Undersea Volcano Discovered Near Christmas Island That Looks Like the Eye of Sauron - SciTechDaily

Looking like the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, an ancient undersea volcano was slowly revealed by multibeam sonar 3,100 meters below our vessel, 280 kilometers southeast of Christmas Island.

Sonar image of the ‘Eye of Sauron’ volcano and nearby seamounts on the sea bed south-west of Christmas Island.

A caldera is formed when a volcano collapses.

Following our Lord of the Rings theme, we have nicknamed them Barad-dûr (“Dark Fortress”) and Ered Lithui (“Ash Mountains”), respectively.

The voyage of the RV Investigator around Christmas Island.

The Eye of Sauron, Barad-dûr, and Ered Lithui are part of the Karma cluster of seamounts that have been previously estimated by geologists to be more than 100 million years old, and which formed next to an ancient sea ridge from a time when Australia was situated much further south, near Antarctica.

The flat summit of Ered Lithui was formed by wave erosion when the seamount protruded above the sea surface, before the heavy seamount slowly sank back down into the soft ocean seafloor.

The summit of Ered Lithui is now 2.6km below sea level.

Ered Lithui has almost 100m of sand and mud layers draped over its summit, formed by sinking dead organisms over millions of years.

Credit: Rob French/Museums Victoria.

But life adapts to these geological changes, and Ered Lithui is now covered in seafloor animals.

Credit: Rob French/Museums Victoria.

Credit: Rob French/Museums Victoria.

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