"X" marks the spot for the location for the Hawaii Undersea Geo-Observatory,
a permanent University of Hawaii un-manned research "station" on Loihi
Seamount. The HUGO
project, directed by UH Prof. Fred Duennebier, is the
first undersea volcano observatory. It communicates
with and receives power from a shore station of the Big Island of Hawaii
via a permanent cable
that is more than 40 km long. This location was chosen for its relatively
gentle topography and probable geologic stability in an area of otherwise
volcanic and seismic activity. The HUGO site is a gentle, mud-filled
depression located due east of East Pit on the Loihi summit plateau.
In the image on the left below, you can see the main HUGO junction box with the black cable entering it from the right-hand side as it was being deployed from a surface ship in October 1997. In the image on the right, you see HUGO as it looked on the sea floor in January 1998: the bottom half of the main titanium structure is now buried in very fine-grained mud.
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OTHER LOIHI TOUR LINKS:
[The Summit Region |
The New Pit |
The HUGO site |
The South Rift]
Return to the Hawaii Center for Volcanology LOIHI Page
Return to the Hawaii Center for Volcanology Home Page
This page created and maintained by
Ken Rubin©,
krubin@soest.hawaii.edu
Other credits for this web site.
Last page update on 24 Jul 1998