Japan earthquake will cause volcanic eruptions?

This question has actually become a rumor that has spread widely in the internet community these days. However, a US geological expert recently confirmed that this is unlikely.

Shinmoedake volcano on the island of Kyushu, Japan erupts on March 13 - Photo: AP

In an interview with Xinhua News Agency on March 30, Dr Jian Lin - geophysicist and veteran scientist working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (USA), said: the recorded data Historically, large earthquakes often do not immediately lead to large volcanic eruptions.

According to Dr. Lin, after the recent 11-3 earthquake in Japan, the earthquake tremors will inevitably cause some changes in the activity of volcanoes near the earthquake center, but difficult to ability to make volcanoes spray.

He particularly emphasized this when comparing earthquake eruptions in the past: most of the active volcanoes in Japan are quite far from the center of the earthquake on March 11. ' They are too far away, so they are less directly affected ,' he said.

Even so, he noted the need to closely monitor all active volcanoes in Japan.

So far, only two cases of volcanic eruptions have been proved to be caused by large earthquakes. One is Kilauea volcano in Hawai, erupting on November 29, 1975 after the 7.2 magnitude earthquake on the Big Island, with the earthquake center quite close to the volcano. Two are Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic cluster in Chile, erupting in 1960 after a strong earthquake of 9.5 Richter scale.