A Tour of Loihi: The HUGO Site

"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.                    Click on Images to See Larger Versions        HUGO is still in its infancy but eventually, it will be able to support more than 50 independent experiments that will examine and monitor geological, geochemical, geophysical, biological and oceanographic phenomema at this active submarine volcano. If you're interested, there are plenty of photos and information about the HUGO deployment at the HUGO web site.

OTHER LOIHI TOUR LINKS:
[The Summit Region | The New Pit | The HUGO site | The South Rift]