The Ancient 'Eye of Sauron' Has Been Discovered, And It's an Undersea Volcano TIM O'HARA, THE CONVERSATION 22 JULY 2021 Lord of the Rings trilogy, an ancient undersea volcano was slowly revealed by multibeam sonar 3,100 meters (10,170 ft) below our vessel, 280 kilometers (174 miles) southeast of Christmas Island.
This was on day 12 of our voyage of exploration to Australia's Indian Ocean Territories, aboard CSIRO's dedicated ocean research vessel, the RV Previously unknown and unimagined, this volcano emerged from our screens as a giant oval-shaped depression called a caldera, 6.2 km by 4.8 km across. It is surrounded by a 300-m-high rim (resembling Sauron's eyelids), and has a 300-m-high cone-shaped peak at its center (the 'pupil').