Mid-ocean Ridges
7 Places and Things Alvin Can Explore Now
With its new depth rating of 6500 meters (4 miles), WHOI’s human-occupied vehicle (HOV) Alvin is set to take scientists places they’ve never explored in person
Racing an undersea volcano
Using AUV Sentry to make a high-resolution, near-bottom, seafloor map before the next volcanic eruption…
How Is the Seafloor Made?
An ultrasound for the Earth? Using sound waves, a graduate student peers into the crystalline…
Pop Goes the Seafloor Rock
WHOI scientists used the human-occupied submersible Alvin and the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry to explore a surprising discovery: gas-filled…
Deep-sea Detectives
Links to related materials Mid-Ocean Ridges—Articles, illustrations, and video showing how new seafloor crust forms…
Deep-sea Vents Yield New Species
Call it “midnight at the OASES.” Neither permanent darkness nor extreme pressure and heat cause…
A Serendipitous Seafloor Sample
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation. The pillow lava display and coffee…
Powerful Currents in Deep-Sea Gorges
On my first major research cruise, the ship was hit by a hurricane. On the…
Once More Unto the Rift
In the beginning, there was the Garden of Eden. It was a lush primordial oasis…
Garrett Mitchell
For Garrett Mitchell, an interest in oceanography arose not in a university classroom but on…
Building International Bridges to Explore Ridges
In January 2007, WHOI scientists Jian Lin, who grew up in China, and Chris German,…
Rescue Mission on the Seafloor
The two earthquake-monitoring instruments—each the size and weight of a small refrigerator—were glued to the…
A Ridge Too Slow?
Ever since scientists first discovered vents gushing hot, mineral-rich fluids from the seafloor in the…
Unraveling the Tapestry of Ocean Crust
Most people know that oceans cover about 70 percent of Earth's surface. Fewer people realize…
A Sea Change in Ocean Drilling
Stretching from inland rivers and bays to the edge of the continental shelf, the coastal…
Paving the SeafloorBrick by Brick
Most of Earth's crust is manufactured at the bottom of the sea. Deep beneath the…
If Rocks Could Talk…
Every rock on Earth contains a clock, a thermometer, and a barometer.
The Cauldron Beneath the Seafloor
Just over 20 years ago, scientists exploring the mid-ocean ridge system first made the spectacular…
The Big MELT
More than 95 percent of the earth's volcanic magma is generated beneath the seafloor at…
Life on the Seafloor and Elsewhere in the Solar System
The RIDGE program (Ridge Inter-Disciplinary Globe Experiments) was sharply focused on the global spreading center…
Hitting the Hotspots
The great volcanic mid-ocean ridge system stretches continuously around the globe for 60,000 kilometers, nearly…
Exploring The Global Mid-Ocean Ridge
There is a natural tendency in scientific investigations for increased specialization. Most important advances are…
Melt Extraction from the Mantle Beneath Mid-Ocean Ridges
As the oceanic plates move apart at mid-ocean ridges, rocks from Earth's mantle, far below,…