New lava formed by an underwater volcano glints in the light of a deep-water submersible submarine. The lava was formed in an underwater eruption that occurred this spring 400 miles east of Mexico along a massive volcanic mountain range called the East Pacific Rise. Scientists who had been monitoring the area used their equipment and submersible dives for the first time to capture and record an undersea volcanic eruption and its immediate aftereffects.

(Courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, NSF and Ridge2000 Program.)
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