干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

A high-resolution bathymetric map of a collapsed lava lake on the ridge crest of the superfast-spreading Southern East Pacific Rise was constructed. The data were acquired during the MOAI’98 Cruise using a pencil-beam scanning sonar that was installed on the submersible Alvin. The map covers an area of 200 x 350 m at the Oasis hydrothermal site (17 degrees 25.4’s, 113 degrees 12.3’W) where low-temperature fluids are venting from a collapsed lava lake. The collapsed lava lake is 250 m long, with a mean width of 10 m in parallel to the spreading axis on the western flank of the ridge crest. The estimated volume of lava that has drained out is about 7000 m(3) erupted from a single event. This small amount of melt and frequent contacts between "young" and "younger" flows indicate that volcanism at the superfast-spreading ridge system is characterized by frequent eruptions of very small volumes of magma.