Unmanned submersible sheds light on an undersea volcano

Rock samples collected last year show surprising variation in the chemistry of an undersea volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge near Seattle. The variation comes from the mantle, the source of the magma that erupted from the volcano to form the rocks, and may influence the microbial communities that now inhabit the volcano, said James Gill, professor of Earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.