A new place was recently discovered in an undersea plateau in the Pacific Ocean that is bigger than Idaho. It first started forming with volcanic eruptions during the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years ago), and it is still growing today. Volcanic eruptions started to create an undersea plateau in the Pacific Ocean larger than Idaho during the Cretaceous epoch (145–66 million years ago), and it is still growing now. According to study leader Kevin Konrad, a geoscientist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, this timing is significant since big volcanic features beneath the ocean are frequently not well known.
The place that is bigger than Idaho, older than a T-rex and is still growing
In some cases, they form in a single flood of magma, in which case they’re known as large igneous provinces. These massive, long-lasting volcanic eruptions are so dramatic that they frequently cause climate change and have been linked to catastrophic extinctions. In other instances, however, features that appear to be huge igneous provinces are actually layers of rock accumulated over a long period of time by several volcanic episodes. Making the distinction might be challenging when there are few rock samples available.
Scientists have only one sample for several features in this place known as the Pacific Basin, and it appears to be a very big, gigantic single event, Konrad told Live Science. When we take detailed samples of these features, we sometimes find that they are actually formed over tens of millions of years and several pulses, meaning they wouldn’t have a big impact on the environment. Konrad and his colleagues had the opportunity to collect thorough samples of the Melanesian Border Plateau during a five-week research tour in 2013. They employed a massive chain excavator to excavate stones from the plateau’s undersea mountains and volcanoes.
In 2013, Konrad and his colleagues had the opportunity to conduct a five-week study mission that allowed them to thoroughly sample this place, known as the Melanesian Border Plateau. Using a huge chain mechanism, they dredged stones off the slopes of the underwater volcanoes and ranges that make up the plateau. Next, 45 million years ago, that piece of the Pacific drifted over a hotspot in the mantle. Hotspots are plumes of hot material that rise from the Earth’s mantle, forming volcanoes in the center of tectonic plates. For instance, Hawaii is one of the perfect examples of an island chain formed by this hotspot.
Why is this place so important for people worldwide?
The Rurutu-Arago hotspot, which is still a part of French Polynesia, was the guilty party in this instance. As a result, islands rose above the ocean’s surface to form an underwater mountain range known as a seamount. The Samoan Islands are being formed by the seamount that drifted across another hotspot, the Samoa hotspot, 13 million years ago. These islands eroded throughout time. In the last three million years, tectonic processes in the Tonga Trench have produced new volcanic eruptions at the plateau—a totally different mechanism from the hotspot volcanism that had preceded it. This created new islands, which over time again eroded below sea level.
According to Konrad, other seamounts are likely to have formed in similarly complex ways over time, as the South Pacific is home to numerous hotspots like this one. In the United States, such seamounts are sampled by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the nonprofit Ocean Exploration Trust. Because the South Pacific has so many hotspots, it is likely that other seamounts have formed over time in similarly complex ways, Konrad added. These seamounts are being sampled here in the United States by the nonprofit Ocean Exploration Trust and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
