By Sid Perkins
Scientists using remotely operated vehicles have reported the first close-up observations of a deep undersea volcano during its eruption.
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The peak lies about 60 kilometers northwest of Rota, one of the Western Pacific’s Northern Mariana Islands. The base of the volcano, called NW Rota-1, is about 16 km across and lies beneath 2.7 km of water, says Robert W. Embley, a marine geologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Newport, Ore. The summit, however, rises to within 520 meters of the ocean surface.