Alaska, Aug 12: The North Pacific's "Ring of Fire" can claim a new member -- a previously unknown underwater volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Islands that researchers in Alaska revealed on Monday. Scientists this summer mapped the cone-shaped volcano, which rises beneath the waters near Amchitka Pass, a gap in the chain of largely uninhabited islands that separate the Pacific Ocean from the Bering Sea.

The volcano rises 1,903 feet above the sea floor and tops out less than 377 feet from the water's surface, said researchers with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The volcano is considered active but dormant, although it could erupt at any time, officials warned.

If it did erupt, it could produce a new island in the Aleutian chain, which arcs from southwestern Alaska to Siberia. An eruption could also bring some dangers to local mariners, either from lava or ash breaking the sea surface or from gaseous waters creating conditions that cause vessels to sink.

"You don't want to sail a ship over an erupting volcano," said Jennifer Reynolds, chief expedition scientist and a University of Alaska marine geologist.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory, operated jointly by federal and state agencies, plans to place a seismic monitor on nearby Semisopochnoi Island by 2005, Reynolds said.

The volcano is similar to a few others that have been found in places like the waters off Iceland, she said.
"To me, it's exciting because it's in the United States and not in some remote part of the South Pacific," Reynolds added.

The discovery of the volcano, which remains unnamed, was a byproduct of a coral reef survey conducted in the Bering Sea and North Pacific.

Bureau Report