submerged volcanic eruptions are barely seen , but their consequence tell the tale of some truly salient pyrotechnic . Back in 2012 , for exercise , a submerged fiery fountain emit the tantamount ofseven Manhattan’s - worthof volcanic debris in less than a mean solar day , which was first spotted not in mortal , but from space .
Now , as highlighted by a stain - new subject field by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ( CSIRO ) , along with the Universities of Aberdeen and Adelaide – two instauration a geographical world aside – underwater lava flows , when mapped , can bet extremely dreamlike too .
Although the paper itself is n’t brave enough to make the compare , the team’spress releasesuggests that this submerse hellscape see a lot like “ Mordor - under - the - sea , ” which sounds like a much - needed mashup ofLord of the RingsandThe Little Mermaid . To be mediocre , though , the mapping you ’ll find inLord of the Ringsdo spirit a mountain like these new works of volcanic cartography .
for make these rather aesthetically pleasing maps , the international squad of geophysicist beamed seismal sign from a gravy boat down to the seafloor . Seismic waves reflect and travel through object otherwise depending on what they ’re made of , and using this information , complex , 3D picture of otherwise obscured landscapes can be created .
In a way , it ’s like creating a house painting using seismic waves .
So what have CSIRO and co. actually mapped ? Well , they were sail over the Bight Basin Igneous Complex ( BBIC ) , a 120 - kilometer ( 81 - mile ) long site of volcanism off the glide of southern Australia dating back to the middle of the Eocene date of reference , between 56 and 34 million years ago .
The squad found 26 buried lava flows , link up with volcano both grandiloquent and small . They pasture in distance from 0.5 klick ( 0.31 mile ) to a banging 34 kilometers ( 21 miles ) , and their structure appears to intimate that they were take fire offshore in water supply depths of around 300 meters ( 984 feet ) .
As reported in the journalGeochemistry , Geophysics , Geosystems , all of these frozen flows expose a grasp of curious feature . Their anastomosing nature has surrounded older scrap of the now - bury seafloor , create islands of land gloriously name “ kipukas ” .
All in all , it ’s created a hilly , otherworldly environment , full of shield volcanoes and hydrothermal vent , now colligate beneath the waves and sand .
look – Australia , a landnot on the button famedfor its volcanism , used to feature some pretty substantial eruptions ? That ’s right , dear readers .
In fact , it used to beincredibly volcanic : 106 million years ago , as Australia rifted away from Antarctica during the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana , eruptions could be so powerful that debris was motivate 2,300 kilometer ( 1,430 Roman mile ) away from the source venthole .
Lest we forget that some vent in Australia are surprisingly young , with fib of their eruption top down by Aboriginals for7,000 years or so .
Australia ’s southern margin was notoriously volcanic , and the BBIC was a product of this . There have been heap of explanations purpose as to why this was the case , ranging from strange crustal behavior to an upwelling plume of mantle stuff bang as the Cosgrove hot spot .
In any case , U-boat volcanism is , by and large speak , poorly empathize . This case of pioneer research will help improve our understanding of how it works , where all its get-up-and-go buy the farm , and what kinds of underwater architecture it ’s capable of producing .
The team ’s bailiwick concludes by notice that their workplace “ play up the usefulness of seismal data as a tool for explore ancient volcanic provinces . ” As has been made well-defined , it ’s also rather good at producing maps worthy of Tolkien .
