Last Updated: November 10, 2023, 15:59 IST
This aerial photograph reveals steam billowing from the waters off Iwoto Island, Ogasawara city within the Pacific Ocean, southern Tokyo. (Credits: Associated Press)
The new island emerged off the coast inside a mere 10 days, as volcanic ash and rocks gathered on the shallow seabed
The world’s latest island has been fashioned off the coast of the Japanese island of Iwo Jima within the Pacific Ocean following an undersea volcanic eruption round 1,200 km south of Tokyo.
The unnamed undersea volcano, positioned about 1 kilometre off the southern coast of Iwo Jima, began its newest collection of eruptions on October 21.
The Japan’s Meteorological Agency (JMA) mentioned the unnamed island was fashioned after it rose from the ocean and was documented in photos taken by the nation’s Maritime Self-Defense Force on November 1.
How was the Island Created?
Japan’s Meteorological Agency has been recording volcanic exercise within the space since final 12 months, however the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo confirmed the island-forming eruption occurred on October 30.
The new island emerged off the coast inside a mere 10 days, as volcanic ash and rocks gathered on the shallow seabed. The tip of the newly fashioned island rose above the ocean floor, making a landmass roughly 100 metres in diameter and towering as excessive as 20 metres above the waterline, Yuji Usui, an analyst within the Japan Meteorological Agency’s volcanic division, mentioned.
A report in The Guardian quoting Fukashi Maeno, an affiliate professor at Tokyo University’s earthquake analysis institute, mentioned the island was created resulting from phreatomagmatic eruptions – a kind of explosive eruption that outcomes from magma interacting with water – which occurred a few kilometre off Iwoto, forming a landmass of about 100 metres in diameter.
The Island is about 1,200 from mainland Japan and a kilometre from Iwo Jima Island, which noticed a number of the fiercest battles of World War II within the Pacific. At the island, US Marines fought lakhs of Japanese stationed there in a battle that killed greater than 7,000 Americans and 22,000 Japanese troops.
Will the Island Survive?
Experts are nonetheless analysing the event and different particulars of the deposits. The new island may survive longer if it is fabricated from lava or one thing extra sturdy than volcanic rocks reminiscent of pumice.
Yuji Usui mentioned the scientists are intently monitoring the brand new island’s formation, investigating the composition of the landmass to find out its sturdiness.
“We just have to see the development,” he mentioned. “But the island may not last very long.”
Undersea volcanoes and seismic actions have fashioned new islands previously. In 2013, an eruption at Nishinoshima within the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo led to the formation of a brand new island, which stored rising throughout a decadelong eruption of the volcano.
Of about 1,500 energetic volcanoes on this planet, 111 are in Japan, which sits on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” in line with the Japan Meteorological Agency.
The island sits about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) south of mainland Japan and a kilometer from Iwo Jima, the island that noticed a number of the fiercest battles of World War II within the Pacific.
US Marines fought tens of 1000’s of Japanese garrisoned there in a battle that killed greater than 7,000 Americans and 22,000 Japanese troops.
