Events

Presentation by Dr. Jonas Preine from WHOI.

Submarine volcanism accounts for approximately 75% of Earth's volcanic activity and is a primary process in shaping the seafloor, the planet's largest and least explored frontier. Submarine and emergent volcanism is not only a fundamental Earth process, but also poses a multitude of geohazards, as highlighted by the 2022 eruption of Hunga Volcano, which triggered global meteotsunamis, devastated local coastlines and severed seafloor cables. Furthermore, as much of Earth’s subaerial volcanism occurs near shorelines, the marine environment serves as a critical archive of eruptive history. In this presentation, I demonstrate how seismic imaging, combined with multi-scale sampling, can be used to reconstruct the history of oceanic volcanism and decipher the complex interactions between volcanic plumbing systems and external forcing, including tectonic modulations and climate-solid Earth coupling.

I will present five case studies that highlight the breadth of these processes, ranging from the coupling of tectonic deformation and geohazards at Santorini, Greece, to the surprising occurrence of shallow explosive volcanism at the Reykjanes Ridge. The scope further extends to subglacial volcanic systems in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, the potential occurrence of deep-sea explosive eruptions at the Azores, and time-lapse imaging of deep magmatic processes at the East Pacific Rise. While these studies demonstrate our growing capacity to identify explosive signatures in seismic data and link magmatism to external forcing, they also expose fundamental gaps in our understanding of volcanic triggers and systemic feedbacks. I will conclude by outlining a research vision to address these frontiers at Lamont-Doherty and DEES that builds on training the next generation of Earth scientists to transform how we image, monitor, and ultimately understand oceanic volcanism.