By TAIRIKU KUROSAWA/ Staff Writer
November 4, 2023 at 17:05 JST
Eruptions from an undersea volcano continued spewing plumes of smoke and ash Nov. 3 around a new islet taking shape off the coast of distant Iwoto island in the Pacific Ocean.
The volcanic activity is occurring in the Ogasawara island chain, some 1,200 kilometers south of Tokyo.
Along with the cooling magma thrown up by the eruptions, pumice started creating a small hill on the emerging islet.
“(The activity) has shifted to one of continuous eruptions,” said Setsuya Nakada, professor emeritus of volcanic geology at the University of Tokyo, who was aboard an Asahi Shimbun plane that flew over the islet on Nov. 3.
“It will likely move to one in which lava starts spewing out,” he said.
The eruptions began in late October a few hundreds of meters off the southern coast of Iwoto, formerly known as Iwojima, the site of a major battle in World War II.
Eruptions were observed at roughly one-minute intervals. Volcanic ash thrown up into the air reached heights about five times that of 169-meter-high Mount Suribachi on Iwoto.
Floating bands of brown pumice were also observed in the surrounding waters.
“This is moving from steam eruptions caused by magma coming into contact with seawater to one in which magma is directly spewed out,” Nakada said.
He also noted horizontal spewing of volcanic smoke caused by the violent eruptions.
Iwoto is one of 111 active volcanoes in Japan and as such the Japan Meteorological Agency has set up an around-the-clock observation system for volcanic activity.
The surface of Iwoto continues to rise at a pace of one meter a year, a sign of extremely strong volcanic activity.
Eruptions involving magma are thought to have begun between July and August 2022, the first eruptions on Iwoto in around 1,000 years.
The Maritime Self-Defense Force has a base on Iwoto, but otherwise the island is uninhabited.
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A volcanic eruption occurs Nov. 3 off the southern coast of Iwoto island. (Kotaro Ebara)
