A team of scientists from the Australian National University has identified the key event that caused the massive underwater eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano in the Pacific Ocean in January 2022. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Geophysical Research Letters (GRL).
The cause of the catastrophic event has remained a mystery to the scientific community until now.
In the new study, researchers unraveled the physical mechanism of the explosion by analyzing seismic records.
As the results showed, the cause of the incident was an underground explosion, which appeared to be caused by the compression of the rock. Its power was equivalent to the combined energy of five nuclear weapons that North Korea detonated during tests in 2017.
“Our model suggests that the event occurred when gas-compressed rocks became trapped beneath the shallow sea, as if in an overheated pressure cooker,” the paper’s authors explained.
Experts stated that the shock wave released a large amount of water into the atmosphere and the tsunami rose to a height of 45 meters.
Seismologists say monitoring gases and microseismicity in areas of volcanic activity will help better prepare for similar eruptions in the future.
Previous scientists I learnedThe eruption of Tonga Volcano will change the Earth’s climate for many years.
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Source: Gazeta
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