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Core’s-Eye View

Yellowstone National Park attracts millions of tourists each year, drawn in part by the park’s iconic geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. But fewer know about the hotbed of hydrothermal activity hidden at the bottom of Yellowstone Lake. WHOI scientist Rob Sohn, who has spent his career studying hydrothermal vents on the seafloor, is using deep-sea technologies to explore the lake bottom. They include drilling into bottom sediments to extract long vertical cores that provide evidence of past geologic activity and climate. This shot was taken looking up through the moon pool, an opening in the drilling platform that allows the coring equipment to be lowered into the water. (Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)