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Hidden Rivers

Graduate student Meagan Gonneea stands on a beach in Akumal Bay on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, between kayaks loaded with pumps and barrels to collect water. The flow of water ending at the yellow kayak marks where groundwater—water running underground and carrying nutrients, chemicals, and pollutants—discharges into the bay. Gonneea works in the lab of WHOI chemist Matt Charette to study this precipitation-driven flow, analyzing the water for isotopes of radium, a trace element used to determine the timing and volume of water running underground to the sea. (Photo courtesy of Meagan Gonneea, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)