Floating Pumice

Community structure and biogeochemical impacts of microbial life on floating pumice.

Volcanic eruptions are a widespread force of geological and ecological disturbance and present recurrent opportunities for the study of biological responses to novel habitat formation. However, scientific study of such events is difficult given their short duration and often distant location. Here we report results from opportunistic sampling of unique volcano-generated habitats formed during t...

Pumice-pumice collisions and the effect of the impact angle

[1] Using a high-speed video camera, we studied oblique collisions of lapilli-size pumice cylinders (with no rotation before impact) on flat pumice targets. Our results show that the rebound angle, the ratios of the components of velocities and the energy loss vary with the impact angle. In particular, in collisions with an average yaw angle approximately equal to zero, we observed relatively l...

Pumice Aggregates for Internal Water Curing

A novel concept in internal curing of High Performance Concrete is based on dispersing very small, saturated lightweight aggregates (LWA) in the concrete, containing sufficient water to counteract self-desiccation. With this approach, the amount of water in the LWA can be minimized, thus economizing on the amount of the LWA. In this study, the pore structure of different size fractions of pumic...

Recovering DNA from agarose gels with pumice.

Rapid, Long-Distance Dispersal by Pumice Rafting

Pumice is an extremely effective rafting agent that can dramatically increase the dispersal range of a variety of marine organisms and connect isolated shallow marine and coastal ecosystems. Here we report on a significant recent pumice rafting and long-distance dispersal event that occurred across the southwest Pacific following the 2006 explosive eruption of Home Reef Volcano in Tonga. We hav...