A team of scientists discovered four volcanoes underwater off the coast of Sydney while aboard a new Australian research vessel for another mission. The cluster of volcanoes, which are said to be around 50 million years old, was found about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the coast and was spotted on the sea floor using a sonar mapping technique.
The four enormous volcanoes, now calderas, look like bowl-shaped craters. This formation happens when volcanoes erupt and the land surrounding them collapses. The largest volcano found measures 1.5 kilometers (approx. 1 mile) across the rim and 700 meters (less than half a mile) in altitude. The volcano cluster runs about 20 kilometers (12 miles) and is approximately 5 kilometers (3 miles) underwater.
"My jaw just dropped," told Iain Suthers, lead investigator and a marine biologist at the University of New South Wales. He said he instantly wondered what these structures were doing underwater and the reason why they were left undiscovered. The discovery, he believes, may attest to the idea that far more information about Mars has been discovered compared to data culled about the Earth's sea floor.
The vessel that led the team to the surprising discovery was the RV Investigator, managed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which is said to make Australian marine scientists discover things that they've never seen in the past.
Investigator measures 94 meters (308 feet) and was commissioned by the CSIRO back in 2009 through the funding support given by the federal government, which amounts to $120 million. The said vessel is intended to look for small ocean eddies in Australia's east coast. Investigator underwent testings in March and is said to have the capability to create a sea floor map at any depth. The Southern Surveyor, the previous vessel used by marine biologists, can only map the sea floor at a depth of 3,000 meters (approx. 1.9 miles).
Scientists also think the discovery of the volcanoes may provide insight into the geological separation of Australia and New Zealand. They said that it is possible that the volcanoes were formed due to the geological plate shifting that happened during the split.
The federal government provides funding for the vessel to operate 180 days in a year, but experts are hoping that this could be extended throughout the year. If scientists could find volcanoes by using a vessel intended to look for larval lobster, imagine what experts could discover through a dedicated mission, Suthers added.
