In recent years, a group of scientists discovered a new type of underwater volcanoe that had thus far gone unnoticed due to their small size.

Antarctica is home to numerous relatively young volcanoes from the Cenozoic era. According to one hypothesis, their activity was one of the factors driving the continent’s glaciation.

The results of the detailed seismoacoustic profilling (CSP, boomar) are presented. The investigation has been carried out in February 1985 and 1988 during two Geodynamical Expeditions organized by the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The boomar penetration of the caldera floor went down to 150 msec. Four seismoacoustic units of volcanic formations have been determined. The unit A corresponds to pre-caldera series and occurred only in the border part of the flooded caldera. The unit contains mainly pyroclastic rocks (consolidated agglomerates and tuffs) and probably some intercalations of lavas. The units B, C and D fill up the caldera bottom and correspond to post-caldera series. The units are composed of pyroclastic rocks, containing also materials redeposited by lahars, glaciers, landwaters and by wind. The units C and D (the youngest one) were certainly deposited under water. All the units are cut by numerous faults, vents and other types of intrusions. The larger faults, en echelon type, are situated around the bottom and form a ring-fracture. Caldera was formed by succesive stages of collapsing. This process is not finished yet and volcanic activity is still alive (especially in the western part of the flooded caldera).

The work describes the methodology and results of analysis for the consequences assessment of eruption from Cumbre Vieja volcano in Canary Islands. The preliminary analysis of dispersion of emitted pollutants was performed using Lagrangian trajectories model. To estimate long-term outcomes of eruption in terms of deposition and concentration of eruption products the Eulerian model of air dispersion was used. The model uses data from Global Forecasting System meteorological model launched at the NCEP-NOAA centre. The average concentration and deposition of sulfur compounds as well as the probability and time of the pollution cloud reaching all European capitals were examined. In 90 days a cloud of pollutants (SO2, volcanic ashes) spread over the northern hemisphere. Pollution reached Africa, North Sea and Europe. With an average emission of 15,000 tons of SO2/day, the maximum calculated deposition to the Earth’s surface reached 0.8g/m2, while overall deposition – 35 kilotons in the domain area.