Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Earth science

Volcanic action at Axial Seamount

Nature volume 403, pages 379–380 (2000)Cite this article

Seafloor spreading is an intermittent process in which roughly 3 km3 of oceanic crustal rock is added to the Earth's surface each year along the global chain of mid-ocean ridges. But its intermittent nature, along with the remoteness and great depth of most spreading centres, makes the process difficult to study in ‘real time’. An innovative approach is being taken by a group studying a submarine volcano called Axial Seamount, and they report their latest findings in a series of papers in Geophysical Research Letters1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.

Axial Seamount lies on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a seafloor-spreading centre located about 300 km off the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. The investigators are using two approaches that are well suited to the study of active geological processes. The first is long-term continuous monitoring, with instruments deployed on the ocean floor and in the water column close to the site, as well as with several US Navy SOSUS coastal hydrophone arrays. These arrays were not designed for seismic monitoring, but are sufficiently broad-band and sensitive to locate offshore earthquakes that are too small to be detected by seismographs on land. The second approach involves ‘event response’, in which observations and experiments are carried out at the site as soon as possible after activity is indicated by the acoustic monitoring.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Bathymetry of Axial Seamount, the site of the January 1998 volcanic eruption along the Juan de Fuca Ridge described in the papers1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 discussed here.

NOAA VENTS PROGRAM

Figure 2: Sequence of eruption-related events at Axial Seamount from 22 January to 15 February 1998.

References

  1. Dziak, R. P. & Fox, C. G. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3429–3432 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Fox, C. G. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3437–3440 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Chadwick, W. W. Jr et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3441–3444 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Baker, E. T., Fox, C. G. & Cowen, J. P. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3445– 3448 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Embley, R. W., Chadwick, W. W. Jr, Clague, D. & Stakes, D. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3425–3428 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Lupton, J. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3449– 3452 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. McLaughlin-West, E. A. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3453– 3456 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Sohn, R. A., Crawford, W. C. & Webb, S. C. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 3433 –3436 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pacific Geoscience Centre, Geological Survey of Canada, Box 6000, Sidney, V8L 4B2, British Columbia, Canada

    Earl Davis

Authors
  1. Earl Davis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Earl Davis.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Davis, E. Volcanic action at Axial Seamount. Nature 403, 379–380 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35000335

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35000335

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing