Editorial for Special Issue “Present and Past Submarine Volcanic Activity (1)”

Abstract

Over 1 million volcanoes on the Earth surface occur in marine and submarine environments in different geodynamic contexts. Most of this volcanic activity remains almost unexplored due to the extreme conditions of deep underwater observations of the eruptive processes. Despite this, the link between volcanism, tectonics, and seabed morphology represents a key aspect for developing new interpretative geological models and verifying or refining older interpretations. Tectonics often drives volcanism, and they both shape the seafloor morphology. Therefore, new observational capacities and multidisciplinary data integration increase our possibility to reach and interpret deep-seated geological structures. As an example, the advances in exploration geophysics allowed to illuminate the submerged portion of volcanic islands and deep volcanic seamounts. A number of 2–3D geological models about seafloor volcanic structures, their feeding systems, hydrothermal system extension and depth are now available using seismic, multibeam swath bathymetry and potential field methods, as well as their detailed digital elevation models. Therefore, the multidisciplinary approach becomes an essential tool to investigate deep marine environments which would otherwise be unreachable, and to unravel what is going on below sea level in remote and almost completely unreachable environments. On the other hand, coastal volcanism and volcanic islands are better known than deep edifices; however, their study is essential to better understand their growth, their dismantling mechanism and their activity, which directly influences the safety and security of manufacts, engineering operas and human lives. The target of the Special Issue volume was decided by the five published papers which crosscut different and complementary aspects of submarine volcanism, useful for the understanding of past and present activity of the proposed case studies.