Old, Cold Seafloor

Well-bundled against the cold, WHOI engineer Christopher Griner (left) and guest student Christopher Maio prepare the Giant Gravity Core to sample seafloor sediments near the mouth of the Mackenzie River off northwest Canada. The corer, essentially a weighted tube, penetrates the seafloor and captures 10 to 20 feet of mud. WHOI scientist Lloyd Keigwin, who led this summer 2013 expedition aboard the icebreaker Healy, is analyzing the collected sediment cores for evidence of a massive flood from the Mackenzie 13,000 years ago that could have triggered a period abrupt climate change called the Younger Dryas.(Photo by Marti Jeglinski, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)