About the lecture

Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Exotic Deep Sea Life Off Our Coast

In this talk you’ll learn all about deep-sea habitats off the coast of Washington and Oregon, which are some of the most dynamic environments on Earth.  Using high-definition video from deep-diving remotely operated vehicles, we will “visit” the Cascadia Margin where methane-rich fluids rise from hundreds of vents on the seafloor, sometimes explosively.

Debbie Kelley looks at how submarine volcanoes support life in the absence of sunlight. She has dived in the submersible Alvin more than 50 times, reaching depths of 4000 m beneath the ocean’s surface, and routinely uses robotic vehicles to study some of the most extreme environments on Earth – submarine underwater hot springs. Her fieldwork takes her to volcanoes and hot springs off the Washington and Oregon coasts, the novel Lost City hydrothermal field on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and to the island of Cyprus.

NEW JAN. 30, 2019.  Dr. Kelley’s pertinent publications, videos and references can be found at the following urls:

https://interactiveoceans.washington.edu/   This has imagery associated with each expedition, but also can be reached through resources.
https://interactiveoceans.washington.edu/story/Biology_at_Axial_Seamount
https://interactiveoceans.washington.edu/story/Coastal_Biology

There is also an ~ 30-minute fun video that was done called “Down to the Volcano,” which is a general audience film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIUKej4_XMU highlighting some of the points I raised during the talk.

About the Speaker

Dr. Debbie Kelley is a marine geologist with the University of Washington and Associate Director for Science for the cabled component of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative. This project utilizes high-power and bandwidth, submarine fiber-optic cables to bring the Internet into the Pacific Ocean and onto the seafloor providing high-quality, real-time data from more than 100 instruments (e.g., high definition video, seismicity, ocean acidity, oxygen) to a global audience.