🌊 We’re thrilled to share that #URIGSO’s @kennarubin.bsky.social has been named an Explorers Club 50 (EC50) honoree! Each year, the @theexplorersclub.bsky.social recognizes fifty extraordinary people advancing science & exploration across the globe. 🌊 🦑 🌋 🧪 ➡️ Read more: buff.ly/9Z3SEeG

🧪🌋Drawing clear connections between science & impacts on people (especially around natural hazards) has always mattered, but now feels more important than ever. Thrilled to teach OCG131G Volcanoes & Society this semester to a large, curious @universityofri.bsky.social student group of many majors.

Thrilled to in Explorers Club EC50 Class of 2026: an inspiring multinational cohort of extraordinary people pushing boundaries, doing remarkable science and exploration work across the planet. 50.explorers.org/community/ Thx @theexplorersclub.bsky.social & deepseadawn.bsky.social‬ nominating me 🧪🌋🌊

🧪🌋🌊 Deep-sea volcanic pyroclast formation decoded. Most submarine eruptions don't break the sea surface & are rarely observed. We're uncovering how energetic underwater eruptions produce distinctive fragmental deposits unlike subaerial plumes. 2 modes shown here presented at #AGU25. More in ALT text

🧪🌊 Stoked to see our DSV Alvin article named an Editor’s Favorite for 2025 by AGU’s Eos. 60 yrs of ocean discovery; the submersible is still evolving, thanks to an extraordinary community & long-term support from @whoi.edu #NSF #NOAA #ONR. Grateful to be a part of the story. eos.org/articles/our...

🧪🌋⚒️ Beautiful Kilauea volcano in #eruption again, with an unusual very high mass flux, near-lateral #lava fountain, next to a vertical fountain in episode 38, now, 6 Dec 2025, as seen live on the K2 usgs webcam. See video clip of usgs livestream at ~10 am hst youtube.com/clip/Ugkx-lk... #hawaii

🧪🌋⚒️ This never gets boring. A pulse of hot lava meanders down the vent proximal surface flow this morning at Kilauea volcano #Hawaii. More than just pretty, Volcanologists study time variations of lava, tephra & gas distribution, movement, & composition to understand volcanic processes and hazards

🧪🌋⚒️Kilauea putting on a show again! The vent was overflowing lava last night; this morning a rainbow arched over the crater. Looks like we’re heading for fountaining episode #36! Shoutout to #USGS_HVO for keeping the #openaccess live webcams streaming, rain or shine, to capture eruption frequency 🌈🔥

🧪🌊⚒️🌋 Can’t believe it’s been 3 years since my last deep-sea dive! Here’s a montage of #WHOI Alvin Dive 5097, from 6 km (20,000 ft) down. You’ll see glimpses of fresh lava flows and the remarkable life that thrives in the #DeepSea. #OceanExploration. Video by Kenna Rubin. Funding by NSF/NOAA/ONR.

🧪🌋⚒️ No fountains, but dramatic still: throwback moment to pre 2018 Caldero collapse USGS-HVO image of glow over Halemaumau lava lake during an intense lightning storm at #Kilauea #volcano summit, Oct 16, 2015.

🧪⚒️ What is it about erupting 🌋 that stirs us? Drama & destruction? Earth moving on timescales we can see & feel? The swagger of scientists who chase the fire? Thank you #USGS for the stunning YT #time-lapse of #Kilauea Caldera draining & refilling 2018 to now, & 4 all you do youtu.be/3uGiwlzxgHA?...

🧪🌋⚒️No current US federal funding (thanks, shutdown), but the cameras are still rolling!🔥Huge gratitude for #USGS_HVO keeping the live feed up: Early morning spatter & glowing surface flows today from #Kilauea’s Episode 35 in Halemaʻumaʻu crater are putting on a show. Catch it on the V1 & V3 cams.

Did you know that Earth's most & 2nd most powerful/explosive #volcanic #eruptions of the century were submarine? We are discussing both the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai (pictured) & the 2012 Havre eruptions, both in the Kingdom of Tonga, this week in my Submarine volcanoes course at #URIGSO 🧪🌋🌊

🧪🌊🌋 Many scientists have a single field moment that changes how they see their work. Mine is in this video clip. What’s yours? Video source is in the clip - see more below (1/3)

🧪🌋 What does one of the Kilauea #Volcano active vents look like between dramatic high fountaining eruption episodes happening roughly weekly in 2025? At night, you can see the conduit is a fuming, glowing-orange hole in the ground with magma 100s of m beneath the surface, waiting to repressurize.

West Mata 🌋 shots 4 #FieldPhotoFriday, described in ALT text. AI calls me an “Oceanographer 🌊 passionate about volcanoes, deep-sea science 🧪, community engagement & inclusivity,” then asks: “Are volcanoes just angry mountains? Is the government hiding underwater volcanic alien civilizations?” Hmm 😜!

🧪 Spiritual #sunrise at Puʻu Moaʻulanui heiau in 2018, on Kahoʻolawe’s summit, looking toward Haleakalā #volcano. I joined a small Univ. of Hawaiʻi team exploring ways to enable immersive student #sustainability training through the restoration of these sacred lands. #HandsOnLearning #Fieldwork

🧪🌊 R/V Endeavor, so central to the @urigso.bsky.social mission, returned home one last time, closing out 49 remarkable years of seagoing research with well-earned cheers for an amazing ship and crew. Is the ship's retirement a hint of broader things to come?

🧪🌋⚒️A day later and #Kilauea #Volcano eruption Episode 33 in Halema'uma'u is really going strong now. Watch the high fire-fountaining feeding surface follow live, at one of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory webcams, courtesy of #USGS. This screen shot is from V2 cam: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiyt...

🧪🌋⚒️Hawai‘i’s Pele is at it again! #Kilauea #Volcano Episode 33 began on Sep 17 & overnight brought low fountaining & lava overtopping the vent. Live frame grabs from USGS webcams 3 AM HST 18 Sep 25. Ongoing eruption started Dec 2024 & has periodic day-long pulses. Cam locations & link in ALT text.

Class today was about submarine lava‐flow morphology. wearing my first true autumn outfit of the season. These flows can be even more variable than those on land, thanks to factors like depth, viscosity, effusion rate, & seafloor slope (details in caption). Images: dx.doi.org/10.5670/ocea... 🧪🌋🌊⚒️

🧪🌊 Last week's joyous pre-semester selfies + some science 😉 40 yrs of university teaching, leadership & peer-reviewed research in topics like volcanology, deep-sea, coral reef, & environmental chemistry, taught me that girly scientists can be trusted academicians 🏳️‍⚧️, even in a world of so much hate.

What's more spectacular than actual (not ai) images of active, deep, submarine #volcanic #eruptions ? Happy to announce I'm teaching the inaugural iteration of Submarine Volcanoes this semester at URI, a course I taught many times at Univ. of Hawaii. I love sharing and talking about this content 🧪🌊🌋

I’m launching a Substack on solutions to the changing HigherEd landscape & decline of American universities. Looking to do anon. topical interviews, esp. around leadership & admin failures/successes, budget corporatization, mission creep, content politization, etc. DM me 2 🗣 #AcademicSky #EduSky 🧪

🧪🌋⚒️Not on summer break - More episodic super high lava Fountaining (>350m), this time captured being viewed up-close by a koaʻe kea bird, on the last day-long #Kilauea #eruption episode 27 (29 June 25), during which roughly 6,200,000 m3 of lava erupted. Cropped-edited #USGS image-see ALT text).

🧪🌋⚒️Yes! Super spicy, Super high lava Fountaining (350m=1150ft) in the last day-long #Kilauea #erutpion episode 26 (20 June 25; clip shortened from #USGS multimediaFile-4442.mp4). Eruption episodes have occurred roughly once/week since 23-December-24.EP28 on the way.

🧪🌊 Happy belated #WorldOceansDay 2025 unworldoceansday.org It isn't always dolphins & rainbows for #ocean #scientists, but I'm proud to be part of this passionate group of people sharing a goal to understand, preserve, educate, & protect the world beneath the waves. Gen AI image [repost w/alt text]

🧪🌊 No one's gonna ruin the vibe today as summer arrives in Southern New England. Views today of a bucolic coastal scene steps from my door, woodland creatures in the front yard, & R/V endeavor returning to @urigso.bsky.social after an oceanographic expedition, during her 49th year of service.

🧪🌊⚒️ Sharks in the water (for real & metaphorically). But as scientists we get back to work, regardless. This was 100m deep at Palmyra, Line Islands, on my Schmidt Ocean Institute program to study #sealevel & #climate change impacts on once shallow coral reef communities over time. More in ALT text.

🧪🌋⚒️. Mesmerizing timelapse of #Kilauea #Volcano #eruption episode 23 in its entirety from V3 webcam this past week, courtesy of USGS. Original video and caption at www.usgs.gov/media/videos.... Lava fountains reached 300m,and the ensuing solidified tephra plume reached an amazing 1.5 km!

🧪 I ❤️ this "big impacts" of US NSF funded discoveries & developments site. Please take a moment to appreciate. Should be a "no duh" moment, but unfortunately not for many Americans 3D printing, AI, Internet, GIS, Deep-sea (😍), human health, Gene Editing, Super Computing, etc. www.nsf.gov/impacts

🧪🌋⚒️. You don't see this every day: 🔥🔥🔥 volcanic vent at #Kilauea #Volcano as it emits and burns hydrogen gas mixed in with the major volcanic gasses (CO2, SO2, H2O), following episode 23 of the Halemaʻumaʻu #eruption, on 21 May 2025. Shortened from USGS video at www.usgs.gov/media/videos...

🧪🌊🌋⚒️ Despite current US science agency carnage, its a great season for federally funded deep submergence news, incl. by the @urigso.bsky.social team. Great timing too for a just-published special deep sea exploration issue of @eos.org with our DSV Alvin deep diving article eos.org/science-upda...

🧪🌊 a calm Sunday moment on a Spring weekend in coastal Rhode Island, where most folks highly value #ocean #science. The current purposeful USA government attack on #scientists, #academics, & #knowledge is designed for short & and long-term impacts that are all bad. Hoping the 🌎 picks up the pieces.

🧪🌊 Blue Innovation is in our blood at @universityofri.bsky.social. Thank you @venturewell.bsky.social & @noaa.gov. We are happy to partner, play a role, & showcase our infrastructure & commitment to ocean innovators. Here are some of my photos from during the event. Read more pbn.com/venturewell-...

🧪🌊🌋⚒️ What do you do when a 2.5-km-deep Pacific Ocean volcano erupts (3rd time in 33 yrs) with the Alvin sub in the water? You pull Alvin fast, coat a weight in Crisco, toss it overboard with a wireline acoustic locator beacon, & pull up fresh lava chips the "old fashioned" way. Specimens on the way😍

🧪🌊 This Friday's💩: Planned evisceration of US NSF just announced- research divisions abolished, massive layoffs, radical budget cuts. Fascists hate knowledge they can't control, so the gold standard of US science is doomed & our global science leadership will follow www.science.org/content/arti...

🧪🌊📷How is it being a US university Dean during the current peak of anti-science, anti-progress rhetoric, where greed, denial & personal belief threaten fact-based discovery, #climate crisis protection, & people's lives? 😔 Depressing. Especially seeing research grants pulled & lives forever impacted.

🧪🌋⚒️. Gorgeous display of glowing red flowing lava in pre-dawn light at #Kilauea #Volcano on 2 May 2025 as effusion of 8-hour-lomg Episode 19 of the ongoing of Halemaʻumaʻu #eruption, was ceasing at the vents. Basaltic Pahoehoe lava spreads like water over gently sloping landscapes like this.

🧪🌋⚒️ Yay 😊. Thank you #Kilauea #Volcano, #USGS, and helicopter support for giving us exciting high lava fountain footage yet again this week to share with BlueSky. This was from day-long episode 18 of the (thus far) 4 month long eruption: mod. from www.usgs.gov/media/videos... (deets in Alt text).

🧪🌋⚒️ Yay 😊. Kilauea Volcano is back at it. #USGS reports that Episode 18 of the ongoing Halemaʻumaʻu eruption resumed at 3:20 a.m. HST on April 22 . There is high fountaining going on right now, some 2 hrs later. Watch it live! This frame grab is from live stream video (link in Alt text)

🧪🌊 Breaking dawn over #Hawaii 🌋 on day 2 of a grueling 2 months of work at sea. With the massive recent foibles, including defunding so much quality scientific research & other gov't services, this is a metaphor. Can we skip the next several years of pain & just jump right to the nuremberg trials? 📷

🧪🌊🌋⚒️ Another #FieldPhotoFriday throwback to 2017. Perfect submarine pillow lavas, elongate, intact striated tubes on a very steep slope, decorated by living orange microbial mat, Tafu volcano, NE Lau spreading center. ROV Sebastian dive image on Schmidt Ocean Institute, Underwater Fire Expedition.

🧪🌋⚒️ Can't get enough of these mesmerizing zoomed-in night views of the active Kilauea volcano eruption in #Hawaii. This #USGS clip shows episode 10 activity from the North Vent in Feb 2025. The eruption began 23-Dec-24. Source: compressed/muted/shortened from www.usgs.gov/media/videos...

🧪🌋⚒️ Lava fountaining & tephra production is spectacular, but many volcanologists study the ensuing lava flows, e.g., as in these Apr-25 #USGS visual & thermal #Kilauea #Hawaii images. Length, thickness, & texture of these viscous fluid flows reflect eruption/cooling conditions, composition & rate.

🧪🌊 My photo seems poignant to the coming #storm. #NOAA is THE major oceanography research funder at @urigso.bsky.social & many others. Massive cuts to 'align' w/ cheeto's philosophy, or support private industry alternates, or to save 💰, are all dishonest & ruinous. www.science.org/content/arti...

🧪Oahu's 'freakosystems': "Deep in a #Hawaiian #forest, surrounded by tropical plants, are a warning from the future". www.bbc.com/future/artic... Captured this forest hiking spot a few yrs ago near my Oahu home. Don't know if any of these plants are native; but they're beautiful. Image link in ALT.

🧪🌋⚒️ Wait for it ... ( #USGS #kilauea #eruption time lapse): Only 9 of 31 hours of this episode (15) were high fountains, mostly from southern of 2 active vents. Volcanoes can be episodic on min. to yr. timescales. Since 23-Dec-24, we have seen 16 roughly day-long bursts w/ little action between.

🧪🌋⚒️ Powerful display: 200m high #lava fountain and 700m long lava flow from episode 16 of Kilauea summit eruption, 1-Apr-25, as seen from #USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory helicopter overflight. They report a 1.5 m-thick tephra blanket has formed near the vent since eruption beginning, 23-Dec-24.

🧪🌊I'm sad & dazed. US Fed agencies rightly backed broad science participants, perspectives, & access for 20 yrs. Now the educator in me wants to teach politicians not to defund that work using scientifically illiterate "DEI" keywords. Can we study ecosystems w/out diversity; data w/out bias checks?