SEA QUAKES

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1788, 29 July 1926, Page 6

SEA QUAKES

Mauna Loa, the “great mountain” of HaAvaii, and the largest, active volcano in the Avorld, has been in violent eruption. The soundings of the German research ship Meteor last year discovered three neAV ranges of mountains under the AvaterS of the Atlantic between Buenos Ayres and Cape Town. In the deepest valley of the ocean -bed, between those tAvo points, the peaks of one of these ranges rise to about the height of Mont Blanc—yet a Ben Nevis Avould have to be set on top before they Avould emerge from the featureless expanse of the surface of the sea. The* Meteor’s commander recently declared that, on cruising all round the position of another South Atlantic mountain top, which the charts and atlases call Thompson Island, northeast of Bouvet, he found no trace of it. A submarine earthquake may Avell have toppled it over into the fearful abyss of the ocean. Only a feAv Aveeks ago there Avas a volcanic eruption in ;the deepest part of Lake Constance. Avith spoutings of hot Avater and mud. Subsequent soundings shoAved a 60-feet crater beloAv the 6000 feet depth of Avater. The vineyard isle of Santorin, off the mainland of Greece, ‘Avals thrOAvn into a panic last August by a spectacular eruption of its oAvn submarine volcano, which has been quiescent for fifty-nine years. In Far Eastern Avaters earthquakes under the sea 'every noAV and again ihrOAV up “islands” that linger awhile and then generally subside. •Most remarkable of all submarine earthquakes are those Avhich keep playing pranks with the Aleutian Isles. Of the Bogoslov group, that chop and change in the most temperamental manner, Ship Rock reared its head above the Avaves some 160 years ago, and Avas shaken doAvn out of sight in 1889. The island named Old .Bogoslov rose in 1796, and not until 1883 did New Bogoslov rise to be its mate. In 1906 hydrographic surveyors rubbed their eyes, polished the binoculars again took another look and exclaimed: “"Can you beat it?’ The tAvo Bogoslovs had a young one! In the deep blue sea betAveen them stood a neAV little island, 500 feet high. The charts christened him Perry Peak. Hardly had the new charts been printed than poor little Perry handed in his checks—and another member of the family appeared, christened McCulloch (Peak; he has stayed above Avater up to the present.—Daily Express.