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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (4841)	4/24/2005 12:40:19 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 36921

--- RESEARCHERS DISCOVER UNEXPECTED UNDERSEA VOLCANO IN ANTARTICA Author: Lorinda Peterson Date: June 14, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marine scientists have found what they believe to be an active and previously unknown volcano on the sea bottom in the hostile waters off the Antarctic Peninsula. The discovery came as a surprise to an international research team trying to determine why a massive floating extension of a portion of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, known as the Larsen Ice Shelf had collapsed and broken up there several years ago. Queen’s geographer Robert Gilbert was the only Canadian researcher on the project led by Eugene Domack from Hamilton College in New York State. Severe sea ice conditions prevented reaching the primary sites at Larsen Ice Shelf, so the researchers diverted to the sea mount where conditions were more favorable, he said. This enabled them to assess whether an anomaly recorded on the sea floor during a 2001 expedition was indeed a volcano. The volcano, which has yet to be named, is unusual in that it exists on the continental shelf, in the vicinity of a deep trough carved out by glaciers passing across the seafloor. Dr. Gilbert, the only Canadian researcher conducting ice shelf research says the volcano may partially or completely postdate the last glaciation, making it a relatively recent phenomenon, perhaps less than several tens of thousands of years old. “Temperature in the water just above the surface of the volcano, and the presence of gas in the water above it suggest that the volcano may be active,” he adds. “The question is ‘how active is it?’” Reports indicate that the volcano stands 700 meters above the seafloor and extends to within roughly 275 meters of the ocean surface. The researchers estimate that the volcanic core contains at least 1.5 cubic kilometers of volcanic rock. By comparison, Mount Erebus, a known active volcano on Ross Island in the Antarctic is approximately 3,800 meters above sea level and Mauna Loa, the largest volcano on earth, rises approximately 4,100 meters above sea level. The research team also includes scientists from Hamilton College in New York State, Colgate University, the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory at Columbia University, Montclair State University in New Jersey and Southern Illinois University. Funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) supports the research cruise. NSF coordinates all U.S. scientific research in Antarctica. geog.queensu.ca queensu.ca