Samantha Joye
University of Georgia, GA·Earth & Environmental Science
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and it was recently found seeping from the seafloor into the Atlantic Ocean off the eastern United States. Seeps like these may be common along similar coastlines, so knowing why they form matters for understanding methane's role in Earth's climate.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Microbiology & Immunology
Chemistry
- Topics
methane seeps
cold seeps
US Atlantic Margin
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Determine where the fluids feeding newly discovered methane seeps on the northern US Atlantic Margin come from, and how they migrate through sediments, by combining geochemical, geophysical and geological data from active seep sites.
- Study how methane is oxidized (chemically and microbially broken down) at a modern seep, using microbiological and geochemical analyses of seafloor samples collected with the human-occupied submersible ALVIN.
- Reconstruct past methane seepage and the past stability of gas hydrates, ice-like solids that trap methane, using long sediment records recovered by gravity and jumbo piston coring from ships.
- Map and characterize active seep sites at 200 to 1,000 meters depth with the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry, building seafloor and sub-seafloor datasets at multiple scales.
More about the research
Current models of how methane forms, moves underground and escapes along continental margins (the edges of continents where the shelf drops to the deep sea) do not predict how widespread these seeps are or the depths at which they occur.
Why it matters
Methane seeping from continental margins may affect Earth's climate, and seeps like those off the US East Coast may be common along similar coastlines worldwide. Explaining what drives these seeps, how much methane is broken down before it escapes, and how seepage has changed over time could improve estimates of the ocean's contribution to atmospheric methane. That information could help scientists who study and forecast climate.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Yair Rosenthal
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Earth & Environmental Science
Reconstruct movements of the Southern Westerly Winds during the Holocene and five earlier interglacials (MIS 5e, 9e, 11c, 13, 19) using Chilean Margin sediments from site J1001.
Michael Krieg
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Engineering
Develop iceberg-referenced localization algorithms that track an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and drifting floats relative to an iceberg that is drifting and rotating, so robots can navigate a moving reference frame.
Shawn Fraver
University of Maine, ME·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify how methanogens (methane-producing microbes) and methanotrophs (methane-consuming microbes) in Howland Forest soils drive methane flux across moisture and other environmental gradients, using microbial community profiling.
The school
University of Georgia: 27 labs on PI Pages, $628M a year on research, 598 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.