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Hidden beneath the waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea, near southwestern Italy, lies a new volcanic mosaic dotted with geothermal chimneys and flat-topped seamounts.
This complex is new to science and for the planet, geologically speaking; it's only 780,000 years old. Scientists are not particularly surprised to find volcanism in the region, which is home to active volcanoes like Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna. But the new complex is unusual because it was created by a rare type of fault, said study director Fabrizio Pepe, a geophysicist at the University of Palermo, Italy.
"It's a very complex area," Pepe told Live Science.
Related, connected, related: In Photos: A new seamount discovered under the Pacific Ocean
Region without rest
The western Mediterranean is seismically agitated because of the collision of three tectonic plates: Africans, Eurasians and Anatolians. To complicate matters, a small piece of crust called Adriatic-Ionian microplate, which broke off the African plate more than 65 million years ago, is now placed under the larger Eurasian plate as part of a called process subduction. Vesuvius is one of the volcanoes created by subduction.
Previously, scientists had discovered a series of underwater volcanic arcs created by these tectonic disturbances, beginning near the Sardinian coast, with increasingly younger arches, facing south and east. These bows looked like an arrow pointing ever further to the east, which prompted Pepe and his colleagues to look for an even younger bow about 15 km off the coast of Calabria, called the "tip" of the "boot" of the 'Italy.
On the basis of seabed mapping, seismic data and magnetic anomalies, the researchers discovered a region of lava flows, volcanic mountains and hydrothermal vents with an area of 2,000 km2. vents in the seabed allow hot minerals to spit and form chimney-like structures. They named this new area the intrusive volcanic complex Diamante-Enotrio-Ovidio, after three flat seamounts (submarine mountains formed by extinct volcanoes) that dominate the seabed.
Step by step
It was these fractures that allowed the magma to rise to the surface of the Diamonte-Enotrio-Ovidio complex, creating an underwater landscape of lava flows and mountain volcanoes. These volcanic mounts are now plateaus, as they protruded from the ocean when the sea level was lower, and they have eroded to take their current form and flat, said Pepe.
The volcanic complex is inactive, but there are small intrusions of lava in parts of the seabed, researchers said July 6 in the newspaper Tectonic. However, the region could become active in the future, said Pepe, and active volcanism continues on the eastern shore of the Tyrrhenian Sea. The researchers are working on creating a complex volcanic hazard map to better understand if it could endanger the life or property of humans. They are also studying the possibility of using the complex to produce geothermal energy.
Originally published on Science live.
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