CORVALLIS, Ore. - Verena Tunnicliffe, a University of Victoria marine ecologist and explorer of deep-sea environments, will deliver a free public lecture at Oregon State University on Thursday, March 1, to commemorate OSU's Hydrothermal Vents Discovery Day.

Tunnicliffe's lecture is sponsored by the "Frontiers of Science" lecture series.

"Beyond the Mid-Ocean Ridge: Hydrothermalism and Vent Communities on Volcanic Arcs of the Western Pacific," will provide a biologist's viewpoint of hydrothermal eruptions in a different part of the ocean than on ridge crests, which are more widely known. Her talk begins at 4 p.m. in Gilfillan Auditorium on the OSU campus.

The lecture marks the 35th anniversary of the discovery of hydrothermal vents on a research cruise to the Galapagos, led by OSU scientist Jack Corliss. That discovery revealed an entire colony of marine creatures - many of which had never been seen before - and launched a new era of oceanographic exploration.

As more hydrothermal vents were documented beyond the ridge crest systems throughout the world oceans, scientists have discovered life-nurturing conditions in volcanic arcs and seamounts that have their own geophysical, chemical and biological features. Life at volcanoes ranges from shallow-water "smokers" to liquid carbon-dioxide vents and pools of molten sulfur.

These will be a focus of the presentation by Tunnicliffe, which is sponsored by OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

Tunnicliffe has worked closely with researchers at OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center, including Bill Chadwick and Susan Merle, on explorations of undersea volcanoes and associated hydrothermal vent colonies. She is a principal investigator with the Canadian Healthy Ocean Network, as well as the director of Ocean Network Canada's VENUS (Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea) cabled observatory.

Source: 

Bob Collier, 541-737-4367

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