Researchers saw molten lava escaping into the sea in the distance. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
When scientists were poking around a mid-ocean ridge in the eastern Pacific Ocean on April 28, they sort of knew what to expect. What they ended up seeing, however, was much, much cooler. Or hotter, if you’re in to dad jokes.
They were on the expedition 1,300 miles west, off the Costa Rican coast to study the Tica hydrothermal vent, an opening on the seafloor that lets out hot, mineral-rich water that attracts all sorts of life. Tube worms, mussels, crabs, and all manner of fish like to spend time in the warm, food-filled areas, so they’re fun places for researchers to visit. The researchers spent a few hours exploring from the submersible vessel Alvin, poking around and doing generally science-related things before calling it quits for the day and packing up their notepads.
But when they returned to the same area the next day, everything was different. What was covered in creatures was now just a barren wasteland with a few dead tube worms still stuck to the rocky outcroppings they died on.
“My brain was trying to understand what was going on,” Andrew Wozniak, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Delaware who was on the submersible, told the New York Times. “Where did things go?”
Then, off in the distance, they saw flashes of orange and huge plumes of bubbles and steam and realized that they were seeing an underwater volcanic eruption — and the barren wasteland beneath them was the result.
“When we saw an orange shimmering glow in some of the cracks, it confirmed that a volcanic eruption had taken place and was still actually underway,” Alvin’s pilot, Kaitlyn Beardshear, said in a statement. “We have temperature limits to ensure the safety of the sub and its occupants. I kept a close eye on the temperature as we were traveling, and it kept climbing higher, until I decided it was a good idea to leave before we reached the limit.”
Although they were forced to call the mission off (because… you know, volcano), they still managed to collect as much data as they possibly could. Although some 80 percent of all volcanic activity on Earth happens underwater, we aren’t usually around to witness it.
“It doesn’t feel real at the moment, but to be able to observe what we saw and be able to collect samples is really mind-boggling,” said Wozniak, chief scientist of the expedition. “I’m so excited for my team, and I’m really excited to see what we can learn about what’s happening down there.”
This is only the third time ever an underwater eruption has been seen in real time, so it’s unlikely that the researchers involved in this expedition will ever get a chance to see another one.
