World's largest volcano discovered on Pacific floor - Telegraph.co.uk

Until now, it was originally thought that the underwater formation, first discovered 20 years ago on an underwater plateau called the Shatsky Rise, consisted of a network of multiple volcanoes. However, a team of geologists assembled data to dispel this assumption and claim to prove that it is in fact not only a single volcano, but among the largest within the solar system. "We show that the Tamu Massif is a single, immense volcano, constructed from massive lava flows that emanated from the volcano centre to form a broad, shieldlike shape," the scientists conclude in Nature Geoscience journal, which published the findings. "We suggest that the Tamu Massif could be the largest single volcano on earth and that it is comparable in size to the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons on Mars." The study was conducted by a team of geologists led by William Sager of the University of Houston – the scientist who first discovered the Tamu Massif formation 20 years ago. The geologists made their discovery after drilling into the ocean floor in order to obtain data from rock samples and creating a chart of the seabed using deep-penetration seismic scanners from a survey ship. The possibility that there were other undiscovered super volcanoes lurking beneath the earth's oceans could not be dismissed, according to Dr Sager, who previously worked at Texas A&M University, after which it was originally named. "We don't have the data to see inside them and know their structure, but it would not surprise me to find out that there are more like Tamu out there," he said. via Science - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHWMbUwRfFHiGiKh35zZVYS-GLMag&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/10291350/Worlds-largest-volcano-discovered-on-Pacific-floor.html

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