https://www.earthmagazine.org/tags/axial/ Recent content in Axial on EARTH Magazine Hugo en-US American Geosciences Institute. All rights reserved. Mon, 19 Dec 2016 16:17:57 -0500 https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/undersea-volcano-yields-its-secrets/ Mon, 19 Dec 2016 16:17:57 -0500 https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/undersea-volcano-yields-its-secrets/ <figure class="earth-figure"> <img src="https://www.americangeosciences.org/static/earth/undersea-volcano-yields-its-secrets/wilcock5HR.jpg" alt="A hollow pillow flow with a frozen tongue of lava spilling from the opening rests atop glass-covered flows that formed during the 2015 eruption. The front of this flow was ~127 m thick. Water depth is 1773 m. Credit: University of Washington/OOI-NSF/CSSF-ROPOS" loading="eager" decoding="async"> <figcaption>A hollow pillow flow with a frozen tongue of lava spilling from the opening rests atop glass-covered flows that formed during the 2015 eruption. The front of this flow was ~127 m thick. Water depth is 1773 m. Credit: University of Washington/OOI-NSF/CSSF-ROPOS</figcaption> </figure> <p>One of the world&rsquo;s most active volcanoes has been seen by only a handful of humans — that&rsquo;s because it lies 470 kilometers offshore of the Oregon-Washington border and about 1.5 kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Nevertheless, Axial Seamount on the Juan de Fuca Ridge is one of the best studied of all volcanoes thanks to the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a global network of seven arrays consisting of more than 800 instruments.</p>