Karen Louise Von Damm was an American marine geochemist that researched submarine hydrothermal vent systems. Her research significantly advanced research in how vent fluids acquire their chemical composition and how those chemicals support biological communities since black smoker hot springs were first discovered on the mid-ocean ridge in 1979.
Early life and education
Von Damm grew up in the Astoria neighborhood of the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. Her father, H.W. Von Damm, ran a family in Brooklyn, New York. Von Damm credits her mother giving her the initial interest in chemistry, as her mother was a chemistry major and gave Von Damm a chemistry set one Christmas as a young child. Von Damm attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan borough, New York City, New York. Von Damm earned her B.S. degree in geology and geophysics from Yale University in 1977, completing a senior thesis in geochemistry researching radioactive 210Pb in lacustrine and marine environments under the mentorship of Karl Turekian. Her Ph.D. in oceanography was earned through the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program in 1983 under her adviser John Edmond. Her dissertation is titled Chemistry of submarine hydrothermal solutions at 21o North, East Pacific Rise and Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California. Von Damm was diagnosed with liver cancer in April 2008 and died at her home in Durham, New Hampshire on August 15, 2008 at 53 years of age. Her ashes were spread in the Pacific Ocean prior to DSV Alvin Dive 4464 to rest at P-Vent on the East Pacific Rise, an area Von Damm spent much of her time researching.
Research career
After completion of her Ph.D., Von Damm spent two years in the laboratory of James Bischoff at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California. As a National Research Council post-doctoral associate, she worked on determining the solubility of quartz in seawater at elevated temperatures and pressures. Her next four years were spent at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Knoxville, Tennessee as a staff geochemist and environmental scientist. During this same time, Von Damm was a Research Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, researching mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal systems. Von Damm joined the faculty at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, in 1992. She was a professor of geochemistry in the UNH Department of Earth Science and as a researcher at UNH's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space. Von Damm's research is cited as the cornerstone of understanding sea floor hydrothermal systems, specifically for changing pre-existing paradigms for the chemical budget of the ocean, the accretion of oceanic crust along the mid-ocean ridge, the biology of the deep sea, and the origin of life on earth. She made measurements on vent fluids during hundreds of submersible dives in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. Starting in 1991, Von Damm studied how the fluid chemistry at hydrothermal vents changes with time before, during, and after mid-ocean ridge volcanic eruptions.
Leadership
In the late 1980s, Von Damm was named as an advisor to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration VENTS program. From 1995-1998, Von Damm served as Chair of the RIDGE Steering Committee, funded by the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Sciences Division. In addition, she served on the National Science Foundation’s Geoscience Advisory Board and as chair of a committee to design a 21st-century research submersible for the U.S. science community.
