The Red Sea has a new inhabitant: a smoking island.
The island was created by a wild eruption that occurred in the Red Sea earlier this month. It is made of loose
volcanic debris from the
eruption, so it may not stick around long.
According to news reports, fishermen witnessed lava fountains reaching up to 90 feet (30 meters) tall on Dec. 19, which is probably the day the eruption began, said
Erik Klemetti, a volcanologist at
Denison University in
Granville, Ohio.
Ash plumes were seen emanating from the spot Dec. 20 and Dec. 22 by
the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
NASA's
Terra and Aqua satellites. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's
Aura satellite detected elevated levels of sulfur dioxide, further
indicating an eruption. By Dec. 23, what looked like a new island had
appeared in the Red Sea off the west coast of Yemen.
"I am surprised about how quickly the island has grown," Klemetti, who writes Wired's Eruptions Blog, told OurAmazingPlanet.
The
volcanic activity occurred along the
Zubair Group,
a collection of small islands that run in a roughly northwest-southeast
line. The islands rise from a shield volcano (a kind of volcano built
from fluid lava flows) and poke above the sea surface.
Scientists will keep a close eye on the new island to see if it has staying power.
"Many times the islands are ephemeral as they are usually made of loose
volcanic debris, so they get destroyed by wave action quite quickly,"
Klemetti said. But the volcanic activity could outpace the erosion due
to the wave action.
Newly emerging islands aren't unheard of. Other newly emerged islands include Surtsey off of Iceland,
Anak Krakatau in the caldera of Krakatoa in Indonesia, and Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha`apai in Tonga in the South Pacific.
On
December 19, fishermen working off the west coast of Yemen reported a
30-meter (90-ft.) fountain of lava bursting forth from the Red Sea, amid
a group of small islands known as the Zubair Group.
Over the course of three days, NASA satellites detected the ash plume
and increased levels of sulfur dioxide. But on December 23,
high-resolution images revealed that more than an eruption had taken
place — an island had been born.
Location of the newly formed island in the Red Sea.
White arrows show how the directions of plate movement are creating the Red Sea as they separate. Source: USGS
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