Hurricane Sleuth

When Geologist Jeff Donnelly of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) hunts for hurricanes, he does it safely at ground level, or just slightly below.  He is even able to do it without having to encounter so much as a drop of rain or a gust of wind.   With funding from the National Science Foundation, Donnelly leads a team that studies long term global hurricane patterns.  They travel to coastal areas where a hurricane’s storm surge has washed over beaches and left sediment deposits, such as sand, in areas where there normally wouldn’t be any.  By drilling and studying cores from different points around the Atlantic Ocean, he and his team have been able to paint a picture of long term global hurricane activity.  They’ve unearthed some interesting findings about past hurricane activity which might give us a hint about what we can expect in the future.

Provided by the National Science Foundation
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