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Cooking up marine asphalt

August 25, 2009

Remnants of natural explosions of oil from the seafloor (asphalt volcanoes) are now being observed. Marine chemist and Coastal Institute director Chris Reddy and Dave Valentine of University of California, Santa Barbara, discovered two extinct asphalt volcanoes off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA, using the DSV Alvin during the July 2007 SEEPS (Studies on the Ecology and Evolution of Petroleum Seeps) cruise. The eruptions of oil that form these volcanoes are opposite to what is currently observed and were noteworthy events. Learn more about this exciting discovery at today’s Science Made Public talk at 2:30 p.m. in the Ocean Science
Discovery Center  Auditorium. (Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)