Oceanus Online Archive
Earthshaking Events
When I was still a schoolboy in China, two major earthquakes occurred, about a year apart. They had a profound impact on my life and on the Chinese people.
The first […]
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Mixing Oil and Water
In recent decades scientists have made substantial progress in understanding how oil enters the oceans, what happens to it, and how it affects marine organisms and ecosystems. This knowledge has led to regulations, practices, and decisions that have helped us reduce sources of pollution, prevent and respond to spills, clean up contaminated environments, wisely dredge harbors, and locate new petroleum handling facilities.
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Peering into the Crystal Fabric of Rocks
“Rock solid” is an oxymoron, to my way of thinking. Oh, the expression does have some truth in that minuscule, superficial portion of our planet where humans dwell. But the majority of rocks nearly everywhere else in the earth are continually changing their physical characteristics.
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Earth’s Complex Complexion
Even as you read this, Earth’s crust is continually being reborn and recycled in a dynamic process that fundamentally shapes our planet. We’re not generally aware of all this action because most of it occurs at the seafloor, under a formidable watery shroud, and often in remote regions of the oceans.
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Which Way Will the Wind Blow?
Wind energy is the fastest-growing sector of the global electric power industry, and several companies have proposed to build large wind turbines and utility-scale electric power-generating facilities in the coastal waters of the United States. Such facilities could change the way people use the ocean, and the public is divided over the costs and benefits. The environmental and economic benefits of renewable, nonpolluting sources of energy are clear. But there may be side effects from the placement of modern wind farms in the ocean, including the degradation of seascapes, impacts on birds and marine animals, and the disruption of existing patterns of human use of the ocean. The laws and regulations related to the placement of wind turbines in the ocean are at best rudimentary and inchoate; at worst, they are non-existent. Marine scientists and engineers can make an important contribution to this growing public debate by clarifying our understanding of the nature of these side effects. They might also inform public policies that balance the value of various ocean resources with the rights and interests of all who wish to use them.
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Is Life Thriving Deep Beneath the Seafloor?
In 1991, scientists aboard the submersible Alvin were in the right spot at the right time to witness something extraordinary. They had sailed into the aftermath of a very recent volcanic eruption on the seafloor and found themselves in a virtual blizzard. They were densely surrounded by flocs of white debris, composed of sulfur and microbes, which drifted more than 30 meters above the ocean bottom. The seafloor was coated with a 10-centimeter-thick layer of the same white material. This vast volume of microbes did not come from the ocean. The eruption had flushed it out from beneath the seafloor.
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Unraveling the Tapestry of Ocean Crust
Most people know that oceans cover about 70 percent of Earth’s surface. Fewer people realize that the crust beneath oceans and continents is fundamentally different. Why this is so remains a mystery that scientists are still trying to solve.
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The Grass is Greener in the Coastal Ocean
Stretching from inland rivers and bays to the edge of the continental shelf, the coastal ocean accounts for about 10 percent of the ocean’s surface area. Yet this relatively small sliver of ocean contains about half of all the microscopic plants adrift in our seas.
A Sea Change in Ocean Drilling
Stretching from inland rivers and bays to the edge of the continental shelf, the coastal ocean accounts for about 10 percent of the ocean’s surface area. Yet this relatively small sliver of ocean contains about half of all the microscopic plants adrift in our seas.
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How the Isthmus of Panama Put Ice in the Arctic
The long lag time has always puzzled scientists: Why did Antarctica become covered by massive ice sheets 34 million years ago, while the Arctic Ocean acquired its ice cap only about 3 million year ago?
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Paving the SeafloorBrick by Brick
Most of Earth’s crust is manufactured at the bottom of the sea. Deep beneath the waves and beyond our view, magma erupts along a 40,000-mile volcanic mountain chain that bisects the ocean floors and encircles the globe. The lava flowing from these mid-ocean ridges solidifies into new ocean crust that spreads out and paves the surface of our planet.
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The Evolutionary Puzzle of Seafloor Life
Most of Earth’s crust is manufactured at the bottom of the sea. Deep beneath the waves and beyond our view, magma erupts along a 40,000-mile volcanic mountain chain that bisects the ocean floors and encircles the globe. The lava flowing from these mid-ocean ridges solidifies into new ocean crust that spreads out and paves the surface of our planet.
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Listening Closely to ‘See’ Into the Earth
Today, excitement and anticipation is growing because of new generations of seismographs designed for use in the oceans. These new instruments will comprise a new national pool of instruments for use by the scientific community.
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Shifting Continents and Climates
Sixty-five millions years ago, dinosaurs had just become extinct, and mammals were starting to dominate the planet.
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Moving Earth and Heaven
The mountains rise, are lashed by wind and weather, and erode. The rivers carry mud and debris from the mountains into the ocean, where they settle onto the relatively tranquil seafloor and are preserved. The sediments bear evidence about where they came from, what happened to them, and when. By analyzing, measuring, and dating these seafloor sediments, scientists can piece together clues to reconstruct when and how fast their mountain sources rose to great heights millions of years ago, and how the climate and other environmental conditions may have changed in response.
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Seeding the Seafloor with Observatories
Scientists extend their reach into the deep with pioneering undersea cable networks
H2O (Hawaii-2 Observatory) – In 1998, scientists used the remotely operated vehicles (ROV) Jason and Medea to create the pioneering long-term seafloor observatory called H2O (Hawaii-2 Observatory). They spliced an abandoned submarine telephone cable into a termination frame. The frame relays power and communications to a junction box, which serves as an electrical outlet for scientific instruments.
The Remarkable Diversity of Seafloor Vents
Since 1982, I had spent most of my waking hours examining pieces of seafloor vent deposits that had been recovered during a routine dredging operation along the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the Pacific Northwest coast.
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When Seafloor Meets Ocean, the Chemistry Is Amazing
Scientists are discovering that abundant quantities of methane gas are continually seeping from the seafloor throughout the oceans. This widespread but overlooked natural phenomenon has potentially dramatic implications on world energy supplies, life in the oceans, and Earth’s climate.
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Conduits Into Earth’s Inaccessible Interior
Jules Verne wrote about a way to journey to the center of the earth, but unfortunately, we haven’t found it yet. So we really don’t know what happens deep inside our planet.
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The Engine that Drives Earth
Poets and philosophers have celebrated the timelessness of the land around us for eons, but the solid Earth is actually a very dynamic body. Great tectonic plates are in constant motion at Earth’s surface.
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If Rocks Could Talk…
Every rock on Earth contains a clock, a thermometer, and a barometer.
Read MoreVoyage to Vailulu’u
It was like a pirate’s treasure map. A dotted line clearly showed the trail, but at the end of it, no “X” marked the spot.
Then a telltale clue caught Stan […]
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Putting H2O in the Ocean
A major obstacle impeding our ability to understand many of the earth’s fundamental, ongoing dynamics–quite frankly–has been a dearth of electrical outlets and phone jacks on the seafloor.
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