Map showing some of the new lava flows erupted at Axial Seamount in 2011. Dark blue areas are where there is no depth change, light blue indicates a lava thickness of 3-5 meters, and orange areas show where the lava thickness is as much as 15 meters. (Image: Dave Caress, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Copyright 2011 MBARI)

Oregon scientists who correctly predicted the 2011 eruption of the Axial Seamount underwater volcano years before it occurred, now say another underwater volcano off the Oregon coast gave off signals just hours before it erupted.

Underwater hydrophones showed a sudden increase in seismic energy about 2.6 hours before the eruption started about 400 kilometers off the Oregon coast, according to the scientific team. The development signals that it might eventually be possible to forecast eruptions of undersea volcanoes.

The scientists noticed a cyclic pattern of ground deformation measurements – which measures the changes in ground shape which can occur before, during and after an eruption – that suggests the Axial Seamount could also erupt again, perhaps as soon as 2018.

For four years before the 2011 eruption, marine geologist Bob Dziak and other team members noted that, while there was a gradual build up in the number of small earthquakes, there was only a small increase in the overall seismic energy produced from those earthquakes.  But, just a few hours before Axial erupted on April 6, 2011, that began to change.

“The hydrophones picked up the signal of literally thousands of small earthquakes within a few minutes, which we traced to magma rising from within the volcano and breaking through the crust,” Dziak said. “As the magma ascends, it forces its way through cracks and creates a burst of earthquake activity that intensifies as it gets closer to the surface.

Using seismic analysis, the team was able see just how the magma rose within the volcano about two hours before the eruption.

The chain is all that is visible of an ocean-bottom hydrophone buried in about six feet of new lava from an April 2011 eruption of Axial Seamount. (photo courtesy of Bill Chadwick and Bob Dziak of Oregon State University; copyright Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

“Whether the seismic energy signal preceding the eruption is unique to Axial or may be replicated at other volcanoes isn’t yet clear,” said Dziak, “but it gives scientists an excellent base from which to begin.”

To make their findings, the Oregon team had some other unique tools at their disposal, including a one-of-a-kind robotic submersible used to bounce sound waves off the seafloor, allowing scientists to map the topography of the Axial Seamount before and after the eruption.  Having a before-and-after map allowed geologists to clearly distinguish the lava flows from the 2011 eruption from the flows of previous eruptions in the area.

Over the next few years, the researchers will install a number of new underwater instruments and cables around Axial Seamount, which they say will help scientists monitor the ocean and seafloor off  the Pacific Northwest.

This image, with more than a dozen lava coils visible, shows an area in a volcanic region named Cerberus Palus that is about 500 meters wide. (Photo: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

An Arizona State University graduate student has discovered unique spiral patterns in solidified lava flows on the surface of Mars.

In a paper published in Science, Andrew Ryan describes the snail-like patterns as ranging in size from about one meter to 30 meters across.

While lava flows such as these have been found on the Big Island of Hawaii and near the Galapagos Rift on the Pacific Ocean floor, Ryan says they’ve never been detected on Mars before.

Ryan was originally doing research into possible interactions of lava flows with floods of water in the Elysium volcanic province located near the Mars equator.

Some of the features of this Martian volcanic region include what has been described as large slabs or plates of volcanic rock that look like the broken floes of pack ice that can be found in Earth’s Arctic Ocean.

For several years, scientists have theorized there was a frozen ocean in that region, and that the physical appearance of the  volcanic plate’s chunks of ice floe may be caused by ice that lies beneath them.

It was these claims of ice that drew Ryan to focus his research on that area of Mars.

Newer lava lying between two older plates of rough, hardened lava was still hot and plastic enough to form coils and spirals when the plates slid past one another. This image shows an area about 360 meters wide in Cerberus Palus.   (Photo: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Ryan was fascinated by the terrain that lies between the plates and the high-centered polygonal patterns that were found there.

That led him to examine images of the region captured by the various Martian probes circling the planet.

After scrutinizing almost 100 images, Ryan determined that the various landforms, including the lava flow coils, that he saw were indeed volcanic and not ice related.

His findings confirmed what he and his colleagues had thought all along.

“This region is very close to the Martian equator and we don’t expect to find near-surface ice that close to the equator,” Ryan says.

As to how the lava flows coils themselves were formed, Ryan explains, “The coils form on flows where there’s a shear stress — where flows move past each other at different speeds or in different directions.  Pieces of rubbery and plastic lava crust can either be peeled away and physically coiled up — or wrinkles in the lava’s thin crust can be twisted around.”

Once some numerical modeling has been done, Ryan says that it might be possible to learn a bit about the composition of the lava that formed the coils.

He also plans to do further research which he hopes will help determine the viscosity, or thickness, of the lava while it was solidifying and forming the coils.

Andrew Ryan joins us on this week’s radio edition of Science World to talk about his discovery, as well as the research and study he conducted to back-up his findings.  Tune in (see right column for scheduled times) or check out the interview below.

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Other stories we cover on the “Science World” radio program this week include:

• India launches new observation satellite
• Study: Africa may have huge supplies of freshwater underground
• Experts say no danger from new case of mad cow disease
• WHO sees gains in fight against malaria but concerns remain
• HIV treatments may also work to help prevent initial infection
• First US commercial resupply mission to the ISS postponed
• Titanic director backs plan to mine precious metals from asteroids