Seafloor Up Close

Molly Anderson, a master’s student at Boise State University, takes a close look at the inside of a piece of basalt recently recovered from the seafloor by the human-occupied submersible Alvin. Anderson and the other scientists on the expedition were studying chemical clues in lava that would point to the source of magma from beneath the seafloor that helped form the 8°20′ N seamount chain near the East Pacific Rise. (Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)