Castle Virtual Site

Castle Virtual Site

Castle and Circ vents provide a contrast between focused and diffuse styles of hydrothermal venting, and between old and new lava surfaces. Castle vent is the only known active sulfide chimney in the 1998 lava flow area. It is located just east of the 1998 lava flow contact, on a mound of older pillow lavas. This vent consists of a pair of massive sulfide edifices that are 5 m high with multiple spires at the top. Each of these chimneys formed by mineral precipitation around a focused stream of high-temperature vent fluid. In its prime, Castle vent probably teemed with life. Today it appears to be in decline, with few tube worms in residence and little apparent smoke venting out the top. More ...

	Fly-through movie The Quicktime movie below allows you to get a virtual tour of the site by moving through it. Click the button at the lower left to play the movie. Both the fly-through movie and the panorama may take some time to load, so please be patient.		Panorama The Quicktime VR panorama below gives you a 360° view of the site. Click and drag your mouse inside the panorama window to look in different directions. The buttons in the bottom left zoom in or out and show hotlinks to video clips.

If you do not see two movie windows or Quicktime icons above, go to the Help page.