A fresh island has sprung up in a eyepatch of the southwest Pacific Ocean riddled with underwater volcanoes , allot to NASA Earth Observatory .
It begin with the blast of an underwatervolcanofound in the Central Tonga Islands on September 10 – and within just eleven hour , a landmass emerged from the watery depth , created by oozing lava that had been chill by the ocean waters and solidified .
Over the next day , lavacontinued to pour and the newly forge island rise . The island was 170 m ( 558 feet ) in diameteron September 16and finally swell to 182 time over the follow two days .
An annotated version of the new satellite image. Image credit: Landsat 9/NASA/NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin,
By September 20 , the island had grown to insure 24,000 square meter ( 6 Akka ) with an natural elevation of 10 meter ( 33 feet ) .
The shaping of the unexampled island wascaptured through imagerytaken by theLandsat 9 satelliteon September 14 . In this innate - colour image , we see a vast plumage of steam and ash gallery off from the vent . you’re able to also see a cloud of discolored water growing around the landmass , created by the comportment of superheated andacidic seawater contain volcanic rockand sulphur .
The new island can be regain southwest of Late Island , northeasterly ofHunga Tonga - Hunga Ha‘apai , and northwest of Mo‘unga‘one . This part of the Pacific is habitation to the Tonga - Kermadec subduction geographical zone , an area where three tectonic plates are slowly crashing together .
All of this architectonic activity has endow this part of the Pacific with a seafloor ridge that has the highest density ofunderwater volcanoesin the world .
Sadly , the baby island might not stick around for long . Weathering and erosion from moving ridge and currents can quickly disgrace the volcanic rock’n’roll , signify this fresh take form island often disappears quickly .
Some new island , however , do manage to hold out . In 2014 , an underwater volcano in this part of the Pacific break open and forged the sizable island of Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai . Although merely a baby , the island has alreadyfostered a flourish ecosystem , gross with pink flowering vegetation , nest sooty tern birds , and barn bird of Minerva – much to the surprise of scientists .
