Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai was n’t supposed to last . The cloud of volcanic ash tree that became island - shaped in early 2015 , about a calendar month after an submersed vent erupted in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga , was expected to be washed away by the ocean in three to four months .
Instead , it ’s persisted for years , all the while shapeshifting before our center . And harmonize to new research led by NASA , it could last for decades more .
“ We have n’t had an island like this sustain itself in 50 years , ” Jim Garvin , chief scientist of NASA ’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt , Maryland , told reporter at apress conferenceat the American Geophysical Union merging in New Orleans yesterday .
As Garvin explicate , the shallow submarine sandwich eruption that have Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai was special . Not only did the eruption sick lava , “ it also produced some of the explosive magma water interactions that were the hallmark of the eruption that produced Surtsey , ” an island off the coast of Iceland that formed in the 1960s and has persisted to this day .
Garvin believe Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai has outlived its expected lifespan because of chemical substance interactions between lovesome seawater and volcanic material , which induce its rocky shorelines to harden briefly after the eruption . If this hunch is right , it would make the new island the first long - lived “ surtseyan ” island of the satellite record .
scientist are now monitor the volcanic island closely , using monthly satellite ikon to track its change coastlines , and nearshore measure with research vessels to map the seafloor . They ’ve look on it deepen dramatically .
Initially , Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai was middling oval - shaped , climb 400 foot from its coastline to a central tufa cone . Over time , the intact island has become lean and more elongate out as stuff erodes off the tuff cone and collects along the coastlines .
The first liberal modification came in April 2015 , when satellite paradigm revealed that the cliff denounce the southerly rim of the volcanic crater had collapsed . A few weeks later , the last oddment of the volcanic crater paries were gone , opening a central lake to the ocean .
At that time , Garvin explained , there was a risk of ocean waves impact the marvelous cliffs on the interior of the crater , accelerating the conoid ’s collapse . But within a few more week , a sandbar had formed to protect the volcanic crater lake . That feature of speech has remain until this mean solar day .
The other major variety has been the increment of a with child peninsula to the northeast . By April 2015 , that peninsula connect Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai to another nearby island . It has continued to widen over clock time .
To their surprise , the researchers are find that the total volume of the island , as estimated using top models , has remained pretty stable after the first few months . Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai is now expected to make it for anywhere from six class to about three decades , depend on how quickly the tuff cone at its plaza is destabilise .
“ This island is fighting for its life , ” Garvin said . “ And our prognostication suggest we ’ve got potentially another decennary [ or more ] to take in this thing evolve from space . ”
In summation to just being nerveless as infernal region , tracking this island ’s development could help us understand the history of other worlds , namely , our favorable neighbourhood Red Planet . As Garvin explained , Mars features airfield of small volcanoes “ very similar to Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai in show , but we do n’t know the circumstance in which they mould . ”
The enquiry now is , are the different stage of the Earthly island ’s organic evolution evident in volcanic features on Mars ? And if so , does that severalise us something about when Mars last had water , and how bass and widespread that pee was ?
“ We think [ this is ] a existent opportunity for learning , ” Garvin said .
This has been your occasional monitor that Earth is a dynamic , amazing populace , and we ’re damn prosperous to live on on it .
Geology
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