Feature Publication Archive
Search all PMEL publications.
Embley, R., N. Raineault, S. Merle, T. Baumberger, S. Seabrook, and S. Hammond
Oceanography, 30(1), supplement, New Frontiers in Ocean Exploration: The E/V Nautilus, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, and R/V Falkor 2016 Field Season, 28–30, doi: 10.5670/oceanog.2017.supplement.01
Nooner, S.L., and W.W. Chadwick, Jr.
Science, 354(6318), 1399–1403, doi: 10.1126/science.aah4666 (2016)
Deformation of the ground surface at active volcanoes provides information about magma movements at depth. Improved seafloor deformation measurements between 2011 and 2015 documented a fourfold increase in magma supply and confirmed that Axial Seamount’s eruptive behavior is inflation-predictable, probably triggered by a critical level of magmatic pressure... more »
Axial Seamount, 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and 0.7 miles beneath the ocean’s surface, is situated along a mid-ocean ridge where two ocean plates are moving apart. It is the most active submarine volcano in the northeast Pacific Ocean, with documented eruptions in 1998, 2011, and most recently, in 2015. Its activity has been monitored for two decades, since the establishment of the NeMO Seafloor Observatory in 1996, and more recently the launch of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative Cabled Array, which provides state-of-the-art monitoring capability with... more »
Tagliabue, A., and J. Resing
Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A, 374(2081), 20150291, doi: 10.1098/rsta.2015.0291, Special issue: Biological and climatic impacts of ocean trace element chemistry (2016)
As the iron supplied from hydrothermalism is ultimately ventilated in the iron-limited Southern Ocean, it plays an important role in the ocean biological carbon pump. We deploy a set of focused sensitivity experiments with a state of the art global model of the... more »
A paper just published in Nature Geoscience shows a newly recognized role for hydrothermal vents in the global carbon cycle. This new research, by PMEL/JISAO researcher David Butterfield and colleagues, shows that hydrothermal vents may act as a recycling and decomposition system for dissolved organic carbon (DOC), an important constituent of the global carbon pool. The scientists found that high temperatures, like those found at hydrothermal vents, can effectively remove DOC not broken down by other processes, like microbial or sedimentary degradation. The implication for the... more »