In January of this year, the largest underwater volcanic eruption of this century It caused a spectacular bloom of phytoplankton north of the island of Tongatapu in the Kingdom of Tonga.. Manoa and a team of scientists from the University of Hawaii (UH) at Oregon State University found in a recent study that microscopic marine life covers an area about 40 times the size of the island of Gran Canaria (equivalent to almost the entire Valencian Community) 48 hours after the explosion.
Led by UH Manoa’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences and Technologies (SOEST), the team analyzed satellite images of various types and determined that volcanic ash accumulation was probably the most important food source responsible for this phytoplankton growth.
Phytoplankton is a mass of small photosynthetic organisms that produce oxygen and serve as the foundation of the marine food chain.. The growth of these microbes is generally limited to low concentrations of dissolved nutrients on the ocean surface, but can instead increase rapidly as more nutrients become available.
“Although the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption was underwater, it also emitted a large cloud of ash reaching tens of kilometers into the atmosphere,” he said. Center for Microbial Oceanography (C-MORE) at SOEST. “The ash fallout provided nutrients that stimulated the growth of phytoplankton.“It reached concentrations far beyond the typical values ​​observed in the region,” he said.
“We were very impressed to see this large area containing high concentrations of chlorophyll in such a short time after the eruption,” added Dave Karl, co-author of the study and director of C-MORE. “This shows how quickly the ecosystem can respond to nutrient fertilization.”
“An observer can see seemingly very different parts of this environment, in this case a volcano that produced a massive eruption and a major change in the ecology of the nearby oceans,” said study author Ken Rubin, a volcano expert at SOEST. “Again, Our observations show the extensive interdependence and interdependence of different aspects of the environment.“It reveals an underestimated link between volcanism and shallow marine ecosystems globally,” he added.
Lesson practice from Kilauea
Three of the study authors He had previously evaluated and monitored a smaller phytoplankton bloom associated with the 2018 Kilauea eruption.A discovery that has already demonstrated the potential effects of volcanic eruptions on ocean ecosystems.
“When I learned about the Tonga eruption, it was pretty easy to modify the computer program I had created to analyze satellite measurements around Hawaii to determine the impact of the Tongan eruption on the nearby ocean ecosystem,” Barone said. Said. “From the first moment I saw the results of the analysis, it was clear that there was a rapid phytoplankton response over a wide area.”
Phytoplankton removes carbon dioxide responsible for warming our planet from the atmosphere. The explosion was a natural event of fertilization, demonstrating the ability of these microscopic power plants to respond quickly when the right conditions are met.
“The dynamics of this event can help us predict the behavior of pelagic environments when nutrients are added to nutrient-depleted regions of the ocean,” Barone said. Said. “This information can be useful when discussing the implications of ocean fertilization-based carbon dioxide removal technologies.”
Reference work: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL099293
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Source: Informacion
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