When this happens, can you name two results?
- Take a guess.
- Think about it.
- The rest of the story appears below, on this page, in 1-minute.
The video is of an underwater volcano that erupted in the Pacific Ocean on a Saturday in 2022.
You would be correct if you said that it would cause:
- the raining of ash on the nearby neighbors, and
- tsunami advisories for others thousands of miles away.
This underwater volucano sent ash from the sky onto a nearby nation of Tonga. The tidal wave warnings went to Japan, Hawaii, New Zealand and California.
Geologic details
This eruption was huge. It was equivalent to a magnitude 5.8 earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey. It released a plume of ash thousands of feet in the air, and generated a sonic boom that could be heard nearly 6,000 miles away in Alaska.
- Tsunamis, which are caused by the sudden displacement of a large amount of water, are primarily caused by earthquakes, not undersea volcanoes.
Due to the ash, Tonga looks “like a moonscape,” locals told the BBC. While no deaths have been reported there, the damage to Tonga is “significant,” New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern said. The event knocked-out communication and internet lines and made it difficult to reach some of Tonga's 105,000 residents.
More:
The eruption's effect on New Zealand and the West Coast of the US was limited.
This eruption is crazy!