Researchers See Underwater Eruption

A world of underwater volcanic eruptions, bone-crushing ocean pressures, and bizarre life-forms has revealed new information about how the surface of the planet is created.

Researchers at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory released findings last month describing an underwater volcanic eruption that happened Jan. 22 at a segment of the East Pacific Rise near Mexico, the first time one has ever been witnessed by scientists.

"This is something that the [scientific] community has been trying to achieve for decades," marine geophysicist Maya Tolstoy said. "It's of fundamental importance to the planet-how the surface is formed."

The site has been monitored since 2003. Each year, researchers recover data from instruments and put down new ones to take their place. This April, when Tolstoy and her colleagues went out to recover the previous year's instruments, only four came back.

Scientists eventually concluded that the ocean-bottom seismometers had been engulfed in a volcanic eruption at the East Pacific Rise. "It's the first time it was documented in detail, the first time there were seismic instruments on top of it [an underwater eruption]," Tolstoy said.

The program, a prime aspect of current research at the observatory, is part of the Ridge 2000 program sponsored by the National Science Foundation, where Tolstoy's crew conducts integrated research with teams of biologists, chemists, and geologists.

The finding did prove what the scientists had thought was occurring. "We had predicted this would happen from the previous two years-there was a steadily increasing number of volcano eruptions," Tolstoy said.

Underwater volcanic eruptions are quite different from their terrestrial counterparts. Land volcanoes tend to be single points, while sea floor volcanoes are usually found in long chains.

The East Pacific Rise site is also "a more dynamic system," Tolstoy said. "It's spreading at 110 millimeters a year."

The discovery is just the start of further research associated with the site.

"There are a myriad of things [still left to learn]," Tolstoy said. "One thing we're hoping to get is the full volcanic cycle. We monitored before and leading up to the eruption, and now we want data after."

Tolstoy believes that this particular cycle takes about 15 years, with the last eruption in the section of the East Pacific Rise under investigation happening in 1991.

Scientists also hope to learn more about the structure of undersea hydrothermal vents 8,000 feet below the surface of the oceans, and how they impact their ecosystems on a day-to-day basis.

"Hydrothermal vents get very bizarre life-forms," Tolstoy said. "When an eruption happens, it barbecues everything that lives there and the biological community starts from scratch again."