URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Winter_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

how much carbon exists in the solid parts of Earth, a few hundred kilometers beneath the surface. Carbon, of course, has an important role on Earth’s surface. However, the Earth’s solid interior is where probably 90 percent of the planet’s carbon resides. Much of Kelley’s research looks at subduction zones where tectonic plates meet, resulting in one plate moving down beneath the other, into the planet’s interior. The plate that is moving downward is heavily oxidized and hydrated by virtue of having been near Earth’s surface for a long time. As the plate moves downward, the water is rendered into the mantle creating explosive volcanoes. “I’m looking at what happens when you take material that has been on Earth’s surface and put it into the deep interior,” she explains, noting that the action modifies the upper part of Earth’s interior.

The object of Katherine Kelley’s research lies far beneath the Earth’s surface, out of reach and not fully understood, yet deeply tied to the formation of the everyday ground on which we walk. Fascinated by the planet’s breathing through volcanic eruptions, Kelley, an associate professor at the University of Rhode Island (URI) Graduate School of Oceanography says, “We know a lot less about the Earth’s interior than the surface because it is very inaccessible to us.” To help yield clues and a greater body of knowledge, Kelley is participating in a global program called Deep Carbon Observatory, a massive investigative effort trying to determine

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by Rudolph Hempe

winter / 2015 page 35