Submarine Volcanism Group
ReefGrow Software
A classroom tool for visualizing the processes controlling coral reef development and demise.
California Borderland
The geologic history of the region offshore of Southern California is complicated by the fact that it is largely submerged, heavily sedimented, and many of the rocks from which interpretations have been made were probably erratics.
Hydrates and seeps
In the late 1970s, oceanographers were astounded to discover flourishing communities of animals clustered around deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
Eclectic seamounts topics
Our expeditions to the sea floor result in biological as well as geological observations and collections. New fish and sponge species have also been discovered. In another study, deep sea coral on Davidson Seamount were examined and isotopes in their skeletons were used to study past climate change.
Non-hot-spot linear chains
Some linear chains of submarine volcanoes, such as the Line Islands in the Central Pacific, are not associated with a hot spot or mid-ocean ridge, and do not become progressively older with distance.
Continental margin seamounts
Davidson Seamount is one of several seamounts along the California continental margin. It is located about 120 km southwest of Monterey, CA, and rises to within 1300 m of the sea surface.
Near-ridge seamounts
There are many linear chains of seamounts that originate near mid-ocean ridges and are somehow due to excess magmatic activity that erupts intermittently but profusely over extended periods at that same point of the ridge.
Mid-ocean ridges
The great majority of the Earth’s volcanism occurs at spreading centers, most of which are under the ocean, forming the mid-ocean ridge system where new ocean crust is being created.
Back arc spreading ridges
Behind the trench and volcanic arc of a subduction zone, the lithosphere may stretch and extend and volcanic spreading centers may develop. Such a back arc setting is found in the Lau Basin, behind the Tonga Trench in the South Pacific.
Hydrothermal systems
Hydrothermal vents are important for many reasons, including global fluxes of elements, deposits of economically-valuable minerals, and diverse assemblages of previously unknown animals and bacteria that are supported by the chemically-rich waters emanating from the vents.
Explosive eruptions
The volcanic eruptions at mid-ocean ridges have been thought only to be quietly effusive, but because we find glassy fragments of lava bubbles (limu o Pele) at mid-ocean ridges, there must be gas-rich mildly explosive eruptions at mid-ocean ridges as well.
Mid-ocean ridge volcanic processes
MBARI mapped the 2011 eruption at Axial Volcano with our AUV. Surprises included how most of the fissures had been pre-existing, and were reused (even widened and deepened) and fed lava into pre-existing channels.
Magmatic processes
AUV maps allow us for the first time, to comprehensively map the thickness and extent of lava flows from a deep-ocean submarine eruption in high resolution.
About MBARI
Research programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) encompass the entire ocean, from the surface waters to the deep seafloor, and from the coastal zone to the open sea. The need to understand the ocean in all its complexity and variability drives MBARI's research and development efforts.