Scientists from Durham University will use robots to explore the depths of Atlantic Ocean to study about underwater volcanoes which has built the Earth's crust, says Eurekalert. The Durham experts have led an international team of scientists aboard on Britain's Royal Research Ship James Cook that is sailing from Ponta Delgada, San Miguel, in the Azores...

During this 5 week expedition they will use explorer robots to map individual volcanoes on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge tectonic plate boundary that effectively runs down the centre of the Atlantic Ocean; almost 2 miles below the sea's surface. They will then use another robot, called ISIS, to gather samples from the volcanoes which will be dated using various techniques to shed more light on the timescales behind the growth of the Earth's crust and the related tectonic plates.

Principal investigator Professor Roger Searle, in the Department of Earth Sciences, at Durham University, said: "The problem is that we don't know how fast these volcanoes form or if they all come from melting the same piece of mantle rock. "The ridges may form quickly, perhaps in just 10,000 years with hundreds of thousands of years inactivity before the next one forms, or they may take half-a-million years to form, the most recent having begun before the rise of modern humans.

"Understanding the processes forming the crust is important, because the whole ocean floor, some 60% of the Earth's surface, has been recycled and re-formed many times over the Earth's history." Professor Searle's team will include scientists from Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, the Open University, the University of Paris and several institutions from USA. They will date the volcanoes using radiometric dating and by measuring the changing strength of the Earth's magnetic field through time as recorded by the natural magnetism of the rocks.