Underwater Ring of Fire - Team Explores Subsea Volcano
Extract from Bernice Santiago • Pacific Daily News • April 20, 2009
"The extreme acidity of the fluids coming out of the vent alter the rocks and limit what sort of animals can live here," Walker noted, adding that scientists watched a fish drop abruptly to the sea floor after accidentally swimming into the volcanic plume.
Instruments
Along with sonar systems, plume sensors, and hydrophones -- instruments that detect sound waves from an underwater source -- the researchers are also using a Jason ROV, a remotely operated vehicle that can collect oceanic data in conditions inhospitable to humans.
Jason ROVs have been used to explore sunken warships and trading ships, along with deep ocean explorations of the Earth's crust and microbial life forms living at those extreme depths, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where the remote explorer was invented. The Jason ROV approached within 10 feet of a major eruptive site on NW Rota-1.
Scientific studies of NW Rota-1 will continue.
"The instruments we plan to leave behind will monitor the area continuously for the next year," wrote Walker.
Scientists also found two species of shrimp, limpets and barnacles thriving in the sulfur, carbon dioxide, and heat produced by the volcano. The animals survive on the complex, diverse communities of microbes that blanket the volcano.
"The extreme acidity of the fluids coming out of the vent alter the rocks and limit what sort of animals can live here," Walker noted, adding that scientists watched a fish drop abruptly to the sea floor after accidentally swimming into the volcanic plume.
