Where is it located?
The small island arose off the coast of Iwo Jima, Japan, in the Pacific Ocean. It is now part of the Ogasawara island chain, 1,200 kilometers south of Tokyo. It is about 60 km north of the Fukutoku-Okanoba underwater volcano, which had a large underwater eruption in 2021.
Similar eruptions occurred last year at the same location, but this time the eruption point is above the water surface, Yuji Usui, senior volcanic activity analyst at Japan’s official Meteorological Agency, told the New York Times.
What is a marine volcanic eruption like?
New islands formed from ash and rock fragments could struggle to withstand the constant pounding of waves, but continued volcanic activity could produce lava flows that eventually form a harder, more durable surface.
In 2013, weeks of volcanic activity formed an island that merged with an existing island to create a new land mass that for a time resembled the cartoon dog Snoopy.
Earlier this year, geographers said that the Japanese archipelago, previously thought to comprise four main islands and around 6,000 much smaller and mostly uninhabited islands, was actually made up of twice as many. Using digital mapping technology, the Japan Geospatial Information Authority said it had identified a total of 14,125 islands, 7,273 more than previously thought.
While gaining new islands, Japan occasionally loses them. Esanbe Hanakita Kojima, who was 500 meters off the coast of Hokkaido, is believed to have inadvertently slipped beneath the waves in 2018.
No one realized it had disappeared until author Hiroshi Shimizu visited the area to write a sequel to his illustrated book about Japan’s “hidden” islands.