NASA warns 'shark' volcano is about to erupt

An underground volcano in the Solomon Islands nicknamed the "shark volcano" because of two species of sharks that live in an underwater crater that is about to erupt in the Pacific Ocean.

Smoke from the Kavachi volcano.

A satellite image on May 14 shows a cloud of smoke that makes seawater cloudy from the Kavachi volcano, located about 24 km south of Vangunu island. According to the Smithsonian Global Volcanology Program, the volcano entered the pre-eruption phase in October 2021. New satellite data reveals activity for several days in April and May 2022.

Previous research has shown that the superheated acid-rich water column contains fine particles, volcanic rock fragments and sulfur, NASA said. However, this is not a problem for sharks that are adapted to thrive in the hot, acidic environments around volcanoes.

A 2015 scientific expedition to the Kavachi volcano discovered two species of sharks, the hammer shark and the silky shark, living in craters under the sea. The researchers also found a six-gill stingray, snapper, jellyfish and a bacterial population that thrived in the sulfur. The existence of sharks raises new questions about the ecology of underwater volcanoes and the extreme environments in which large marine animals can survive. The team thinks that the sharks must have mutated to survive in hot, acidic environments.

Kavachi is one of the most active underground volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean, also known as Rejo te Kvachi. The first report of volcanic activity was in 1939. Since the late 1970s, there have been at least 11 major eruptions, of which eruptions in 1976 and 1991 were so powerful that new islands were created. However, these islands are not large enough to survive the erosion and eventually sink.

The summit of the volcano is now estimated to lie at a depth of 20m below sea level. Its foot is located on the seabed at a depth of 1.2km. Frequent eruptions under the sea sometimes reach the surface, producing columns of smoke, ash, and volcanic rock fragments.