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Almost two years after ahumongous eruption rocked Tonga ’s Hunga volcanoin the southwesterly Pacific Ocean , scientist have finally mapped the huge magma plumbing system that gave birth to the disc - break blast .
On Jan. 15 , 2022 , avolcanobeneath the island of Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai exploded with such force it triggered themost acute lightning storm ever recordedand thefirst document mega tsunami since ancientness . The eruption was felt worldwide , but the vent ’s underwater circumstance posed a challenge for scientist seek to understand how such a violent flack occur .
Aerial view of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption in 2022.
Now , in a discipline published Dec. 15 in the journalScience Advances , research worker have map flimsy variations in the pull of sobriety in waters around the island before and after the eruption and found the burst was likely feed by two magma chamber that merged .
" I was jubilantly surprised that we can indeed visualise a comparatively enceinte magmatic system using this kind of dataset and method , " tell pencil lead authorHélène Le Mével , a volcanologist and staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C. This sort of study " is seldom done to study submarine volcanoes , " Le Mével tell Live Science in an email .
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A diagram from the new study showing the organisation of the magma plumbing system beneath the Tonga volcano before, during and after the 2022 eruption.
The magma reservoir sit at dissimilar deepness between 6,600 and 33,000 feet ( 2 and 10 klick ) under the volcano and likely stored a high proportion of liquid magma before the 2022 outbreak , according to the study .
The researchers found that the clap ejected roughly 30 % of the magma — more than 2.1 three-dimensional miles ( 9 three-dimensional kilometers ) — from a shallow central chamber , which cause the roof of the volcano to cave in and mould a 2,800 - foot - mysterious ( 850 meters ) bowl - similar depression called a caldera . As the pressure in the central reservoir dropped following the explosion , magma stored in a deep reservoir to the north may have burst through the incrustation and replenished the key reservoir , opening up a distribution channel between the two chambers . It ’s also possible that magma from a gas - rich source deeper within Earth ’s crust rose to the central chamber , which " may also explain theviolence of the 2022 eruption , " according to the study .
A third pocket of magma , located to the nor'-west of the key chamber , seems disconnected from the organization and might represent " an older , solidify mush zone , " the authors compose .
Up to 6.2 cubic miles ( 26 three-dimensional kilometre ) of eruptible magma could still lurk in the two main reservoir beneath the Hunga vent , according to the study — enough to fill up 10 million Olympian - size of it swim pools . ( Eruptible magma is defined as magma that isover 50 % thaw and depressed in crystal solid . )
While the subject area reveal what fuel the volcano , it could n’t show what triggered the monolithic eruption . " By themselves the gravity results would n’t directly allow us to resolve on the eruption initiation , " Le Mével said , but they give researchers " an melodic theme of where and how much magma could be stack away under the vent . "
The findings may also be limited because they used planet data that may have been touch on by ocean moving ridge and change in gravity from the seafloor to the sea surface , the investigator note in the sketch .
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" We only have data about what switch over a one year time interval so we can not say specifically what happened during the clap , " Le Mével articulate . But the data suggest " young pathways between reservoirs were created , " she total .
It ’s been 900 age since an eruption of this scale last shook the island , Le Mével said , but smaller eruptions pass more ofttimes . A previous outbreak in 2015 have a strobilus of commonwealth connecting two islands , Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai , which form the only visible part of the 6,600 - foot - marvelous ( 2,000 m ) volcano . The gargantuan 2022 eruption destroyed the cone and thin the subaerial Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha’apai edifice to two slender sliver of land .
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