Robigou’s role in vent discovery clarified

An item in last week’s News Makers mistakenly named UW oceanographers Veronique Robigou and Debbie Kelley as participants on an expedition that discovered a new hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic. Instead, it was Kelley and colleagues from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Duke University who were leaders of the team making the discovery, a story covered by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and New York Times.

The field is unique because it was found on 1 million-year-old crust, is comprised of unexpected minerals such as carbonate, and the vent structures are the largest hydrothermal chimneys ever observed - some as tall as180 feet. As perspective in the LA Times story, Robigou described the largest previously known structure, a 135-foot-tall vent that Robigou helped discover in the early ’90s on the seafloor off the coast of Washington. It toppled over a few years ago.