{"id":29013,"date":"2025-02-04T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T17:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/?p=29013"},"modified":"2025-04-03T11:24:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:24:06","slug":"here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/in-focus\/research-news\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Here there be volcanoes: Geosciences researchers venture beneath the waves for volcano studies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>While most folks were sleeping off their Thanksgiving turkey and preparing for Christmas, 51ÁÔÆæ geoscientist Julie Bowles and three of her graduate students were studying volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or, more accurately, they were studying volcanoes <em>underneath <\/em>the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bowles was the Chief Scientist on an expedition aboard the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whoi.edu\/what-we-do\/explore\/ships\/ships-atlantis\/\"><em>Atlantis<\/em><\/a>, a research vessel owned by the U.S. Navy, to study the Pacific Rise. That\u2019s an underwater mountain range formed by repeated volcanic eruptions over millions of years. The ridge is about a three-day voyage west of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Bowles, an associate professor of geosciences, hoped to learn more about how often these eruptions occur, how big they are, and how they are distributed along the ocean floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"alignleft uwm-c-img--left uwm-c-img--caption-gray\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"247\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-Julie-Bowles-247x300.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29016\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-Julie-Bowles-247x300.webp 247w, https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-Julie-Bowles.webp 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 247px) 100vw, 247px\" \/><figcaption>Associate professor of geosciences Julie Bowles flashes a thumbs up next to the rock corer on board the research vessel <em>Atlantis. <\/em>Photo courtesy of SPREAD.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Their project, called <a href=\"https:\/\/spread.ucsd.edu\/\">SPREAD (Southern Pacific Rise Eruptive Accretion Dynamics)<\/a>, was funded by the National Science Foundation. This work is important because scientists still have a lot of gaps in their knowledge when it comes to volcanic eruptions, whether they\u2019re on land or in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOnce a volcano becomes active, there\u2019s a lot of monitoring you can do to hopefully get some signals\u2026 that will tell you if it will erupt, but if you\u2019re talking about long-term hazard planning, we really don\u2019t have a good way of doing that,\u201d Bowles explained. \u201cTheoretically, this type of data could help us build those statistical models.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, she added, this research will shed more light on the mysterious processes that are happening in the Earth beneath our feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Underwater volcano science<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you may recall from your school days, the outermost layer of the Earth is called the crust, and it sits on huge tectonic plates that are slowly, continually moving. When those plates crash into each other, it can cause an earthquake. Volcanoes are also more likely to form at the edges of plates; the fabled \u201cRing of Fire\u201d sits on the edges of the plates that make up the Pacific Ocean. Where they collide with continental plates, we get volcanoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Bowles isn\u2019t too interested in where the plates meet. She\u2019s more intrigued by where they pull apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beneath the Earth\u2019s crust is the mantle, a layer of hot, slowly-deforming rock. When the plates move apart beneath the ocean, some of the mantle melts, and hot magma erupts to the surface, meets the cold seawater, and hardens into basalt rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo, you form new ocean crust there,\u201d said Bowles. \u201c(It forms) these mid-ocean ridges that snake through all the oceans, these very long, continuous chains of volcanoes. It\u2019s a very regular process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That regularity makes them ideal for study, but that presents a challenge. \u201cOn land, we can walk around and map out one lava flow here, a boundary there. On the sea floor, obviously, you can\u2019t do that, so we have to use these more high-tech ways of studying it,\u201d Bowles said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AUVs, HOVs, and more<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meet <a href=\"https:\/\/spread.ucsd.edu\/our-tools-sentry\/\">Sentry<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/spread.ucsd.edu\/our-tools-alvin\/\">Alvin<\/a>, the high-tech tools that the scientists aboard the <em>Atlantis<\/em> used to conduct their underwater research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"alignright uwm-c-img--right uwm-c-img--caption-gray\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-Terra-Johnson-225x300.webp\" alt=\"A young person in a yellow 51ÁÔÆæ sweatshirt stands in front of a metal sphere that has machinery along its bottom.\" class=\"wp-image-29017\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-Terra-Johnson-225x300.webp 225w, https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-Terra-Johnson.webp 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><figcaption>Geosciences graduate student Terra Johnson stands in front of the Alvin. Photo courtesy of Julie Bowles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sentry is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), a submersible robot that scientists can program to follow a set path. Sentry can travel close to the sea floor to collect data and make high-resolution maps of the underwater terrain \u201cso you can see where there are bumps and faults and little volcanic centers,\u201d Bowles said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alvin is the human-operated vehicle. Its titanium sphere was actually <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/118936961\/5c6fc3018d?turnstile=0.WEW4xxoJEviVwFA4iqApMG6NA5thJmgJHqd50neGgWD_o6pgrvqHWLyhkEwS8RPqnD1u1jCP6e3XcXe09jwT-sjZjzV9M19zY928UwNNdpcAcwVesFei32tutwKUz1QYKNJXDIGfdAlL23Hp9quILcrOgATwih-L7qcivZj81el0KPFfwq-Cpn8FlWudj05JhS0xD0JSN89amMHY47udMUrJIhdbS_dParp8RLLJ2SFbe2gT3kmBLnK7SxeYjlnnrOEWcWWAcaarRgc9yoYunF1utKxwZJ2Vf4qdx9Jkl44Tp5_is0MFMF6M-xAfr5hW-XQ4xkZ50FIV3txlTTyRSiJR6WT75hXutA-q0B-2YTeOhYnRxCJsIWnMdog8ND_SM4hYElpQmJKI68Pd4ErgzidIIR6L9z9aW83fPWFKtounrrYPjtvUp6-yXfrGcMZznbO2ndcZOP9gsXBWbiorzc1rPnzp3f0IVNGAJ22iD5VDdYDz5hhm1viOqTp2h-RfRq5IWIhiKs-GsYySM1sPXdWdYl3bANWVxrdhEfBvNZHljlfjwx6UcPXxQck2vO5bFMlWBQ0PNaLaqHlzuHGA-sMIrOcysUnNNoXvCPeGdtTaKg_Z_Eu5Ws2VylYrRVZoeUrvRLxTI4leevdeAPTXUYGWggu1j1F4-vEab-IUg-x_jRu_6Qe83QcB_YNdQtAVS9yQW45SY2roq80hLXluF2HaFluBqNhh5y_97FzEJ-ZspWiwtkKeI9IZo1XTD2HEELHd0cvjkY6_PObDA1uiNA.6mx7SJx3F6eNTcuQops54Q.5d631e61345a64b361774107ae29cb7cf5b595c6e412ca84eea93dc27db3307b\">forged<\/a> in Cudahy, Wisconsin, at Ladish Forging (now ATI). Up to three people can fit into the submersible and go beneath the waves to collect samples and see the sea floor with their own eyes. The crew was operating at depths of about 2,800 meters, or 1.7 miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI still haven\u2019t really processed that I was at the bottom (of the ocean),\u201d said Terra Johnson, one of Bowles\u2019 graduate students who went on the voyage. \u201cIt looks like a completely different planet down there. There would be huge pillow lavas the size of rooms. Everything down there was supermassive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers had planned twenty dives for each vehicle so they could gather as much data as possible. Unfortunately, Murphy\u2019s Law still applies when you\u2019re at sea: What could go wrong, did go wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Research setbacks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At one point, the expedition was delayed by a medical emergency. When the boat got back on schedule, high winds made conditions too dangerous to deploy the AUV and HOV. When the winds died down, the sharks showed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere are two swimmers that have to get in the water when (the Alvin) is deployed to disconnect the cables,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cThe sharks were displaying a lot of aggressive behavior, so the decision was finally made that we\u2019re not putting people in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luckily, the researchers had one more tool up their sleeve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cRock coring is a less sophisticated way of getting physical samples,\u201d said Bowles. \u201cIt\u2019s basically a big metal weight, and it has these little blobs of wax on the bottom. You drop it to the sea floor, and it smashes into the lava rocks. That volcanic glass is very brittle and breaks off into the wax.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Graduate student Mike Anderson got good at rock coring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"alignleft uwm-c-img--left uwm-c-img--caption-gray\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" src=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-wax-core-300x224.webp\" alt=\"A group of people in hard hats and orange life jackets squat around a metal circle with seven white dots spaced evenly on its surface.\" class=\"wp-image-29018\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-wax-core-300x224.webp 300w, https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-wax-core.webp 643w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption>Scientists prepare the rock corer for a descent beneath the waves. Photo courtesy of Julie Bowles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy initial job was rock coring,\u201d he sighed. \u201cI was on (that job) for a while because of the delays.\u201d Anderson also assisted with mapping the sea floor and acted as an extra set of hands for the researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Graduate student Vera Soltes\u2019 main job was to analyze the samples that came back from rock coring. \u201cWe would have to clean them up and describe them. We would weigh them and cut them open with a rock saw,\u201d she explained. \u201cWe\u2019d say what kind of rock it is, what the grain size is, what are the mineral components, if there\u2019s any weathering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Soltes and Johnson are both interested in magnetic elements of the rock samples, which can help scientists identify the age of a particular rock and the ridge where it was found or the pattern of a lava flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Life at sea and back on land<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While researchers could, and did, operate the rock corer nearly 24 hours a day, there was plenty of time for enjoying the sailor\u2019s life. The researchers and the ship\u2019s crew played board games, stargazed, baked, and had a fierce table tennis tournament. They commiserated when sea sickness laid anyone low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that they\u2019re back on dry land, they\u2019ll spend more time analyzing the samples they could obtain. Not only will their finds shed light on volcanic processes, but they might learn some things about biology as well, said Bowles. Oftentimes, hydrothermal vents will pop up near these underwater volcanic ridges, and bacteria can use the chemicals from the vents to create their own energy. Other sea life feeds on the bacteria. Biologists are interested in these ecosystems and chemical processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s one more example of why these types of expeditions are important. So much of the earth is covered by water, said Bowles. If we\u2019re going to truly understand our planet, we need to know what\u2019s happening beneath the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>More photos from the expedition are available on SPREAD&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/spread.ucsd.edu\/gallery\/\">photo gallery<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters &amp; Science<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While most folks were sleeping off their Thanksgiving turkey and preparing for Christmas, 51ÁÔÆæ geoscientist Julie Bowles and three of her graduate students were studying volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. Or, more accurately, they were studying volcanoes underneath the Pacific &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":785,"featured_media":29015,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[1648,1956,1846],"tags":[1852],"class_list":["post-29013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","category-in-focus-2025","category-research-news","tag-february"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Letters &amp; Science<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/in-focus\/research-news\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Here there be volcanoes: Geosciences researchers venture beneath the waves for volcano studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While most folks were sleeping off their Thanksgiving turkey and preparing for Christmas, 51ÁÔÆæ geoscientist Julie Bowles and three of her graduate students were studying volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. Or, more accurately, they were studying volcanoes underneath the Pacific &hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/in-focus\/research-news\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letters &amp; Science\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-02-04T17:01:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-03T16:24:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/letters-science\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/255\/2025\/02\/Volcanoes-Sentry-2.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sarah Vickery\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sarah Vickery\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/in-focus\\\/research-news\\\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/in-focus\\\/research-news\\\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sarah Vickery\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79ba9316328e022fb78add26239f8453\"},\"headline\":\"Here there be volcanoes: Geosciences researchers venture beneath the waves for volcano studies\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-02-04T17:01:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-03T16:24:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/in-focus\\\/research-news\\\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1284,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/in-focus\\\/research-news\\\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/255\\\/2025\\\/02\\\/Volcanoes-Sentry-2.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"February\"],\"articleSection\":[\"In Focus\",\"In Focus 2025\",\"Research News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/in-focus\\\/research-news\\\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/uwm.edu\\\/letters-science\\\/in-focus\\\/research-news\\\/here-there-be-volcanoes-geosciences-researchers-venture-beneath-the-waves-for-volcano-studies\\\/\",\"name\":\"Here there be volcanoes: Geosciences researchers venture beneath the waves for volcano studies - Letters &amp; 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