Home Reef (Tonga) volcano, eruption news: new island born
A new (likely ephemeral) island has risen to the surface in the Tonga islands (ufficially 169 islands), that now count 170 islands.
The new island is located between the islands of Kao in the Ha'apai Group and Late in the Vava'u Group, and was formed by recent activity of underwater Home Reef volcano, that has built ephemeral islands in the past as well. The present eruption started on August 12-13 eruption. Large pumice rafts drifting to the Fiji Islands were observed, some several miles across.
The new island was 800 m long and 400m wide as on October 4, 2006. Hot lakes are visible on the ASTER thermal bands, maximum temperature measured: 64.7C.
Links and further info:
- CVL web site.
- For an interesting news article, please check Matangi online from Tonga.
- The yacht "Maiken" sailed in the area on 17 August and observed the erupting island as well as impressive ppumice rafts. A report with interesting photos is found here.
Previous news
A set of photos from our recent expediton to Nyiragongo volcano has been posted. The next tour to see this unique volcano and the endangered mountain gorilllas of the Virunga volcanic chain is now set to 21-28 Jan. 2007. Details on this page.
[more]Because of the recent interesting volcanic activity at Merapi and Semeru volcano on Java, we point to two tours with open spaces for last-minute individual bookings:
... [more]Due to lack of participants, we decided to cancel the tour to North Sulawesi and postpone it to 2007. As an interesting alternative, we can offer a special trekking tour in Java and Bali from 5-20 August instead. There are two open spaces available.
[more]
