Completed on July 10th, leg three of the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer‘s EX1605 expedition was chock-full of discoveries. The Okeanos‘s remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) conducted 22 dives, exploring many recently-mapped sites in the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument (MTMNM). They ventured where no ROVs have dove before.
In the Marianas, the west-moving Pacific plate is forced beneath the Philippine plate as they collide, a process known as subduction. As a result, the region is characterized by many geological features including fault lines, earthquakes, volcanoes, cold seeps, hydrothermal vents, and mud volcanoes. Continue reading Okeanos Update: Team Dives Mud Volcanoes