Small mounds or volcanoes around the periphery of a brine pool rose small heights from the seafloor. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Gulf of Mexico 2012. Download larger version (jpg, 1.2 MB).
Small mounds or volcanoes around the periphery of a brine pool rose small heights from the seafloor. Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Gulf of Mexico 2012. Download larger version (jpg, 1.2 MB).
ROV Dive Highlights
Video footage captured by the Little Hercules ROV and camera platform during the April 20 ROV dive from NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer during the Gulf of Mexico Expedition 2012. The dive was conducted in Green Canyon at lease block Ewing 915. Spectacular undersea habitats and geologic features were imaged, including a brine pool, brine "river", and small cones composed of what may be precipitated salts emitting gas, probably also mixed with liquid hydrocarbons. Video courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Gulf of Mexico 2012. Download (mp4, 397.2 MB)
Dive 08 was conducted in Green Canyon at lease block Ewing 915, an area of suspected carbonate hard grounds, seeps, and associated biological communities. We saw evidence for intermittent escape of gas, perhaps motivated by seafloor disturbance by fish. The most spectacular geologic features related to a brine pool the remotely operated vehicle observed and surveyed near the end of the dive. Around the periphery of that pool, small mounds or "volcanoes," perhaps composed of precipitated salts, rose small heights (centimeters) from the seafloor. Some of these volcanoes, one of which is shown in the image, were emitting gas, probably also mixed with liquid hydrocarbons (which we saw escaping the seafloor nearby) and brine. We hypothesize that the small brown crusts around the "volcano" are either chemically precipitated salts and/or related to bacterial constructions of some kind.
