Scientists look for eruption off Pacific Northwest

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A swarm of tiny undersea earthquakes has US and Canadian scientists looking for evidence of a new volcanic eruption off the coast of the Pacific Northwest.

A research ship was monitoring the ocean floor about 270 km west of Vancouver Island on Monday, looking for fresh lava in an area known for its hot water geysers and unusual microbes that can survive in the super-heated temperatures.

The University of Washington dispatched the ship after more than 3,700 earthquakes were recorded in late February and early March along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, an undersea mountain range where two tectonic plates meet.

Bill Steele, a seismologist at the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network at the University of Washington, said the quakes are caused by the separation of the tectonic plates with very little risk of triggering a tsunami.

"It's quite exciting," Steele said, "This (area off Vancouver Island) is where plates are being created. Tsunamis come from where plates are being destroyed."

A tsunami on Dec. 26 left about 300,000 people dead or missing in the Indian Ocean region.

None of the earthquakes was strong enough to be felt by coastal communities in Washington state or British Columbia, but they indicated magma was moving in the area, said Geological Survey of Canada seismologist Garry Rogers.

"We don't know if there has been ejection of magma on the sea floor. It has all the characteristics of magma movement, but it could all be below the sea floor," Rogers said.

A ship checked the region after a similar earthquake swarm in 2001 but failed to find any new lava on the floor.

Rogers said the area being searched is just north of the Endeavour Hot Vents, a special marine protection area established by the Canadian government last year because of its unusual ecological system.

About a dozen species of microbes live amid the geysers spewing water heated up to 572 F (300 C), and there are bacteria feeding on hydrogen sulphide, a substance lethal to most life forms.

- REUTERS