Antarctic underwater volcanoes discovery

This video is about 12 underwater volcanoes discovered near the South Sandwich Islands.

From Wildlife Extra:

Underwater Antarctic volcanoes discovered in the Southern Ocean

South Sandwich Islands provide rich habitat

July 2011. Scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered previously unknown volcanoes in the ocean waters around the remote South Sandwich Islands. Using ship-borne sea-floor mapping technology during research cruises onboard the RRS James Clark Ross, the scientists found 12 volcanoes beneath the sea surface – some up to 3km high. They found 5km diameter craters left by collapsing volcanoes and 7 active volcanoes visible above the sea as a chain of islands.

Rich habitat

The research is important also for understanding what happens when volcanoes erupt or collapse underwater and their potential for creating serious hazards such as tsunamis. Also this sub-sea landscape, with its waters warmed by volcanic activity creates a rich habitat for many species of wildlife and adds valuable new insight about life on earth.

Researchers led by David Sandwell at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have used radar measurements from the satellites CryoSat-2 and Jason-1 to produce a new gravity map of Earth’s ocean floor, one twice as accurate as the previous one made nearly 20 years ago. Previously undiscovered features found include an underwater mountain range in the Gulf of Mexico, a major fault line in the South Atlantic Ocean, many smaller hill-like features on the ocean floor and thousands of previously unknown underwater mountains and volcanoes: here.

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