Earth Oceans Interactions Program

EOI Research

The PMEL Earth-Oceans Interactions (EOI) Program has two main areas of research: hydrothermal vents and methane seeps. The work on hydrothermal vents is primarily focused in less explored areas of the Pacific, whereas the work on methane seeps has been mostly along the Cascadia continental margin (offshore CA, OR, WA). Both are somewhat exploratory and involve discovering and characterizing new vents on the seafloor and their unique ecosystems. EOI has researchers in two cooperative institutes. CIMERS uniquely provides the following scientific capabilities:

• The Newport Helium Isotope laboratory provides important gas chemistry data on field samples that help discover and interpret the origin, setting, and character of seeps & vents. This capability is relatively rare because there are just a few labs across the country that can perform these types of analyses.
• CIMERS personnel have expertise in bathymetric mapping with multibeam sonar systems, which are used for mapping both the seafloor and bubble plumes in the water column (used to identify methane seeps and active hydrothermal venting). Newport EOI researchers also have an extensive database of seafloor mapping data from the Cascadia Margin, NE Pacific, NE Lau basin, and the Mariana regions (our main working areas), and we collaborate with many outside groups in constantly expanding this coverage and sharing data.

In addition, CIMERS is well-positioned to contribute to the government's priority of complete mapping of the US EEZ, particularly related to our work identifying and characterizing methane seeps on the Cascadia Margin. The added capability of multi-channel seismic data interpretation is another potential new area of CIMERS research and opens up new areas for external collaboration.