Pillars of a Community

WHOI seafloor geologist Dan Fornari and then-graduate student Tracey Gregg inspect a portion of a lava pillar that was generated during a 1991 eruption on the East Pacific Rise (EPR). Researchers have been returning to the EPR regularly for 18 years to study an area that has been paved and re-paved by underwater volcanism along the edges of two of Earth’s tectonic plates. Today, the research vessel Atlantis departs from Mexico for another voyage to the region, led by biologist Lauren Mullineaux and oceanographer Jim Ledwell. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)