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Category: New Research
Posted on: December 21, 2006 3:03 PM, by CR McClain
From Science Online...
In April 2006, Maya Tolstoy, a geophysicist at Columbia University, received some good news and some bad news during a research expedition at sea. The submarine volcano that she and her colleague Felix Waldhauser had been monitoring for years had recently erupted. This was exciting, because only a handful of other deep-sea eruptions have been detected (1), and it was the first time ocean-bottom seismometers were in place during such an event. However, two-thirds of the instruments were stuck in the new lava on the sea floor (see the figure). Would the remaining third yield the data needed to gain new insights into this fundamental but poorly understood geological process? In the end, the good news outweighed the bad. The instruments that were recovered provided some remarkable results, as Tolstoy et al. report on page 1920 of this issue (2). Also, this may only be the first installment in this story, because there is hope that more instruments can be rescued from the sea floor.
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Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
Comments
We need to put together an urgent top priority mission to recover those imstruments - quick, call Bruce Willis!
Posted by: Mustafa Mond, FCD | December 21, 2006 3:29 PM
Perhaps, but Bruce Willis blew up the comet in Armageddon. So he probably wouldn't be as delicate as would be required. We need Tommy Lee Jones from Volcano!
Posted by: CR McClain | December 21, 2006 3:54 PM