Past events have unleashed city-size rafts of pumice or seen volcanoes blowing themselves apart only to build new islands immediately afterward.Ībout 1,500 active volcanoes can be found around the world. Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai is located in region of the South Pacific that’s jam-packed with volcanoes-some above the waves, some far below-that have a penchant for violent eruptions. But here’s what scientists do know about the tectonic and geologic drivers involved, and what they might mean for the volcano’s future. “There are far more questions than answers at this point,” Krippner says. But information has been slow to emerge partly because the volcano is somewhat remote and difficult to observe up close. Scientists and a rattled public are eager to know what caused such a powerful eruption, and what may happen next. But even if that turns out to be the case, the damage has already been done.įor Tonga, “this is a potentially devastating event, and it’s horrifying to watch,” says Janine Krippner, a volcanologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program. The hope is that the worst of the eruption is over. Recent research on the geologic history of the volcano suggests that this powerful paroxysm is, on human timescales, a relatively rare event: Such an explosion is thought to occur roughly once every thousand years. Stations in California, Mexico, and parts of South America also registered minor tsunami waves. Tsunami waves, albeit smaller ones, rushed across the vast ocean to parts of the Pacific Northwest, causing surges in Alaska, Oregon, Washington State, and British Columbia. Communications were knocked out as the streets began to flood and people fled for their lives. It hit Tongatapu, the kingdom’s main island and home to the capital Nuku'alofa, just a few dozen miles to the south of the volcano. To everyone’s horror, a tsunami quickly followed. The sonic boom was heard in parts of New Zealand more than 1,300 miles away, with the shockwave eventually traveling halfway around the world-as far as the United Kingdom, which is located a staggering 10,000 miles distant. The atmosphere was blasted out of the way as a shockwave emanated from the island, radiating outward at close to the speed of sound. Then, early in the morning on January 15, the volcano produced a colossal explosion. “We were starting to get 5,000 or 6,000 events per minute. “The thing just went gangbusters,” says Chris Vagasky, meteorologist and lightning applications manager at the Finland-based weather measurements company Vaisala.
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