When Quiet Undersea Volcanoes Turn Disruptive

Rock formations emerge from the waves along the shore of Iceland.

冰岛海岸的岩层从海浪中涌现。

Jonas Preine, a recently minted Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg, squinted at a computer screen in the lab of a ship as it bobbed in the North Atlantic near Iceland.

Jonas Preine，最近获得博士学位。当一艘船在冰岛附近的北大西洋上浮时，来自汉堡大学的他眯着眼睛看着实验室​​里的电脑屏幕。

The image before him just didn’t make sense.

他面前的形象完全没有意义。

It was June 2024, and Preine was among a crew of scientists who had set off from Reykjavik under slate-colored skies, trading their regular lives — family, friends, and the typical office environment — for cramped quarters and nausea on board the Meteor, a research vessel chartered for Expedition M201.

那是 2024 年 6 月，Preine 和一群科学家一起在石板色的天空下从雷克雅未克出发，放弃了正常的生活——家人、朋友和典型的办公环境——换取了为 M201 探险队租用的一艘研究船流星号上的狭窄宿舍和恶心感。

They’d been lucky so far, enjoying relatively calm seas as they motored toward their destination, an unexplored deep-water basin dotted with volcanic shapes.

到目前为止，他们很幸运，在驶向目的地时享受着相对平静的海洋，目的地是一个未开发的深水盆地，上面点缀着火山形状。

The researchers carried reams of equipment: geophysical tools to collect seismic profiles of the Earth’s interior, cameras to image the ocean floor, and coring and dredging equipment to sample rocks and verify what might appear in grainy, partially processed computer images.

研究人员携带了大量设备：收集地球内部地震剖面的地球物理工具、对海底成像的相机、对岩石进行取样并验证颗粒状、部分处理的计算机图像中可能出现的内容的取芯和疏浚设备。

That first evening, about 100 kilometers from port, the team paused to test their geophysical tools in shallow waters.

第一个晚上，在距港口约 100 公里的地方，团队停下来在浅水中测试他们的地球物理工具。

The seismic imagery they collected of the seafloor’s layered interior would lead them to an unexpected discovery, one that would complicate what we know about the usually sluggish volcanic fissures that lace the bottom of the ocean.

他们收集的海底分层内部的地震图像将使他们获得意想不到的发现，这一发现将使我们对海底通常缓慢的火山裂缝的了解变得更加复杂。

Their findings could also be connected to mysterious islands from the recesses of history that witnesses said appeared suddenly, only to disappear later beneath the waves.

他们的发现也可能与历史深处的神秘岛屿有关，目击者称这些岛屿突然出现，但后来又消失在海浪之下。

The Meteor transported the scientists on Expedition M201 to their research site off the coast of Iceland.

流星号将 M201 探险队的科学家们运送到冰岛海岸附近的研究地点。

In the lab, Preine snapped some screenshots and shared them with the team.

在实验室中，Preine 拍摄了一些屏幕截图并与团队分享。

Six weeks later, on returning from the expedition, he needed little effort to convince the project’s lead scientist to stop in shallow waters to investigate what they’d found.

六周后，探险归来后，他不费吹灰之力就说服了该项目的首席科学家在浅水区停下来调查他们的发现。

Iceland is a geological rarity.

冰岛在地质上是罕见的。

Here, on the world’s largest volcanic island, you can hike through gorges dividing the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.

在这里，在世界上最大的火山岛上，您可以徒步穿越分隔北美和欧亚板块的峡谷。

That’s because Iceland sits on a mid-ocean ridge, a vast seam where Earth’s crust tears apart and oceans grow in the expanding space between.

这是因为冰岛坐落在大洋中脊上，这是一条巨大的接缝，地壳在这里撕裂，海洋在其间不断扩大的空间中生长。

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge began forming about 200 million years ago, as the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart at the end of the Triassic Period.

大约2亿年前，当超大陆盘古大陆在三叠纪末期分裂时，大西洋中脊开始形成。

Iceland emerged much later when a plume of unusually hot mantle rock arched the ridge up above the gathering waves.

冰岛出现的时间要晚得多，当时一股异常炽热的地幔岩石将山脊拱起，高高地耸立在聚集的海浪之上。

Across the globe, mid-ocean ridges have a nondramatic style — nothing like Washington State’s explosive Mount St. Helens or southern Italy’s Mount Vesuvius, the destroyer of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

在全球范围内，洋中脊的风格并不引人注目——与华盛顿州爆炸性的圣海伦斯火山或意大利南部的维苏威火山（庞贝和赫库兰尼姆的毁灭者）完全不同。

So the team aboard the Meteor wasn’t expecting anything unusual when they passed over a submerged segment of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge called the Reykjanes Ridge.

因此，当流星号上的团队经过大西洋中脊雷克雅内斯海脊的水下部分时，并没有预料到会出现任何异常情况。

They just wanted to confirm that their equipment was in working order.

他们只是想确认他们的设备是否正常工作。

The crew switched the equipment on, pinging back X-ray-like images that revealed layers of the seafloor’s stone interior.

船员们打开设备，回传类似 X 射线的图像，揭示了海底岩石内部的各层结构。

“We decided to do two test profiles over the Reykjanes Ridge because it was logistically easy and potentially interesting,” said Preine, now a marine geophysicist at the National Oceanography Center in England.

“我们决定在雷克雅内斯海脊上进行两次测试剖面，因为这在后勤上很容易并且可能很有趣，”现任英国国家海洋学中心的海洋地球物理学家普雷纳说。

In Iceland’s Thingvellir National Park, hikers can travel along a path between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.

在冰岛的辛格维利尔国家公园，徒步旅行者可以沿着北美和欧亚板块之间的小路行走。

Seismic images of mid-ocean ridges typically show rough and jagged terrain, formed when lava oozes up into the cold ocean along faults or fissures and hardens suddenly into stone.

大洋中脊的地震图像通常显示出粗糙且锯齿状的地形，这是当熔岩沿着断层或裂缝渗入寒冷的海洋并突然硬化成石头时形成的。

But that’s not what Preine saw.

但普莱因所看到的并非如此。

Along the ridge were smooth mounds with steep sides and flat tops, their flanks draped in scattered deposits that looked like debris from an eruption above the sea surface.

沿着山脊是光滑的土丘，侧面陡峭，顶部平坦，它们的侧面覆盖着分散的沉积物，看起来就像海面喷发的碎片。

The formations reminded him of the topic of his doctoral dissertation, a submerged system of notoriously explosive volcanoes near Santorini, Greece.

这些构造让他想起了他的博士论文的主题：希腊圣托里尼附近的一个由臭名昭著的爆炸性火山组成的水下系统。

Why did there seem to be explosive volcanoes along the usually quiet mid-ocean ridge?

为什么通常安静的洋中脊上似乎出现了爆发性的火山？

And why were their tops beveled flat?

为什么它们的顶部是平的斜角？

Oceans, vast and deep, remain largely unexplored.

海洋广阔而深邃，大部分仍未被探索。

For generations, scientists could do little more to study the depths than dredge the seafloor, dragging buckets for whatever they could find.

几代人以来，科学家们除了疏浚海底、拖着水桶寻找任何他们能找到的东西之外，对深度研究几乎无能为力。

Only in recent decades have geophysical technology and deep-sea cameras provided glimpses of these mysterious worlds.

直到最近几十年，地球物理技术和深海相机才让人们得以一睹这些神秘世界的风采。

There are more volcanic eruptions in the oceans than on land, said Isobel Yeo , a volcanologist at the National Oceanography Center who was not involved in Expedition M201.

未参与 M201 探险队的国家海洋学中心火山学家伊索贝尔·杨 (Isobel Yeo) 表示，海洋中的火山喷发比陆地上的火山喷发还要多。

“We just don’t know nearly as much about them.”

“我们对它们的了解还不够多。”

Here’s what we do know: Across most of the globe, the crushing weight of the abyss suppresses explosive eruptions at mid-ocean ridges.

我们确实知道的是：在全球大部分地区，深渊的巨大重量抑制了洋中脊的爆炸性喷发。

Most of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge lies at least 2,500 meters below the sea, where extreme pressure keeps volcanic gases from expanding and limits eruptions to quiet outpourings of lava.

大西洋中脊的大部分地区位于海平面以下至少 2,500 米，那里​​的极端压力使火山气体无法膨胀，并限制火山喷发，使熔岩安静地喷涌而出。

When the expedition returned, more profiles and imaging made it clear that the team had stumbled on the boundary where that restraint lifts: The Mid-Atlantic Ridge changed character at around a depth of 300 meters.

当探险队返回时，更多的剖面图和图像清楚地表明，该团队已经偶然发现了限制解除的边界：大西洋中脊在大约 300 米深度处改变了特征。

That transition could explain an incident from Iceland’s recent history.

这种转变可以解释冰岛近代历史上的一个事件。

Jonas Preine, now a marine geophysicist at the National Oceanography Center in England, is studying the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

乔纳斯·普莱恩现在是英国国家海洋学中心的海洋地球物理学家，正在研究大西洋中脊。

Without warning on November 14, 1963, new land emerged from the cold black waters off the coast of Iceland.

1963 年 11 月 14 日，在没有任何警告的情况下，新的陆地从冰岛海岸附近寒冷的黑色水域中出现。

Over the course of three years, a volcanic island spewed and sputtered as it rose 171 meters above the sea.

在三年的时间里，一座火山岛在海拔 171 米的高度上喷发喷溅。

The government of Iceland named the island Surtsey, after the Icelandic mythic fire god Surtur.

冰岛政府以冰岛神话火神苏尔图尔（Surtur）的名字将该岛命名为苏尔特塞岛（Surtsey）。

Throughout history, so-called phantom islands — many of them volcanic — have occasionally sparked frantic, even quasi-comedic claims and naval tensions.

纵观历史，所谓的幽灵岛屿（其中许多是火山岛）偶尔会引发疯狂的、甚至是准喜剧性的主张和海军紧张局势。

“There were humorous reports of the Royal Navy stopping to put a flag on them when they breached sea level, only to see them disappear by wave erosion,” wrote Neil Mitchell, a geophysicist at the University of Manchester, via email.

曼彻斯特大学地球物理学家尼尔·米切尔在电子邮件中写道：“有幽默的报道称，当它们冲破海平面时，皇家海军停下来给它们插上旗帜，结果却看到它们被海浪侵蚀消失。”

While some of these phantom islands emerged from more volatile volcanic zones, others, including Surtsey, appeared mysteriously along the gently oozing mid-ocean ridge.

虽然其中一些幽灵岛屿是从更加不稳定的火山带中出现的，但包括瑟特西岛在内的其他岛屿却神秘地沿着缓慢渗出的洋中脊神秘地出现。

In total, historical records document at least 14 eruptions on the northern Reykjanes Ridge in particular over the last 1,000 years.

历史记录总共记录了雷克雅内斯山脊北部至少发生过 14 次火山喷发，特别是在过去 1000 年里。

Preine and his colleagues felt they had a unifying explanation for Surtsey and the strange subsea volcanoes they’d observed.

普雷纳和他的同事们认为，他们对瑟特西和他们观察到的奇怪海底火山有了统一的解释。

They could pinpoint a specific depth at which the pressure eased just enough to allow seawater in contact with lava to flash to steam, powering an explosive eruption that could breach the sea’s surface.

他们可以精确地确定一个特定的深度，在该深度处压力足以让海水与熔岩接触闪蒸成蒸汽，从而引发可能冲破海面的爆炸性喷发。

Surtsey, a volcanic island off the southern coast of Iceland, emerged from the sea in the 1960s.

叙尔特塞 (Surtsey) 是冰岛南部海岸附近的一座火山岛，于 20 世纪 60 年代从海中崛起。

The deposits that blanketed the volcanoes’ steep flanks were critical clues, Preine said.

普雷纳说，覆盖火山陡峭侧面的沉积物是重要的线索。

Water dampens how far debris gets thrown, as anyone who has ever tried throwing an object underwater can confirm.

任何尝试过将物体扔到水下的人都可以证实，水会抑制碎片扔出的距离。

So the material from underwater eruptions settles close to its source.

因此，水下喷发产生的物质沉积在其源头附近。

Once a volcano breaches the sea surface, though, it can scatter ash and rock debris much farther.

然而，一旦火山突破海面，它就会将火山灰和岩石碎片散布到更远的地方。

This can go on for days, months, or even years.

这种情况可能会持续数天、数月甚至数年。

Then, once the magma chamber is exhausted, the sea takes over again.

然后，一旦岩浆室耗尽，海洋就会再次接管。

In Iceland, the sea is a force.

在冰岛，海洋是一种力量。

Preine said the region’s underwater flat-topped volcanoes are worn down to a uniform depth of around 40 meters below sea level — no coincidence, he argued, since North Atlantic storm-wave erosion only reaches down that far.

Preine 表示，该地区的水下平顶火山被磨损到海平面以下约 40 米的均匀深度，他认为这并非巧合，因为北大西洋风暴波的侵蚀只能到达那么深的地方。

“The key parameter here is depth,” said Ross Parnell-Turner , a geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the work of Expedition M201.

“这里的关键参数是深度，”加州大学圣地亚哥分校斯克里普斯海洋学研究所的地球物理学家罗斯·帕内尔-特纳（Ross Parnell-Turner）说道，他没有参与 M201 探险队的工作。

The influence of lower water pressure and the force of the Atlantic’s waves seemed to explain Expedition M201’s observations.

较低水压的影响和大西洋波浪的力量似乎可以解释 Expedition M201 的观测结果。

But there was another factor to consider.

但还有另一个因素需要考虑。

Páll Einarsson vividly recalls the day in 1963 when Surtsey began erupting.

Páll Einarsson 生动地回忆起 1963 年瑟特西开始喷发的那一天。

His father, a volcano-curious engineer, drove him to the airport, where he had convinced an airline pilot to take an impromptu flight over the new volcano.

他的父亲是一位对火山充满好奇的工程师，开车送他去机场，在那里他说服了一名航空公司飞行员在这座新火山上空进行临时飞行。

From the plane, father and son watched the plume of dark smoke emerge from the endless northern seas.

在飞机上，父子俩看着一缕缕黑烟从一望无际的北方海域升起。

Einarsson went on to study volcanoes, among other things, and is now an emeritus geophysicist at the University of Iceland.

艾纳尔森继续研究火山等，现在是冰岛大学的名誉地球物理学家。

When asked about Expedition M201’s findings, he said he was impressed by the team’s efforts but not fully convinced of their theory about how the flat-topped volcanoes formed.

当被问及 M201 探险队的发现时，他表示该团队的努力给他留下了深刻的印象，但并不完全相信他们关于平顶火山如何形成的理论。

That’s because, for different reasons, similar volcanoes appear both in the deep ocean and on land.

这是因为，由于不同的原因，类似的火山同时出现在深海和陆地上。

Some 20,000 years ago, Iceland was covered with slow-moving glaciers.

大约2万年前，冰岛覆盖着缓慢移动的冰川。

Today, glaciers remain across approximately 11% of the country, and the areas left behind are home to squat mountains called tuyas, or table mountains.

如今，该国约 11% 的面积仍保留着冰川，留下的地区是被称为“图亚斯”或“桌山”的低矮山脉的所在地。

Some scientists think the tuyas formed when rising magma collided with a thick ceiling of ice and melted it, triggering explosions.

一些科学家认为，图雅是在上升的岩浆与厚厚的冰层碰撞并融化并引发爆炸时形成的。

But like a paving stone above a cluster of mushrooms, the glaciers acted like a lid, preventing the volcanoes from growing too tall.

但就像蘑菇群上方的铺路石一样，冰川就像一个盖子，防止火山长得太高。

Tuyas are steep-sided mountains with flat tops found in just a few places in the world, including Iceland.

图亚斯是一种陡峭、顶部平坦的山脉，仅在世界上少数地方发现，包括冰岛。

They are sometimes called “table mountains.”

它们有时被称为“桌山”。

Hansueli Krapf/Wikimedia Commons

Hansueli Krapf/维基共享资源

During the last ice age, the sea level was far lower than today, and Iceland’s glaciers extended across the exposed Reykjanes Ridge.

在上一个冰河时期，海平面远低于今天，冰岛的冰川延伸到裸露的雷克雅内斯山脊。

That glacial advance appears to have reached roughly the area that now lies beneath about 300 meters of water, where Expedition M201 identified the flat-topped volcanoes.

冰川的前进似乎已经大致到达了现在水下约 300 米的区域，M201 号探险队在那里发现了平顶火山。

The research team initially wondered whether the submerged mounds could be drowned versions of tuyas.

研究小组最初想知道水下的土丘是否可能是被淹没的图亚。

They did find evidence against the glacier theory: The volcanic material appeared to have accumulated on top of abandoned glacial rubble, suggesting that the eruptions happened after the glaciers retreated.

他们确实发现了反对冰川理论的证据：火山物质似乎堆积在废弃的冰川碎石上，这表明火山喷发发生在冰川消退之后。

Most outside experts interviewed for this story say they’re convinced that these observations rule out the theory, but Einarsson would like to see more evidence.

大多数接受本文采访的外部专家表示，他们相信这些观察结果排除了这一理论，但艾纳尔森希望看到更多证据。

Scientists know what they need to resolve this tension: rocks, or at least a good look at them from a submersible vehicle.

科学家们知道他们需要什么来解决这种紧张局势：岩石，或者至少从潜水器上仔细观察它们。

With explosive submarine eruptions, “it looks like someone dumped a truckful of volcanic sand over everything,” said Robert Sohn , a geophysicist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts who was not involved in the work.

马萨诸塞州伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的地球物理学家罗伯特·索恩（Robert Sohn）没有参与这项工作，他说，随着海底爆炸的爆发，“看起来就像有人把一卡车火山沙倒在了所有东西上”。

“It’s immediately obvious.” But Preine and company have only limited material from seafloor dredging in the area and not enough direct visuals to substantiate their theory.

“这很明显。”但普雷纳和他的公司从该地区的海底疏浚中获得的材料有限，没有足够的直接视觉效果来证实他们的理论。

It will take a while to gather new evidence, though, as deep-sea exploration plans are formulated years in advance.

不过，由于深海勘探计划是提前数年制定的，因此收集新证据还需要一段时间。

“You sail into the middle of nowhere based on a point that somebody put on a map, and you hope very much that they’ve put that point in the right place,” Yeo said.

“你根据某人在地图上放置的一个点航行到一个偏僻的地方，你非常希望他们把那个点放在正确的位置，”杨说。

“You’re sort of stuck with the decisions past-you made.”

“你有点被过去所做的决定所困。”

The science team for Expedition M201 deploys seismic equipment off the deck of the Meteor research vessel.

Expedition M201 的科学团队在 Meteor 研究船的甲板上部署了地震设备。

Preine is keeping an open mind.

Preine 保持开放的心态。

He’s not so quick to dismiss the influence of ice, though he thinks it may have played a different role.

他并没有那么快地否认冰的影响，尽管他认为冰可能发挥了不同的作用。

Like seawater, ice exerts pressure on the Earth’s crust, suppressing volcanic activity.

像海水一样，冰对地壳施加压力，抑制火山活动。

When ice sheets retreat, as they did along the Reykjanes Ridge, that pressure is released, causing volcanic activity to spike.

当冰盖退缩时，就像沿着雷克雅内斯山脊那样，压力就会释放，导致火山活动激增。

Preine said sampling rocks to determine the ages of the volcanoes would be “extremely interesting” in testing what remains a working hypothesis: that receding glaciers indirectly fueled a new volcanic era.

普雷纳表示，通过对岩石进行采样来确定火山的年龄，对于检验目前仍有效的假设是“非常有趣的”：冰川消退间接推动了一个新的火山时代。

As Surtsey so vividly demonstrated, the behavior of mid-ocean ridges can shift from calm to explosive under the right conditions.

正如瑟特西生动地证明的那样，在适当的条件下，大洋中脊的行为可以从平静转变为爆炸。

Scientists now suspect that this may have been more common in the past — and wonder when it could happen again.

科学家们现在怀疑这种情况在过去可能更为常见，并且想知道这种情况何时会再次发生。

Whatever researchers discover about the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the pattern may extend far beyond Iceland.

无论研究人员对大西洋中脊有何发现，这种模式可能会远远超出冰岛。

Shallow stretches of mid-ocean ridges, from the Azores to the Galápagos to the Red Sea, cross the same depth threshold.

从亚速尔群岛到加拉帕戈斯群岛再到红海，大洋中脊的浅层都跨越了相同的深度阈值。

In those places, the slow conveyor belt of the deep may occasionally give way to something more volatile, building islands that briefly rise above the surface before waves grind them back again.

在这些地方，缓慢的深海传送带有时可能会被更不稳定的东西所取代，形成一些岛屿，这些岛屿会短暂地升出水面，然后海浪再次将它们磨回原处。

There’s a reason to give Iceland special attention, though.

不过，有理由给予冰岛特别关注。

Since around 2020, a giant magma chamber has swelled under the Reykjanes Peninsula, the onshore limb of the Reykjanes Ridge, triggering earthquakes and sending lava oozing into the streets.

自 2020 年左右以来，雷克雅内斯半岛（雷克雅内斯山脊的陆上边缘）下，一个巨大的岩浆库不断膨胀，引发地震，熔岩渗入街道。

In 2023, the fishing town of Grindavík’s about 3,700 residents evacuated, many perhaps for good.

2023 年，渔镇格林达维克的约 3,700 名居民撤离，其中许多人可能是永久撤离。

Now scientists say that pressure is building again.

现在科学家们表示压力再次增大。

“We are really in the middle of a very remarkable event right now,” Einarsson said.

“我们现在确实正处于一件非常了不起的事件之中，”艾纳尔森说。

Offshore, most of that activity remains hidden.

在海上，大部分活动仍然是隐藏的。

But the same forces are at work, Preine said, and “the chances are not low” for another Surtsey to rise again.

但普雷纳表示，同样的力量也在发挥作用，另一个苏尔特西再次崛起的“可能性并不低”。

“A colleague sent me an email saying that there was actually an earthquake swarm on the Reykjanes Ridge this week,” Preine said in January.

“一位同事给我发了一封电子邮件，说本周雷克雅内斯山脊实际上发生了地震群，”普雷纳在一月份说道。

“Nothing big, but you never know.”

“没什么大不了的，但你永远不知道。”

Correction: May 27, 2026 The original article said that Surtsey emerged from the Reykjanes Ridge.

更正：2026 年 5 月 27 日 原文称瑟特西是从雷克雅内斯山脊出现的。

In fact, Surtsey is southeast of there.

事实上，瑟特西位于那里的东南部。

In addition, the article misstated the name of Páll Einarsson’s father.

此外，这篇文章还错误地表述了 Páll Einarsson 父亲的名字。

Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox

获取发送到您的电子邮件收件箱的最重要新闻的摘要

Quanta Magazine moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation.

《Quanta》杂志对评论进行审核，以促进知情、实质性、文明的对话。

Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected.

辱骂、亵渎、自我推销、误导、语无伦次或偏离主题的评论将被拒绝。

Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (New York time) and can only accept comments written in English.

版主在正常工作时间（纽约时间）有工作人员，并且只能接受英文评论。