Loihi Seamount Notes
EXPLORING LOIHI: THE NEXT HAWAIIAN ISLAND
Twenty-one miles off the Big Island, nearly 3,000 feet beneath the waves, an island is struggling to be born. Researchers are taking submersibles to the very bottom of the sea to watch the process unfold.
Quiet as a falling pebble, the Pisces V submersible begins its descent to the ocean floor. Soon the downwelling light wanes and the pilot and a pair of scientists inside are swallowed up in inky blackness - a darkness as absolute as interstellar space.
Half an hour later, at -3,200 feet, an unearthly netherworld looms into view: the long, narrow summit of an undersea volcano. Pisces' powerful searchlights sweep across the summit, illuminating two pit craters up to 1,200 feet deep inside the caldera. The sub touches down at Pele's Vents, named after the Hawaiian volcano goddess. The water shimmers eerily where warm, toxic fluids stream out into the cold ocean. Sulfur-yellow chimneys up to a foot tall encase the vents and spongy carpets of tangerine orange drape the rocks.
The voyagers have arrived at Loihi Seamount, a 9,000 foot (2,700m) volcano 21 miles (34 km) off the Big Island. The volcano, which started forming only a few hundred thousand years ago, is growing slowly up toward the surface of the sea. In perhaps another 60,000 years, it will emerge from the waves, taking its place beside the other 125 volcanic islands in the Hawaiian-Emperor island chain. The growth of this volcano is giving scientists an opportunity to witness an Earth drama never before seen: the birth of a Hawaiian island.
Like tiny Lilliputians scurrying around Gulliver, researchers in submersibles have been probing and measuring Loihi since 1987. The growing seamount is offering scientists new insights into the evolution of volcanoes, the evolution of life and perhaps even the evolution of the Earth itself. Research on the nature of Loihi has already revised ideas about the workings of the planet's largest known hot spot. Recent
Twenty-one miles off the Big Island, nearly 3,000 feet beneath the waves, an island is struggling to be born. Researchers are taking submersibles to the very bottom of the sea to watch the process unfold.
Quiet as a falling pebble, the Pisces V submersible begins its descent to the ocean floor. Soon the downwelling light wanes and the pilot and a pair of scientists inside are swallowed up in inky blackness - a darkness as absolute as interstellar space.
Half an hour later, at -3,200 feet, an unearthly netherworld looms into view: the long, narrow summit of an undersea volcano. Pisces' powerful searchlights sweep across the summit, illuminating two pit craters up to 1,200 feet deep inside the caldera. The sub touches down at Pele's Vents, named after the Hawaiian volcano goddess. The water shimmers eerily where warm, toxic fluids stream out into the cold ocean. Sulfur-yellow chimneys up to a foot tall encase the vents and spongy carpets of tangerine orange drape the rocks.
The voyagers have arrived at Loihi Seamount, a 9,000 foot (2,700m) volcano 21 miles (34 km) off the Big Island. The volcano, which started forming only a few hundred thousand years ago, is growing slowly up toward the surface of the sea. In perhaps another 60,000 years, it will emerge from the waves, taking its place beside the other 125 volcanic islands in the Hawaiian-Emperor island chain. The growth of this volcano is giving scientists an opportunity to witness an Earth drama never before seen: the birth of a Hawaiian island.
Like tiny Lilliputians scurrying around Gulliver, researchers in submersibles have been probing and measuring Loihi since 1987. The growing seamount is offering scientists new insights into the evolution of volcanoes, the evolution of life and perhaps even the evolution of the Earth itself. Research on the nature of Loihi has already revised ideas about the workings of the planet's largest known hot spot. Recent