Olympus sized vulcano found under the pacific.

[Anomalocaris]

Tamu massif under the pacific was once assumed to have been a Mesozoic volcanic complex consisting of many merging volcanos. Seismographic survey now show most, bif not all, of the edifice were built up rapidly by lava flows from a single central lava vent, making Tamu massif a single vulcano at least six times larger than Mauna Loa, the largest volcano on earth previously recognized.

Tamu massif is 85% as large as mt. Olympus on mars - long thought to be the single largest vulcano in the solar system - in area covered if not in volume. Its discovery seem to shatter the previous assumption that earth volcanos can't ever approach the size of the really large volcanos on mars due to plate tectonics on earth.

What is more, There are other, much larger underwater volcanic massifs on earth that have not been seismographically investigated in detail but have also previously been assumed to consist of many overlapping small volcanos. If some of these turn out to be single volcanos like Tamu, then earth may be in possessions of vulcanos far larger than mt. Olympus on Mars.

[downbeatplumb]

You learn something every day don't you!

[bennyboy]

What happens when an Olympus-sized underwater volcano erupts? eeek!

[Mystical]

I wonder where it is in relation to the Dragon's triangle?

The Devil's Sea (魔の海 Ma no Umi?), also known as the Dragon's Triangle, the Formosa (Taiwan) Triangle (traditional Chinese: 福爾摩沙三角; simplified Chinese: 福尔摩沙三角; pinyin: Fúěrmóshā Sānjiǎo) and the "Pacific Bermuda Triangle", is a region of the Pacific around Miyake Island, about 100 km south of Tokyo. The size and area varies with the report (the only reports stem from the 1950s), with various reports placing it 70 miles (110 km) from an unspecified part of Japan's east coast, 300 miles (480 km) from the coast, and even near Iwo Jima, 750 miles (1,210 km) from the coast.(Kusche:259-260)

Might explain a lot

[Anomalocaris]

What happens when an Olympus-sized underwater volcano erupts? eeek!

Some future generation gets more oil.

Seriously, surprisingly little happens to the life on earth. No mass extinction event has been found that could be correlated to tamu massif eruption. Nor indeed has one been found to match the even larger Ontong java underwater eruption which occurred 20 million years later then the tamu eruption. Appearently the impact of these giant underwater volcanic eruption on the biosphere seems minor considering the enormous size of these eruptions. This is in contrast to similar sized eruptions on land, which has been correlated with some of the largest extinction events in history.

But the later Ontong java eruption is closely correlated with a profound change in deeper ocean chemistry, resulting in a sharp spike in the formation of patroleum bearing shale rock strata on sea floors world wide. Tamu eruption has also been proposed to have caused a minor surge in formation of oil bearing shale. So these volcanos may be directly responsible for a good portion of the world's patroleum deposits.

[Minimalist]

What happens when an Olympus-sized underwater volcano erupts? eeek!