Mother nature still owns our sorry butts

If you need any convincing, check out Hawai’i’s Pu’u O’o erupting slowly and captured on timelapse by USGS scientists

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/archive/2011/Jan/PuuOo_20110206_small.mov

Okeanos footage

National Geographic is hosting some nice footage of a submarine volcano in Indonesia.  The video was gathered as part of the Okeanos Explorer and its current collaborative research cruise between NOAA and the Indonesian Government

The footage shows some impressive fields of stalked barnacles, an abundance of shrimp and some really cool sulfide chimneys and elemental sulfur flows.

Try fitting *this* into a bedside lamp

Work reported in Nature today from a presentation at the annual AGU meeting shows easily the deepest underwater volcano ever filmed.  The eruption was filmed from a remote submarine at 1200m depth - far more than the previous 500m depth record - and shows lava bursting out onto the sea floor.  The discovery helps scientists understand how pillow basalts form and how sea floor materials are added to the oceanic crust.

Its hard to imagine how extreme that process is.  We're talking hot enough to melt lead, at pressures that would turn a styrofoam cup into a thimble!