Wright Seamounts

Two volcanic cones, initially known informally as Volcano W and later named Wright, were discovered during a New Zealand-American submarine vent mapping expedition to the Kermadec arc in 2004. The deep-water basaltic volcanoes, 156 km SW of Curtis Island, both have summits cut by small calderas. Evidence of diffuse hydrothermal venting was observed in 2005 from the SE edifice, which rises to within about 900 m of the ocean surface and contains a cone in its summit caldera. The caldera walls expose pillow lavas, pillow tubes, localized sheet flows, and pillow breccias, with higher proportions of volcaniclastic breccias in the upper portion.