While most of us only think of volcanoes as fire-spewing mountains above sea level, according to Oregon State University’s Volcano World website, about 75 percent of the globe’s annual output of magma comes from underwater – or submarine – volcanoes.
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The discovery that animals live inside the active volcano contradicts with previous studies of Kavachi. Plus it’s real.
And yet, a team of researchers who dropped a camera into the crater of Kavachi, an active, underwater volcano near the Solomon Islands, were surprised to discover that at least two species of sharks appear to live there.
Steam rises from the Kavachi seamount during a 2000 eruption. Human divers have attempted to approach the volatile crater several times but many have been forced back by the heat of the water, or after noticing acid burns to their skin as they approach.
To avoid that risk, Phillips and his colleagues sent down submersible robots with underwater cameras to explore Kavachi’s inhospitable environment.
“You never know what you’re going to find”.
Even though Kavachi wasn’t erupting at the time, the team still saw bubbles of carbon dioxide and methane rising from seafloor vents, notes National Geographic’s Carolyn Barnwell. And so to see large animals like this that are living and potentially they could die at any moment, it brings up lots of questions. The discovery raises questions about what extreme environments the sharks can endure and how, the scientists say. “There is something off!” a member of the team said before the room erupted in applause when they recognized it was a shark. “Are there only certain animals that can withstand it?” What would these animals do if the volcano threatens to erupt, or actually erupts? “Do they get an early warning and escape the caldera before it gets explosive, or do they get trapped and perish in steam and lava?” “The deeper you go, the stranger it gets”, he said.
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When the team sat down to review the footage, they were initially unsure by what they were seeing.
