SEPT 10- Beneath the gigantic waves of the Pacific oceans, lies the world’s single largest volcano. Make way for Tamu Massif.
A team of researchers from the University of Houston identified Massif as the largest volcano documented on Earth ever.
The 310,000 sq km Tamu Massif is comparable in size to the largest volcano in the solar system, Mars’ monstrous Olympus Mons and to the British Isles here on Earth. It delves some 30 km (18 miles) into the Earth’s crust.
Massif is located two km below the surface of sea, on an underwater plateau Shatsky Rise, about 1,600km east of Japan.
It dwarfs Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the previous largest volcano on the Earth.
The active Mauna Loa barely extends over an area of 2,000 square miles and is only two per cent of the size of the Massif.
Until now, researchers were not sure whether it was a single volcano or constituted of multiple eruption points. The team then studied core samples, radars and assembled data to confirm that the basalt-mass that makes up the volcano erupted from a single source near the centre.
Scientists say that the supervolcano was formed about 145 million years ago when inundating lava flows erupted from the centre of the Massif forming a broad, shield-like feature.
The researchers believe that the behemoth mass became extinct around the late Jurassic period and is unlikely to erupt again. But they also admit that it is not easy to precisely predict the structure and eruption patterns of volcanoes submerged under the oceans.
William Sager, lead scientist from the University of Houston, doesn’t rule out the existence of even larger volcanoes on our planet.
INDIA TODAY
