Scientists Thought Nothing Could Live Near This Active, Underwater Volcano — Then They Caught Something Cool on Video

A scientific team on a mission to map an active, underwater volcano off the coast of the Solomon Islands, knew they were embarking on dangerous territory. What they didn't expect was something they filmed happening below.

The number one surprise: sharks. In honor of Shark Week and playing off of the viral "Sharknado," National Geographic has called it a "sharkcano."

Image source: YouTube

"Absolutely, we were scared," Brennan Phillips with the National Geographic Society/Waitt Grants Program told National Geographic's Explorers Journal when he and his crew boated toward the volcano. "But one of the ways you can tell that Kavachi is erupting is that you can actually hear it — both on the surface and underwater. Anywhere within 10 miles even, you can hear it rumbling in your ears and in your body."

Even when it's not erupting the underwater environment around it is still harsh enough that divers have gotten mild acid burns if they dove too close.

As they approached, the team didn't hear any of the telltale signs of eruption, so they went forward. Once above the rim, the team took various measurements and sent down cameras. What they captured on camera had them hollering as they watched the live stream from the boat.

It's a "real life sharkcano" down there, the team wrote in a description of the video footage they obtained. In addition to spotting sharks swimming around the volcano, they saw other marine life like jellyfish, stingrays and smaller fish as well.

Image source: YouTube

"The idea of there being large animals, like sharks hanging out and living inside the caldera of this volcano conflicts with what we know about Kavachi, which is that it erupts," Phillips said in the video. "But when it's erupting, there's no way anything could live in there. And so to see large animals like this that are living and potentially, they could die at any moment, it brings up lots of questions: Do they leave? Do they have some sort of sign that it's about to erupt? Do they blow up sky-high in little bits?"

"The fact that we saw animals in the plume like that, that opens all kinds of interesting questions," Phillips added. "That's the best project is to go out with one question and come back with many."

Watch the footage:

(H/T: Popular Science)