Alaska’s Undersea Volcano Mapped
Thales GeoSolutions (Pacific), an ocean engineering, surveying and mapping company, has successfully mapped Alaska’s first known active undersea volcano. The volcano lies in the Northwest portion of Amchitka Pass, Southeast of Semisopochnoi Island in the Aleutians. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Auke Bay Laboratory (Juneau, AK) contracted Thales GeoSolutions (Pacific) to map seafloor habitat for deep-sea coral research. The volcano was originally discovered in 2002 by NMFS biologists, Bob Stone and Dr Jon Heifetz, who used the Delta submarine to video coral habitat on the volcano. A combination of RESON 8111 and 8150 multibeam echosounders were used to produce maps of the volcano and surrounding seafloor, which are significantly more detailed than existing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) charts.
