We know absolutely nothing about the
seamount that we are surveying today, so a
true dive for discovery is going to take place.
Hawaii has been in integral part in
developing our theory of plate tectonics for
geologists. The age progression of the
islands, younger in the southeast getting older
to the Northwest, basically gives us an
estimate of how fast the plate was moving versus
how quickly those hawaiian volcanoes
formed on top of the pacific plate. Hawaii
has been a integral part in our understanding of
not just the surface of the earth but the
interior as well. We're hoping to grab two rocks
from this seamount, and the geologists will then
use these rocks to learn a wealth of information
about not just how old the seamount is, but how
it formed. The way that geologists do this is
once we get a rock sample we divide it into
smaller little bits and pieces and one of those
bits and pieces actually gets cut into a thin
sliver of rock in which light can pass through
from a microscope, letting us see what the
mineral composition is. If any of you have ever
looked down a kaleidoscope, it's
basically the same type of imagery that
geologists use in a petrographic microscope
to identify minerals. Underwater seamount
chains that have age progressions was one of
the very first clues into figuring out the
fact that the surface of our planet is not a
static and unmoving bit but on a geological time
scale over millions of years is actually quite
dynamic. This is kind of the story that
geologists always try and put together, we try
and make some observations in order to
tell the story and the life cycle of a rock.