Posted on 06/08/2004 3:44:57 PM PDT by PeaceBeWithYou
"At first we really didn't understand what was going on," said Bob Embley, chief scientist on the mission, which involved nearly three dozen researchers."We were seeing billowing clouds coming up and turning yellow. There was sulfur and rocks were flying out," said Embley, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. "We realized we were the first to witness a deep-sea volcano during an eruptive episode."
He added: "The amazing thing is we were able to sample it. ... It would not have been a good place to be in a manned submersible."
The material from the eruption is still being studied. It was highly caustic, Embley said, damaging the camera lenses even though the robotic submarine was quickly backed away from the volcano.
The volcano, with a rim 1,800 feet below the sea surface, was named "Brimstone Pit" by the scientists.
The discovery, northwest of the island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands, came during a 21-day voyage to study undersea volcanoes in the western Pacific. Nearly 70 percent of the world's volcanoes are undersea, Embley said in a telephone interview.
Also on the team was Bill Chadwick, a volcanologist with the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies at Oregon State University. "We were just going from one incredible event to the next, seeing things we had never witnessed before," he said.
The trip, which ended April 18, included studies of geology and marine life in both deep and shallow areas.
In upper levels of the oceans, life draws energy from sunlight. Because deeper areas are dark, life there gets its energy from chemicals released by hot ocean vents.
At a bit more than 600 feet deep the researchers found a zone where the two overlap, finding both light-loving and chemical-using life forms, Embley said.
"The biologists were amazed to see this ... two of earth's ecosystems overlapping. That is very unusual," he said. "We don't know the implications."
Scientists from the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Japan participated in the work and took home samples to study.
In another area of the Mariana Trench, the researchers found bubbles of liquid carbon dioxide being released into the sea, enlarging up to a thousand times and turning to gas as they drifted upward in the sea.
Steve Hammond, chief scientist for NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration, termed the find "a natural laboratory where the effects of carbon dioxide on marine organisms can be studied."
The liquid form of carbon dioxide is present due to the great depth and the resulting pressure at the site. At 5,263 feet, about a mile deep, the pressure from the water column is 160 times more than the air pressure at sea level.
A similar effort a year earlier gathered preliminary data on the area near Guam and the Mariana Islands. Next year, Embley said, the research will focus on underwater volcanoes north of New Zealand.
He pointed out that although most of the planet is covered with water the undersea regions have not been thoroughly studied in the past.
"Out there on our own planet there are volcanoes erupting under the ocean, putting chemicals into the ocean, interchanging gases (into the water and air), affecting biology. We should know about these things," Embley said.
"Microbes in extreme environments produce enzymes that could be of medical use," he added.
The research was funded by the NOAA Ocean Exploration Program and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
On the Net: NOAA Ocean Explorer
But the Kyoto cronies will minimise the impact by volcano eruptions as being less important than man's 'arrogance'.
Interesting about the CO2 being liquid at depth, and the 'bot cam had it's lense damaged during the eruption due to the acidity, and likely heat, of the eruption.
Good find, thanks for posting it!
Sounds like my 6 year old in the bathtub....
BWA-hah-hah!
Yes.
Happens.
...Glad to see science articles posted on FR. Great article, good on yer...
Yep. There are CO2 wells in Imperial County CA, just south of the Salton Sea. That is in the area of a fading triple junction involving the North American, Pacific and another minor plate. The East Pacific rise comes on land there but only just. Still, the fact that there is CO2 coming out there is rather telling.
...Glad to see science articles posted on FR. Great article, good on yer...
Thanks for posting this.
There is usable co2 under the area around Clayton, NM. I believe it is refered to as the "Bravo Dome" area.
Sorry I'm so late to this thread, but how, exactly, are we causing stress to the earth's crust? And how does that relate to underwater volcanos?
Get with the program, Bill. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, "read the ENTIRE script, before trying to ad-lib."
Regards,
John Lithgow
(Pay no mind; it's just Issac, gassing off.)
Also wells in the Cortez, CO area. I believe a pipeline takes it to Texas where the CO2 is injected into oil fields as a secondary recovery process.
Ah, I see my humor bone was deactivated. Sorry. I misinterpreted your post as serious.
I agree that these underwater volcanos will affect ocean temps and thus weather. I wonder why the global warming crowd isn't here to shout this down. It's all human activity's fault, right?
Even more important, the primary (and the only significant) source of water replacement on the planet. Add more water to the ocean, especially hot water, and what do you get?
Well, if the atmosphere warms, it expands (unlike an actual greenhouse). That expansion causes cooling and outgassing (aka Boyle). The oceans evaporate, and have to be replenished. It is not a closed system. The effects on global albedo, atmospheric pressure, currents, everything, works in harmony, as it has for millions of years.
Very interesting. They, of course, give no hint that this could in any way affect Global Warming.
bttt
LOL! The sad thing is that in a few years someone may say it seriously. One of those who think the earth was in perfect harmony before we evil messy humans came along...
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