EXPLORERS DISCOVER UNDERSEA VOLCANO'S LONG-TERM ERUPTION
The eruption
is at Brimstone Pit, a vent high on the side of the large submarine
volcano "In three international expeditions spanning more than two years, we've discovered a submarine volcano erupting perhaps continuously and often violently, spewing rocks that sometimes forced us to back away our remotely operated vehicles," said Bob Embley, an oceanographer with the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Newport, Ore., and chief scientist on missions in 2004 and 2006. "But with those underwater robots, we could often get in close to take compelling images and to sample the chemistry in ways not possible with volcanoes on land."
A 2006 NOAA-sponsored mission completed earlier this month obtained new and dramatic video and audio recordings of the continuing eruption. An interdisciplinary team of 21 scientists from the U.S., Japan, Canada and New Zealand sailed on the research vessel Melville, operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The science team worked closely with the Deep Submergence Operations Group of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to use the remotely operated vehicle Jason II to explore and collect samples on nine different active submarine volcanoes. A chronicle of the mission, including eruptive sounds and images, is online.
"Locally, carbon dioxide forms waterfalls of bubbles in front of the advancing lava," said Cornel de Ronde, a geologist with New Zealand's Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences, when describing Brimstone Pit. "It is these different gases that are the force behind the vigorous 'mini-explosions' within the lava flow." Verena Tunnicliffe, the Canada Research Chair in Deep Oceans and professor at the University of Victoria, Canada, was on the 2006 mission to study chemosynthetic life—life based on chemicals. "On NW Rota, not many animals would want to live on an erupting volcano, but two feisty shrimp species are able to reap the benefits of the volcano's hydrothermal activity where heated fluids are full of reduced chemicals that foster the growth of bacteria. Bacterial mats coat many rock and rubble surfaces thus forming an abundant food source for animals that can use such mats," she said. At Daikoku Volcano on the northern part of the Mariana Arc chain, researchers found a pool of liquid sulfur at a depth of 1,365 feet with a "crust" moving in a wavelike motion from continuous flow of gas from below. Liquid sulfur and clouds of gases rich in hydrogen sulfide and other sulfur gases, could be linked to an unusually high density of chemosynthetic organisms found on Mariana submarine volcanoes. "These expeditions are part of our mission to explore the ocean for the purpose of discovery and the advancement of knowledge," said Steve Hammond, acting director of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration. "They are critically important pathfinding missions that challenge us to understand the fundamental processes of the ocean and how they affect our lives." NOAA, an
agency of the U.S. Department of
Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national
safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related
events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal
and marine resources. Relevant Web Sites NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration Media
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