The huge new mass of pumice off the coast of New Zealand, spreading over an area the size of Belgium

A mere three days ago we reported on a volcano that erupted in New Zealand after laying dormant for over 100 years. In the very same week, another volcano has blown its load. Luckily this time it’s underwater.

About a 1000 km off the coast of Auckland, navy ships came upon a very peculiar sight. Floating in the middle of the ocean was a giant mass of brilliant white rock, covering an area of 25 000 square km – roughly the size of Belgium. It was first mistaken to be a giant ice shelf, but samples of the golf-ball sized rock revealed it to be made of pumice – a type of volcanic rock.

The massive new island is luckily not a solid mass, so ships are still able to navigate through it. Given the massive area it’s covering, this still allows trade and navy to move around it. Ships have been informed that the rocks are not likely to cause any damage. The naval officer who stumbled onto the mass, Naval Lt. Tim Oscar, had the following to say about the island:

I knew the pumice was lightweight and posed no danger to the ship. None the less it was quite daunting to be moving toward it at 14 knots. It took about 3 – 4 minutes to travel through the raft of pumice and as predicted there was no damage. As we moved through the raft of pumice we used the spotlights to try and find the edge – but it extended as far as we could see.

Volcanologists are at this stage not tying the eruption to one that happened on Monday. But with two eruptions in less than a week, could this signal a new period of volcanic activity in the southwest Pacific?

[Source: New Zealand Herald]