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NW Rota-1 volcano

Background:

A submarine volcano detected during a 2003 NOAA bathymetric survey of the Mariana Island arc was found to be hydrothermally active and named NW Rota-1. The basaltic to basaltic-andesite seamount rises to within 517 m of the sea surface SW of Esmeralda Bank and lies 64 km NW of Rota Island and about 100 km north of Guam. When Northwest Rota-1 was revisited in 2004, a minor submarine eruption from a vent named Brimstone Pit on the upper south flank about 40 m below the summit intermittently ejected a plume several hundred meters high containing ash, rock particles, and molten sulfur droplets that adhered to the surface of the remotely operated submersible vehicle. The active vent was funnel-shaped, about 20 m wide and 12 m deep. NW Rota-1 is a large submarine volcano with prominent structural lineaments about a kilometer apart cutting across the summit of the edifice and down the NE and SW flanks.
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Smithsonian / GVP volcano information

NW Rota-1 Photos:

The smooth crust of the lake is broken into plates, which are moving against or away from each other, simulating plate tectonics. Above, a miniature mid-ocean spreading z...	Zoom onto the rotating steam ring. (Photo: Tom Pfeiffer)	Ijen-Two miners on a rotating share/basis are always on duty tending the fires (Photo: jorge)
Wide angle long exposure with Polaris rotation center in the left and Colima with the glowing dome to the right. (Photo: Tom Pfeiffer)	Lava flowing downhil from multiple outbreak points results into its quickly cooled crust rotating into this beautiful rosette like texture (Photo: Ingrid Smet)	The westernmost (left) vent (S1) has produced an ash-rich eruption; glowing spatter still lies around this vent, which today was not often active (but becomes protagonist...

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