How do volcanoes form underwater in Sydney Australia-A cluster of submerged Volcanoes (Submarine Volcanoes) were found off the coast of Sydney, the capital city of Australia, scientists said Monday.
How do volcanoes form underwater? Expert says, the lava formed by submarine volcanoes is quite different from terrestrial lava. Upon contact with water, a solid crust forms around the lava.
“Advancing lava flows into this crust, forming what is known as pillow lava. Scientists still have much to learn about the place and activity of underwater volcanoes.”
According to Richard Arculus from the Australian National University, an igneous petrologist and a world-leading expert on volcanoes, these types of volcanoes are windows into the seafloor.
“They tell us part of the story of how New Zealand and Australia separated around 40 to 80 million years ago and they will now help scientists target future exploration of the sea floor to unlock the secrets of the Earth’s crust,” Arculus said.
The cluster of four volcanoes are calderas, form after a volcano erupts, the land around them collapses and form a crater. It is believed to be 50 million years old. The volcano cluster is nearly 5 km underwater. The cluster is 20 km and the largest volcano is about 1.5 km across the rim and rises 700 metres from the sea floor, scientists said.
“But there’s no real chance they are going to erupt again, these guys have been dead for a long time. “And volcanic activity in the Tasman Sea is extinct,” Arculus said about the volcanoes being extinct.
A group of scientist, using its multi-beam sonar arm to map the seabed searching for larval lobster breeding grounds, discovered the extinct volcanoes 250 kilometers offshore in Sydney, Professor Iain Suthers, the chief scientist for the research said.
The researchers’ mapping ability has uncover an “enormously exciting” discovery, it is the first time such technology has been used in the area, Prof Richard Arculus said.
Previous seafloor mappings can only reach in depths up to 3,000 metres, but this research team can map the seafloor at any depth.
Suthers said, “The voyage was enormously successful, not only did we discover a cluster of volcanoes on Sydney’s doorstep, we were amazed to find that an eddy off Sydney was a hotspot for lobster larvae at a time of the year when we were not expecting them.”
Suthers’ team includes 28 scientits from several universities, researchers from NSW, Latrobe, British Columbia, Sydney, Auckland, Technology Sydney and Southern Cross universities.
They left Brisbane, June 3 and arrived June 18 in Sydney. Image / How do volcanoes form underwater-The ancient underwater volcanoes about 250km off the coast of Sydney as sonar mapped by the Investigator research vessel.
