Abyssal Circulation in Cascadia Basin

In collaboration with geophysicists Paul Johnson and Joan Gomberg and with geochemist Doug Hammond, and their students, I have explored a number of questions about the near-bottom circulation and properties in Cascadia Basin, the deep area lying between the Juan de Fuca Ridge and the Pacific Northwest. We have examined the circulation of Cascadia Basin Bottom Water and its modification by geothermal heating, the flux of silica from the seafloor, a long-term warming trend over the upper continental shelf with implications for the release of methane hydrate, and signals of sediment-laden gravity currents that mix warm water down the slope and run out onto the abyssal plain at a depth of several kilometers. A few of these studies are listed below.



Funding: National Science Foundation