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Where River Meets Ocean

July 12, 2011

WHOI geochemist Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink samples a small stream in the “Ancient Forest” of the upper Fraser River basin as part of the Global Rivers Project. The region in British Columbia includes a patch of old-growth inland rain forest with trees at least 1,000 years old. Since many are hollow inside, tree rings cannot be used to determine the ultimate age of the trees, so some may be as much as 2,000 years old. The project aims to understand the export of organic and inorganic carbon from land to ocean via rivers. Learn more about the impact of rivers on the oceans at the July 12 Science Made Public talk. (Photo by Britta Voss, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)