Scientific Ocean Drilling

The world’s ice sheet methane reserves have long been treated as a slow-moving climate threat. Ocean warming will eventually destabilize the frozen solids holding this gas in place, but the process was supposed to take decades or longer.

Off the coast of Cape Cod, something unexpected lurks beneath the seafloor: Fresh water. This year, Earth Sciences doctoral student Gretl King participated in an expedition through the National Science Foundation and International Ocean Drilling Program (IODP3) to investigate the phenomenon.

An international team of scientists has discovered that methane hydrates beneath the northwest Greenland continental shelf became rapidly destabilised by meltwater, releasing large stores of methane during ice-sheet retreat across the continental shelf.

In the deep parts of the South Atlantic Ocean, researchers have uncovered a surprising geological feature embedded in fractured and broken volcanic rocks located below the seafloor. Far from looking like common debris, the rocks appear to hide geological sponges able to store vast quantities of carbon dioxide over millions of years.

In what can only be described as a herculean accomplishment, a team of scientists has succeeded in bringing to the surface a long, 1,268-meter section of rocks from the Earth’s Mantle. This layer, hidden beneath the crust, forms the largest chunk of our planet.