The Operational Land Imager of the NASA's Landsat 8 satellite has taken an image of a new volcanic island merging with an old one.
In November 2013, a seafloor volcano near Japan, located at the west of Pacific Ocean, erupted and produced enough materials to create a small volcanic island. This new island was called "niijima" and settled 500 meters away from another volcanic island called Nishino-shima. Nishino-shima's last expansion was recorded between 1973 and 1974.
On March 30, several months after niijima appeared, satellite images showed that the two volcanic islands are slowly merging to become one.
The satellite images show that the part of the island where niijima is located is now larger than Nishino-shima and the new island measures around 1,000 meters in diameter. Near the main vents are two cones and they measure around 60 meters above sea level, which is three times more than the height of the island's highest point recorded in December 2013.
The new island constantly produces a plume of steam, ash, and volcanic gas. The tiny particles made by the plume are forming cumulus clouds around the area. Experts think that the pulsing cloud steam could be a reflection of the volcanic eruption that is happening in the island. These cloud steams are called strombolian explosions and they are made up of bubbles of lava and gas coming out of Earth's core. Since this is a volcanic island, the plume sometimes appears green when it is viewed underwater.
Blogger and volcanologist Erik Klemetti commented in 2014, as reported by the NASA Earth Observatory, "This is a great example of how volcanic islands like this in the Bonin Islands grow over hundreds to thousands of eruptions."
Aerial photographs of the merged islands are available at the website of the Japan Coast Guard.
