Earth's Largest Single Volcano Ranks 11th in Discover Magazine's Top 100 List for 2013

Earth’s Largest Single Volcano Ranks 11th in Discover Magazine’s Top 100 List for 2013
Finding by UH’s Sager is the Highest-Ranked Earth Science Story on List

Sager - Tamu Masif
This 3D image of the seafloor shows the size and shape of Tamu Massif, a huge feature in the northern Pacific Ocean, confirmed to be the largest single volcano on Earth. (Image Credit: Will Sager)News that scientists uncovered the world’s largest single volcano earned the rank of 11 in Discover magazine’s Top 100 Science Stories of 2013. The list appears in the January/February 2014 issue of Discover.

William Sager, a professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences in University of Houston’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, led the team that uncovered the enormous volcano. Research findings were published in the Sept. 8 issue of Nature Geoscience.

Covering an area roughly equivalent to the British Isles or the state of New Mexico, the volcano, dubbed the Tamu Massif, is nearly as big as the giant volcanoes of Mars, placing it among the largest in the Solar System. It is located about 1,000 miles east of Japan and is part of an underwater mountain range in the Pacific Ocean.

At number 11, the volcano finding is the highest-ranked Earth Science story on Discover’s list.

View Discover’s Top 100 Science Stories of 2013

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- Kathy Major, College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics