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July 6, 2020: Pillow Basalts

During the 2017 American Samoa Expedition: Suesuega o le Moana o Amerika Samoa expedition, the team dove on and explored Vailulu'u seamount, an active volcano lying in the eastern region of the Samoan hotspot. Prior to the dive, the last visual survey of the volcano had taken place in 2005, but the seamount had been mapped since then. Comparison of multibeam data collected in 2012 with new bathymetric data collected during the 2017 expedition showed that the volcanic cone in the crater, called Nafanua, had grown substantially since the seamount was last mapped in 2012, having formed two distinct volcanic features.

Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2017 American Samoa. Download larger version (jpg, 1.2 MB).

The dive represented an exciting opportunity to observe a very dynamic environment both in terms of geology and biology. This image shows young pillow basalts on Vailulu'u encountered during the dive, with an age of perhaps five year or less.

During the 2017 American Samoa Expedition: Suesuega o le Moana o Amerika Samoa expedition, the team dove on and explored Vailulu'u seamount, an active volcano lying in the eastern region of the Samoan hotspot. Prior to the dive, the last visual survey of the volcano had taken place in 2005, but the seamount had been mapped since then. Comparison of multibeam data collected in 2012 with new bathymetric data collected during the 2017 expedition showed that the volcanic cone in the crater, called Nafanua, had grown substantially since the seamount was last mapped in 2012, having formed two distinct volcanic features.

Want to learn more about Vailulu’u seamount? Check out this “tantalizing preview.”