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Antarctic vulcanism

More on the case of the under-ice volcanoes found in Antarctica from Jennifer Marohasy:

Fire Under the Arctic Ice
An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption.

"The Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and buried thriving Pompeii under a layer of ash and pumice. Far away in the Arctic Ocean, at 85� N 85� E, a similarly violent volcanic eruption happened almost undetected in 1999 � in this case, however, under a water layer of 4,000 m thickness."

EurekAlert: Fire under the ice
Nature: Explosive volcanism on the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel ridge, Arctic Ocean

I had posted about the under-ice volcanoes earlier in May of this year: Just one more - Antarctic "Warming" This was another paper at Nature, from a different team as the one above and it had these wonderful two images that make things perfectly clear what is driving things in that neck of the woods:

This is the average temperature trend from 1982 to 2004 - note the areas of warming and the areas of cooling.



Overlay this with the location of all of the active volcanoes.

Both photos are thumbnails and can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Posted by DaveH at June 26, 2008 7:18 PM