From the bubbling hot eruption of an underwater volcano, a new island emerges in the southwest pacific. But how long will it survive?
Hey, was that there before? A new island has popped up in the southwest Pacific Ocean, according to the NASA Earth Observatory.
This fledgling patch of land spawned out of a seafloor ridge teeming with highest density of underwater volcanoes on the planet. Known as the Home Reef seamount, the underwater mountain stretches between New Zealand and Tonga. Starting this month, one of those volcanoes bubbled to life and erupted, brimming with lava that spilled out into the surrounding ocean and billowed voluminous plumes of ashy smoke into the air, according to the Earth Observatory'sEleven hours later, amidst the shimmering heat of the subsiding eruption, a brand spankin’ new island emerged.
Island-spawning volcanic activity isn't surprising given the Home Reef seamount's position in the Tonga-Kermadec subduction zone, where three tectonic plates converge on each other in a slow, grinding collision.
Unfortunately, this little guy probably isn’t going to stick around very long, with NASA warning that islands created by underwater volcanoes are typically short-lived. But there are some exceptions, like one island created from the nearby Late’iki Volcano in 1995 that stuck around for a whole 25 years — though that's not very long in geological terms.
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