* Astronomy

Gabon Expedition: The Lost Underwater Volcano

Today we explored a seamount that is not on the nautical charts. It is about 20 miles off the coast of Gabon, and we had little hope to find it. A local fisher gave us GPS coordinates, and we followed them. But in our sonar we could only see a vast expanse of deep water, flat, without any significant feature. One mile before arrival to our destination, we were making bets on whether this seamount actually exists, when all of a sudden the depth sounder of the research vessel of the Waitt Institute started to climb, and climb, and climb - from 450 meters depth to only 100 meters. The seamount - an underwater volcano according to local lore - was there, and we were probably the first humans ever to send a camera to explore it.
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