Undersea volcano erupts off Tonga coast

Undersea volcano erupts off Tonga coast

news.yahoo.com

NUKU'ALOFA, Tonga – An undersea volcano erupted off the coast of Tonga shooting clouds of smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet (meters) into the sky above the South Pacific ocean, officials said Wednesday.
Spectacular columns spewed out of the sea about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the southwest coast off the main island of Tongatapu — an area where up to 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered, said Tonga's geological service head, Keleti Mafi.
"It's a very significant eruption, on quite a large scale," he told The Associated Press.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Sounds like a big one but the story is breaking so I/we will have to dig for more. I will try to find the first pics now.

Heres a link to a map of Tonga and the islands around it:
www.intute.ac.uk...

So the news submission form wants mor of my own thoughts. It would be nice to know what the form expects.



news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)


There was a 5.0 quake on Monday March 16th:
USGS Earthquake report for Tonga vicinity 3/16/09


[edit on 3/18/09 by stikkinikki]

reply to post by stikkinikki


My thoughts? Let me be the first to say "ahhh, fresh doom".

Thank you for posting. There has been a lull in fresh doom lately. This makes me happy! Unless people and cats die, then I am sad.

Is this a potential ring-of-fire-precursor whammy?

Originally posted by pluckynoonez
reply to post by stikkinikki

 

Is this a potential ring-of-fire-precursor whammy?

What's that? Maybe I suppose if you mean once the ring of fire gets active it spreads to other parts? Maybe we are saved from global warming? I just spent an hour reviewing the AIG winding-down and was about to bed when this popped up on yahoo as I was checking the Asian markets.

Interesting times.....

First pics of the eruption.




There are two more that can be viewed here.

kzo.net...

Nice find OP

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


CURSES!!!



I couldn't find the pics or videos or even more than a blurb on the wires. I guess this is breaking for real real.

Here's the USGS map on the Historical Seismicity - It's pretty active. A subduction zone if I have read the colors correctly.




EDIT: WOW! Nice pics Illusionsrg! it is big if it's underwater and it looks like that.

[edit on 3/18/09 by stikkinikki]

Here is THE jumping off page (so far) for info on this developing story. Everything about the volcano.
The Vulcanism Blog: Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai erupts



[edit on 3/18/09 by stikkinikki]

Lol, thanks to your thread, ATS has now scooped the MSM in terms of having images of the volcano.

Im really glad that person in Tonga blogged it, and glad his/her dad took the pics.

reply to post by stikkinikki


Indeed. I wonder. I wonder how long Gaia will allow all the stupids on this planet to continue being not-outraged by what is going on right now. She definitely has all the right to blow-off some steam.

For some reason I am thinking of Tugg Speedman in Scorcher 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 right now, I want it to stop.

Funny or interesting you mention GAIA. I was also reading about global warming/climate change and about the CO2 and temperature correlations. I pulled up a chart in wikipedia I think that showed what looked like a plateau after peaking in the CO2 levels. Well what happens after the peak is the plummet. So I am wondering if the Earths or GAIAs system of balancing has something to do with Ice at the polls melting and then more water exerting more pressure on the ocean floor and causing more seismic activity. This could be in the form of vulcanism and perhaps a few volcanoes pump a bunch of particulates into the air and bring about a global cool down.

I haven't tied this in with AIG yet but give it time...

I wonder if there is a chance of there being a new island formed. I had read about a new one somewhere a few years ago and it doesn't take nearly as long as one would think for plant life to become established.

Another earth quake in Melbourne as well

news.ninemsn.com.au...

Might be some seismic instability in the pacific region .... Tonga is only 4 hours away.

Apparently, Mount Redoubt in Alaska was upgraded to Orange the same day the Tonga Volcano started up.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

updated 2:31 a.m. MT, Mon., March. 16, 2009

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska's Mount Redoubt is rumbling again and geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory increased the official alert level to orange, the stage just before eruption.

A significant eruption did not appear imminent, geologists said Sunday, but they cautioned that conditions could evolve rapidly.

Nothing much new on the Tonga volcano, though Fox news now has a photo of the eruption and it is different from the ones we have already seen.

www.foxnews.com...

Hello,

I saw this on BBC Breakfast this morning. They had a video of it so there is a video floating around somewhere ...

Try here - Underwater volcano erupts off Tonga.

It looks pretty cool in its devastating beauty

Have a look on Google earth, the section where the volcano is, is blanked out.
Wonder why that is?
Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai
Search in Google earth for that, it finds it, but its blanked out.
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b2af4c0eb47b.jpg[/atsimg]


[edit on 19-3-2009 by CaptainCaveMan]

hOLY SMOKES! 7.9 QUAKEROO! Not much info yet but WOW! This baby is hot.

new pics but not related to 7.9:
picasaweb.google.com...





I don't think this was at the same site as the volcano.





[edit on 3/19/09 by stikkinikki]

I found a website with amazing images of the undersea eruption near Tonga. You've seen them before but these are higher resolution. One of the images in the middle show photographers, you can see they aren't wearing ear protection. I guess the water muffled the sound.

I bet the local sea creatures fled the scene before the first eruption. Any who stayed probably died of a heart attack.

Score:
Lava 1/Water 0.

Ah, water always wins, but I guess it was put on notice.

Undersea eruptions near Tonga