A volcanic eruption in Tonga has created a new island although one scientist said on Wednesday that it could soon disappear. The volcano has been erupting for a month in the ocean about 40 miles northwest of the capital, Nuku’alofa. last week it disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.
New Zealand volcanologist Nico Fournier said he traveled by boat to within about a mile of the new island on Saturday to take a closer look. He said it’s made mainly of loose scoria and its dimensions are about 1.1 miles by 0.9 miles, and that it rises about 109 yards above the sea. “It’s quite an exciting site, you get to see the birth of an island,” he said. “Visually it was quite spectacular, but there was no big sound coming with it, no boom. It was a bit eerie.”
He said that once the volcano stops erupting, it will likely take the ocean no more than a few months to erode the island entirely. He said it would need to be made of lava or something more durable to survive.