Question: Hi Hayley it's galphage paleintologist person can you find old under water islands and volcanoes using a radar

Hayley Evers-King answered on 22 Mar 2013:

Hello 🙂 Great to hear from you! Fantastic question. Radar can be a little bit limited in water, because water tends to interfere with the radar signals, so unless the thing you’re looking for is very shallow you won’t be able to see it. However we can use something called radar altimetry to look at the surface of the ocean and if we understand how the gravity of large features like underwater mountains and volcanoes effects the surface of the ocean, we can start mapping these features. You can learn more about it from NOAA (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/bathymetry/predicted/explore.HTML#sub_vol).

If you want a more detailed look, we can take a boat out and use SONAR (based on sounds) to get more detailed pictures, like this one (http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/127557/view). Or we can send a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) to investigate – like this one that some of my friends work with – http://hotventscoldocean.blogspot.co.uk/ There are amazing animals that live at these underwater volcanoes and many scientists think that they could give us a clue about how early life started on the planet!

Good luck with your dream of becoming a paleontologist! Hopefully I will see you on the the news making all the discoveries in a few years time!!