Axial 2015 Introduction

We’re headed back out to Axial Seamount on R/V Thompson for a research cruise August 14-29.We’ll have ROV Jason and AUV Sentry on board and will be making dives with both underwater vehicles.The big excitement this year is that we know that Axial Seamount erupted in April-May and this will be the first expedition to conduct extensive exploration, mapping, and sampling of the new lava flows.

Here is a 3D fly-through animation of Axial Seamount with outlines of the lava flows:

Fly-through by Susan Merle, OSU-CIMRS.

The cruise will consist of three interrelated projects: (1) one to make seafloor pressure measurements to measure volcanic inflation/deflation (funded by the National Science Foundation; PIs: Nooner and Chadwick), (2) one to incubate and sample hydrothermal vent fluids for chemical and microbial analysis (funded by NOAA and the Moore Foundation; PIs: Butterfield, Huber, and Holden), and (3) one to conduct event response activities related to the April-May eruption (jointly funded by NSF and NOAA).

More information:

Axial Seamount’s 2015 eruption:
OSU Press Release about the successful forecast of the 2015 eruption
UW Press Release about eruption detection by the OOI Cabled Array
OOI post about the detection of new lava flows on Axial's north rift zone Plots of real-time data from bottom-pressure/tilt instrument at Axial
Axial eruption forecast blog

Background information on Axial Seamount:
Axial Seamount (EOI Program) Networked Observations and Visualizations of the Axial Environment

Technology:
ROV Jason
AUV Sentry