Welcome to Reach the World’s virtual exchange with the International Ocean Discovery Programs’ Tyrrhenian Continent-Ocean Transition Expedition!
You’ve heard about tectonic plates, right? Those massive pieces of the Earth’s crust that float atop a sea of molten rock at the core of our planet? Tectonic plates are always moving, brushing against each other (creating earthquakes), rising over or under one another (creating mountains), and releasing liquid rock onto the planet’s surface (creating new islands). These are powerful forces! Scientists are especially curious about areas where tectonic plates come together or are being torn apart, and many of those places are found in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans—making them very hard to study.
One exception is the Tyrrhenian Sea, located just west of Italy. It’s there that the Eurasian tectonic plate (known as a continental plate) is being slowly torn apart. This process creates new oceanic tectonic plate on the seafloor, all in a hotbed of geological activity known as a continent-ocean transition zone. The Tyrrhenian Sea is relatively shallow (maximum of about two miles deep), and many of the rock clues scientists are seeking can be found close to the seabed, covered by a thin layer of sediment. It is the perfect place to collect the clues needed to better understand what’s really going on at continent-ocean transition zones here and elsewhere around the world!
Climb aboard the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution as it travels from Sicily to the Tyrrhenian Sea on a mission to collect rock core samples from this highly active seabed. What is it like to like and work on a ship? How can scientists collect rocks from miles beneath the water’s surface? What can we learn from the valuable clues they collect? Get answers to all of these questions and much more by joining this virtual exchange expedition today!
