News
A close-up look at minerals in Martian meteorites shows that complex organic compounds formed not from life, but from electrochemical reactions similar to the ones that occur in a battery.
A new study finds that when certain rocks below the seafloor interact with seawater and undergo serpentinization, they can create amino acids. These serpentinizing rocks were common in early Earth’s…
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation approved three grants in October 2018 that support DCO activities through the end of the decadal program on 31 December 2019.
A recent episode of the Science Channel’s documentary series “Space’s Deepest Secrets” explores the formation of Earth’s moon, and featured DCO Deep Energy co-Chair Edward Young and the Panorama mass…
The newly funded “Aerial Observations of Volcanic Emissions from Unmanned Aerial Systems” field study got off to a flying start on Monday, 21 October 2018. Follow the team’s progress here.
The charts that geologists, microbiologists, and gas companies use to determine the origin of a sample of methane are outdated and incomplete. Now, two researchers have made comprehensive revisions…
On 3 September 2018, seven researchers from four countries set off from Cluj-Napoca, Romania for a 10-day sampling expedition across the Eastern Carpathian Neogenic Volcanic belt.
Researchers aboard IODP Expedition 357 collected cores from across the Atlantis Massif, a mountain of mantle material uplifted to the seafloor near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. They are using these…
We expect another large contingent of DCO researchers at the AGU Fall Meeting on 10–14 December 2018 in Washington, DC, USA.
Disturbances to the seafloor, whether natural or unnatural, can upset the “microbial methane filter," a blanket of microbes that efficiently consumes methane seeping from the seafloor before it…
Lab experiments and observations of high-pressure minerals from a subduction zone suggest that when ocean crust sinks into the mantle through subduction, the carbonates and water react to form light…