Everything about Loihi Seamount totally explained
Lōihi is a
seamount and undersea
volcano in the
Hawaiian archipelago, located at 18.92° N, 155.27° W — roughly 30 km (19 mi) south of the southeast coast of the
Island of Hawaii. It is one of three active volcanoes (the other two are
Mauna Loa and
Kīlauea) thought to presently sit over the
Hawaii hotspot. The greatest distance between the summits of these volcanoes is about 80 km (50 mi), approximately the diameter of the hot spot. Lōihi has yet to build to the
surface of the ocean, although it's now over 3,000 m (10,000 ft) high (taller than
Mount St. Helens). The top of Lōihi lies 975 m (3,200 ft) below the surface. If the rate of upward building is about the same as nearby Kīlauea, Lōihi should appear at the surface in several tens of thousands of years.
Like Kīlauea, Lōihi lies on the flank of
Mauna Loa, the largest
shield volcano on the planet. The summit has a
caldera-like depression, and three
craters. The crater called Pele's Pit is known to have formed in July 1996 when a vent collapsed forming a
depression with 200 m (660 ft) high, vertical walls. The
rift zone for this volcano is about 31 km (19 mi) long and oriented northwest-southeast across the 2.8 by 3.7 km (1.7 × 2.3 mi) caldera. The eruption in 1996 was confirmed by scientists at the
University of Hawaii, becoming the first such confirmation of an active eruption occurring on a seamount. In 1997, the university installed a submarine observatory on the summit of Loihi Seamount. Another active undersea volcano, named Vailuuluu, was confirmed in 2001 in the
Manua Group,
Samoa.
Lōihi is being studied by manned
submersible dives to its surface and placement of recording instruments and remote
observatories on the summit. The volcano is actively venting
hydrothermal fluids and thermal vents there are being studied for
thermophilic extremophiles (organisms associated with extreme temperature conditions). In 1999, a never before seen
jelly-like organism surrounding the 160°C vents was collected for
incubation and study at NSF's
Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center (MarBEC).
References and external links
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