The largest undersea volcanic eruption in the century of 2012

An underground volcano off New Zealand caused an underwater eruption that was much larger than the imagination of the scientific world.

The recent analysis shows that the massive undersea eruption near New Zealand in 2012 was bigger than scientists imagined at the time and became the biggest eruption of the past century, Newsweek on 10/10. 1 message. Research using robotic submarines to explore the Havre underwater volcano can change people's understanding of what happens beneath the surface of the Earth.

Seabed map around Havre volcano, lava from the eruption in 2012 is shown in red.(Photo: Newsweek).

"We know nothing about the underground volcanoes and the oceanic eruption process, though more than 75% of volcanoes on Earth are at the bottom of the sea," said study leader Rebecca Carey, a volcanologist at the University. Tasmania, Australia, share. Previously, Carey focused more on land-based eruptions.

In 2012, Havre, volcano 965km from the North Island of New Zealand, spewed ash column from a depth of 700 meters below the water surface. The scale of the event is on par with the eruption of St. Volcano. Helens in 1980. "Then we knew that this large-scale eruption happened only on land about four times a century. At the bottom of the sea, they were very popular but not found by anyone," Carey said.

The 2012 eruption left the clue scientists a floating pumice stone covering an area of ​​about 388km ² . But Carey and other researchers don't know how big the eruption is. Therefore, they use an underwater automatic vehicle (AUV) and dozens of remote control devices to explore the volcano in 2015. "AUV is programmed to survey an area and we only Drop it from the shipboard in 8-12 hours, " Carey said.

Robots look at 14 vessels of the Havre volcano to more accurately measure lava and rocks in the area. The number of sprays alone indicates the magnitude of the event, forming a series of holes along the cracked road in the volcano. The results of the analysis published in the journal Science Advances also show that what remains in the seabed does not fully reflect the intensity of the whole eruption event.

Carey hopes they can conduct further research in the Havre volcano region, focusing on the biological impact of the giant eruption that covered ash on aquatic ecosystems and impacted many life forms. under the sea.