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Underwater Volcanoes discovered in Antarctica
last update: Jul 19, 2011 08:52 PM
From various articles: A slew of previously undiscovered underwater volcanoes in the ocean waters around the remote South Sandwich Islands, have been discovered by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
The scientists were on a research cruise, working from the RSS James Clark Ross, and used ship-borne sea-floor mapping technology to discover the volcanoes. They found 12 volcanoes sitting beneath the surface of the ocean, some reaching up to 3 kilometres in height. They also found 5 kilometre diameter craters caused as a result of collapsing volcanoes and another 7 active volcanoes that are visible above the ocean surface as a chain of islands.
Dr Phil Leat from the British Antarctic Survey, speaking at the International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences in Edinburgh. “There is so much that we don’t understand about volcanic activity beneath the sea, it’s likely that volcanoes are erupting or collapsing all the time. The technologies that scientists can now use from ships not only give us an opportunity to piece together the story of the evolution of our earth, but they also help shed new light on the development of natural events that pose hazards for people living in more populated regions on the planet.”
Research such as this is important for understanding what happens when volcanoes erupt or collapse underwater, and what such actions mean for creating tsunamis and other serious hazards.
Read:
Planet Save, 12th July 2011
SME Science, 14th July 2011
UPI, 11th July 2011
Global Adventures, 12th July 2011
Voice of America, 13th July 2011
Online Journal, 14th July 2011
Scientific American, 18th July 2011
Spatial Source, 19th July 2011
MSNBC, 12th July 2011
The Inquisitr, 13th July 2011
