1. NOAA/PMEL, 2115 SE O.S.U. Drive, Newport, Oregon 97365-5258, USA
2. CIMRS, Oregon State University, Oregon 97365-5258, USA
3. NOAA/PMEL, 7600 Sand Pt Way, NE, Seattle, Washington 98115-6349, USA
4. JISAO, University of Washington, Washington 98115-6349, USA
5. Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, 30 Gracefield Road, PO Box 31–312, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
6. Department of Biology/School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, PO Box 3020, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3N5, Canada
7. GEOTOP Research Centre; Université du Québec à Montréal, PO Box 8888 Montréal, Québec H3C 3P8, Canada
8. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Hawaii, 1680 East-West Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA
9. Geosciences Department, University of Texas at Dallas, 2601 N. Floyd Road, Richardson, Texas 75083-0688, USA
10. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, AIST Tsukuba Central 7, 1-1, Higashi 1-Chome Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8567, Japan
11. US Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, MS 999, Menlo Park, California 94025-3591, USA
12. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive, St Louis, Missouri 63130-4899, USA
13. (IFREE) Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, 237-0061 2-15 Natsushima-chou, Yokosuka-shi, Kanagawa-ken, Japan

Correspondence to: Robert W. Embley¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to R.E. (Email: robert.w.embley@noaa.gov).

Abstract

Three-quarters of the Earth's volcanic activity is submarine, located mostly along the mid-ocean ridges, with the remainder along intraoceanic arcs and hotspots at depths varying from greater than 4,000 m to near the sea surface. Most observations and sampling of submarine eruptions have been indirect, made from surface vessels or made after the fact^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}. We describe here direct observations and sampling of an eruption at a submarine arc volcano named NW Rota-1, located 60 km northwest of the island of Rota (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). We observed a pulsating plume permeated with droplets of molten sulphur disgorging volcanic ash and lapilli from a 15-m diameter pit in March 2004 and again in October 2005 near the summit of the volcano at a water depth of 555 m (depth in 2004). A turbid layer found on the flanks of the volcano (in 2004) at depths from 700 m to more than 1,400 m was probably formed by mass-wasting events related to the eruption. Long-term eruptive activity has produced an unusual chemical environment and a very unstable benthic habitat exploited by only a few mobile decapod species. Such conditions are perhaps distinctive of active arc and hotspot volcanoes.

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