Multimedia Items

Ocean trenches, such as the Kermadec (shown here) near New Zealand, exist where one of Earth’s tectonic plates is sinking and sliding beneath another. This process, referred to as plate…

When WHOI geophysicist Jian Lin was a high school student in China, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the city of Tangshan, killing 250,000 people. The event inspired Lin to study…

After cutting samples of basalt rock dredged from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge for scientific analyses, geochemist Cedric Hamelin from the University of Bergen in Norway used some leftovers to create an homage…

Scientists aboard the R/V Atlantis recover an ocean-bottom seismograph (OBS) off the Galapagos Islands. Seismographs measure movement in the Earth’s crust, and scientists use data from these instruments to calculate the…

Crew aboard the R/V Atlantis recover an ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) during a January 2009 expedition. The sensitive instruments are deployed on the seafloor to record ground movements from undersea…

WHOI geophysicist Jian Lin points to a 12-story building in Concepcion, Chile, that was upended and toppled by the magnitude 8.8 earthquake on February 27, 2010. Luckily, the building was…

WHOI geophysics guest student Tingting Wang and senior scientist Jian Lin (right) study Haiti earthquake data on charts. Lin has studied Haiti and other tectonic areas of the Caribbean and…

Senior Scientist Jian Lin (in blue shirt) and colleagues examine geological evidence of past earthquakes near the Mediterranean coast of Algeria. A study of the interplay of stresses surrounding a…

The crew aboard the R/V Atlantis handle a line during recovery of an ocean bottom seismometer (OBS) in January 2009.  The OBS was just one of 41 deployed along the Quebrada,…

A helicopter from the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Polar Star deploys one of five ocean-bottom hydrophones to record sound waves generated by any earthquakes or eruptions near Vailulu’u. After a…

When an earthquake occurs, rocks at a fault line slip or rupture, and a portion of Earth’s crust physically moves. That releases energy, and two types of seismic waves radiate…

WHOI geophysicist Jian Lin (in blue shirt) and colleagues examine geological evidence of past earthquakes near the Mediterranean coast of Algeria. Lin’s work in that nation has been funded by…

John Collins (left) and Jeff McGuire examine ocean bottom seismometers (OBSs) outside WHOI’s Iselin Marine Facility. These instruments are deployed on the sea floor to record ground movements from undersea earthquakes. WHOI…

Victor Bender works on an ocean bottom seismometer (OBS), used to record underwater earthquakes.  The instruments are part of the U.S. National Ocean Bottom Seismograph Instrument Pool maintained and operated…

In 1998, the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason installed the Hawaii-2 Observatory, or H2O, in 5,000 meters (about 16,400 feet) of water using an abandoned submarine telephone cable. Initial experiments…

Using optical and electron microscopes, scientists can detect how crystals within rocks change their sizes, shapes, and orientations when the rocks are subjected to heat and stress. These atomic-scale changes…