News & Events

When

Date - November 8, 2019
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm

What

Associate Scientist
Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Talk Title: Microbes, Fluids, and Rocks: Life Beneath the Seafloor

Note: This talk will take place in Sullivan Science Building: Room 101

Abstract:

Exploration of the sea over the last 40 years has resulted in astounding discoveries about the extent and diversity of life in the deep ocean, pushing our understanding of the intimate connections between the biosphere and geosphere to the extremes, including the discovery of chemosynthetic ecosystems at hydrothermal vents and active microbes buried in sediments, kilometers beneath the seafloor. This lecture will focus on microbial communities in the largest actively flowing aquifer system on Earth, the fluids circulating through oceanic crust underlying the oceans and sediments, and include recent discoveries and the technology that enabled such discoveries at both well-studied underwater volcanoes and completely novel and unexplored systems, including the worlds’ deepest hydrothermal vents.