the ocean’s crust uplifted and rotated, giving Clare Williams a window and a time machine into Earth’s…
Read MoreLessons from the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will convene two special conferences this fall to learn from the devastating 2004 tsunami that left more than 220,000 people dead or missing. In July, another…
Read MoreUndersea Vehicles to Study Formation of Gold and Other Precious Metals On the Pacific Ocean Floor
An international team of scientists will explore the seafloor near Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean later this month with remotely operated and autonomous underwater vehicles, investigating active…
Read MoreNew Hybrid Deep-sea Vehicle Is Christened Nereus
Nereus—a mythical god with a fish tail and a man’s torso—was chosen Sunday (June 25) in a nationwide contest as the name of a first-of-its-kind, deep-sea vehicle under construction at…
Read MoreInto the ‘Mouth of Hell’
Ken Sims peers over the rim of Masaya Volcano and looks 2,000 feet (600 meters) down into the smoking crater lined with rows of jagged rocks that jut up like…
Read MoreTo Catch an Erupting Volcano
Augustine, an island volcano 170 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska, began erupting in December 2005. By February, Uri ten Brink of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Woods Hole had…
Read MoreA ‘Book’ of Ancient Sumatran Tsunamis
Exactly one year after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Jian Lin found himself on a Chinese research vessel off Sumatra, floating above the epicenter of the seafloor earthquake that…
Read MoreWorlds Apart, But United by the Oceans
Jian Lin came of age in an era of both geological and political seismic shifts in China, experiencing the deadliest earthquake in the 20th century in Tangshen in 1976 and the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. Then he immigrated to America and came full circle in 2005 to become the first U.S. scientist to co-lead a Chinese deep-sea research cruise.
Read MoreOne of the Greatest Volcanic Shows on Earth
About 50,000 years ago, a huge meteorite smacked into our planet, gouging a hole more than a mile wide and 790 feet deep in India. Of the roughly 150 known…
Read MoreAnalyzing Ancient Sediments at Warp Speed
Like a toy out of a science fiction story, the X-ray fluorescence core scanner reveals intimate details of the composition of ancient mud and sediment–which can contain a variety of clues about past climate and environmental conditions on Earth–without breaking the surface. In a matter of hours, the XRF simultaneously captures digital photographs and X-ray images of every millimeter of a core sample, while detecting the presence of any of 80 chemical elements.
Read MoreTracking an Ocean of Ice Atop Greenland
Sarah Das calls herself a “frozen oceanographer.” Most people look at Greenland and see a vast ice sheet covering Earth’s largest island. But Das sees a huge reservoir of water—temporarily…
Read MoreNafanua, Eel City, and the Crater of Death
WHOI geochemist Stan Hart and colleagues have discovered a fast-growing volcano, dubbed Nafanua, inside the crater of Vailulu’u, a 14-300-foot active volcano that should begin the next island in the Samoan chain. They also found a novel hydrothermal community, which they named “Eel City,” and a lifeless zone in the caldera, which they call the “Crater of Death.”
Read MoreThe Once and Future Danube River Delta
?The Danube River Delta is like the Everglades,? said Liviu Giosan, who grew up near the Romanian wetlands. The triangle-shaped, sediment-rich region at the mouth of the Danube River is also rich with human history. A traditional maritime culture persists on the delta, and the United Nations has declared the region a World Heritage site. The Danube Delta is also a great place for a geologist to study how the coast stretches, contracts, and undulates with time?and human interference.
Read MoreHart Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Senior Scientist Stanley Hart of the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest learned societies in the nation.
Read MoreOceanographic Telecommuting
‘Virtual’ chief scientist directs a research cruise without leaving land.
Read MoreRambling Atop an Active Volcano to Detect Telltale Rumbling Within It
With machete in hand and 60 pounds of satellite receiver and tripod on his back, Jeff Standish looked up into the lush tropical brush that covered the volcano, up a steep escarpment, and up again to the summit 3,000 feet above sea level. Then he turned to Rhea Workman, a graduate student in the WHOI/MIT Joint Program, and said, “We’re going up where?”
Read MoreRapid Response
The earthquakes were coming fast and frequent, as many as 50 to 70 an hour. On the morning of Sunday, Feb. 28, undersea hydrophones began detecting the most intense swarm of earthquakes to occur in the last three years along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, about 200 miles off the Pacific Northwest coast.
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