Wang Peifeng, Tan Yen Joe, Bohnenstiehl DelWayne R, Wilcock William S D, Tolstoy Maya, Waldhauser Felix, Zhan Yan, Li Wei-Ran
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA.
Sci Adv. 2025 Aug 22;11(34):eadk3942. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adk3942.
Most of Earth's volcanic eruptions are hidden beneath the ocean in complete darkness. Recent studies suggested that a type of impulsive event can track submarine lava flows, but their source mechanism remains uncertain. We analyze >20,000 impulsive events from the 2015 Axial Seamount eruption and find that their seismo-acoustic waveform characteristics suggest an implosive source mechanism. Integrating constraints from their spatiotemporal evolution with heat transfer estimates and geological observations, we propose that while the largest events might be related to volatiles degassed from magma, most events are generated by the implosion of bubbles formed from the vaporization of entrapped seawater by hot erupted lava. Similar events have been detected at other seamounts and slow to fast-spreading mid-ocean ridges, although eruptions at >3000-meter depth have proportionately fewer events because seawater vaporization is inhibited. Therefore, these impulsive seafloor events can be leveraged to remotely characterize eruption dynamics in most submarine volcanic settings.
地球上大多数火山喷发都隐藏在完全黑暗的海洋之下。最近的研究表明，一种脉冲事件可以追踪海底熔岩流，但其源机制仍不确定。我们分析了2015年阿克斯尔海山喷发产生的2万多个脉冲事件，发现它们的地震声学波形特征表明其源机制为内爆式。将它们的时空演化约束与热传递估计和地质观测相结合，我们提出，虽然最大的事件可能与岩浆中逸出的挥发物有关，但大多数事件是由热喷发熔岩使被困海水汽化形成的气泡内爆产生的。在其他海山以及慢速到快速扩张的大洋中脊也检测到了类似事件，不过在深度超过3000米的地方喷发产生的此类事件相对较少，因为海水汽化受到抑制。因此，这些海底脉冲事件可用于远程表征大多数海底火山环境中的喷发动态。
