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If "Tonga volcano eruption spews spectacular plume into South Pacific sky (video)" is not shown property. Visit the source link above.
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The eruption began Monday after a series of
earthquakes near Tonga, a 170-island archipelago between Australia
and Tahiti, residents told the
Associated Press. There were magnitude-5.0 quakes there
Sunday night and Monday afternoon, according to the
U.S. Geological Survey.
Though the Wellington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) issued an
advisory
for the area, the plume isn’t engendering island residents and so
far hasn’t hurt fish or other animals, according to the AP.
Yesterday a plume rose to between 15,000 and 25,000 feet (4.6 to
7.6 kilometers), the Smithsonian's
Global Volcanism Program reported. "It's a very significant
eruption, on quite a large scale," Tonga's chief geologist,
Kelepi Maf, told the Times of London. This is not
unusual for this area and we expect this to happen here at any
time."
It’s unclear whether the earthquakes are linked to the eruption.
Sally Kuhn Sennert, who writes the weekly volcano report for the
Smithsonian, didn’t immediately return a call and email for
comment.
But Simon Turner, a geochemist at Macquarie University in Sydney,
told the Times that the quakes and volcano eruption
probably aren’t linked. "If this eruption was caused by the
earthquake, it would mean magma coming 110 kilometers (68 miles) to
the surface in a few days," Turner told the newspaper. "I think
that would be fairly unlikely."
Tonga is part of the ''ring of fire,” an arc of earthquake and
volcanic zones in the Pacific. We’ve got more on what
causes a volcano to erupt and the
ring of fire. |
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