Submarine Volcanism
Project Manager: Alicé Davis
Lead Scientist: Dave Clague
Dave Clague’s research to date suggests that volcanic eruption rate and CO2 release has been underestimated for sheet-flow events on mid-ocean ridges as compared with the more benign flows that form pillow ridges. He plans to use the D. Allan B. mapping vehicle and the ROV during the northern expedition to test this hypothesis. The video and mapping data will be used to estimate the frequency and size of eruptions in advance of the Ocean Observatories Initiative observatory installation to maximize the likelihood of capturing rare events with limited infrastructure. Clague will also be working with the metadata initiative and software engineers to make his data more widely available to researchers beyond MBARI.