Catastrophism proven dominant force in geology once again: Scientists stunned by dramatic change in seafloor in two weeks

May 13, 2012 –TONGA – Researchers studying the Monowai volcano, near Tonga, recorded huge changes in height in just two weeks. Lead author Tony Watts of Oxford University told the BBC that the revelation was “a wake-up call that the sea-floor may be more dynamic than we previously thought. I’ve spent my career studying the seabed and have generally thought it pretty stable so it’s stunning to see so much change in such a short space of time.” As many as 32,000 underwater mountains have been identified around the world and the majority are believed to be volcanic in origin. Several thousand of these may be active but a combination of ocean depth and remoteness means that very few have been studied. The team then left the area to carry on with planned research elsewhere but three days later were warned that seismic detectors on the Cook Islands had detected violent activity around the volcano over a five-day period. “If we had been over the volcano during the eruption, rocks could have hit the hull of the ship – that could have been potentially dangerous.” Later the ship returned to the scene and the scientists were surprised to see how much the volcano had changed. In the space of a fortnight, one part of the volcano’s summit had collapsed by as much as 18.8m while new lava flows had raised another area by 79.1m. Most striking was the creation of an entirely new volcanic cone. The researchers believe the changes are larger than at most other volcanoes. Only Vesuvius and Mount St Helens have recorded larger growth rates. The paper says the speed of growth and change is “a reminder of how rapidly geological processes such as submarine land-sliding and volcanism can occur.” Professor Watts said: “Any movement on the seabed has the potential to create a tsunami. An earthquake suddenly dislocates the seabed. Here a violent disturbance lasted five days with magma oozing out which might be too slow to trigger a tsunami – but it’s unknown. “This is a violent exchange of rock into the water – it could destabilize the cone and cause a landslide which in principle could cause a tsunami.  –BBC