Deepest volcano caught on Pacific Ocean video

[IndianaGreen]

Deepest volcano caught on Pacific Ocean video

Extraordinary video has been obtained in the Pacific Ocean of the deepest undersea eruption ever recorded.

The pictures show lavas bursting into the water at the West Mata submarine volcano, which is sited about 200km (125 miles) south-west of the Samoas.

The US Jason robotic submersible had to descend over 1,100m to acquire the high definition video.

The vehicle found microbes and a specialized volcano-dwelling shrimp thriving in hot, acidic waters.

"It's an extraordinary environment," said Joseph Resing, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Washington and the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean in Seattle, US.

"You have molten lavas at 1,400C producing acidic fluids - the sulphur dioxide makes these fluids as acidic as pH1.4 - and yet microbes are thriving," he told BBC News.

"The magmatic gases sustain and provide energy for microbial life, and then the microbes provide energy for the shrimp.

"We see them very close to the volcano - within metres."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8419736.stm

[n2doc]

1. another version

http://news.discovery.com/videos/earth-underwater-volcano-caught-on-video.html

They have a lot of video they haven't released yet. It is all in high def too. There's a sequence where they collect lava right from the flow using some kind of titanium pick which is really interesting.