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Reeling In

April 30, 2013

WHOI senior engineering assistant Jim Ryder (left) and senior research assistant Dave Dubois recover an ocean-bottom seismometer onto R/V Marcus Langseth in early 2012. The instrument was part of a project led by geophysicists Nathan Miller and Dan Lizarralde to create seismic images of the Pacific Plate where it is subducting beneath Earth’s surface at the Mariana Trench. The scientists hope these will reveal more information about the composition of the oceanic crust and upper mantle, both of which get recycled into the Earth’s mantle at trenches and play an important role in global chemical cycles. (Photo by Nathan Miller, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)