© NIWA/GNS Science.
An echosounder image showing the undersea volcano called Havre Seamount, including a new cone that formed during the July 2012 eruption.
In July 2012,
geologists noted the eruption of a previously little-known volcanic area called Havre Seamount, located off the coast of New Zealand. Now, after analyzing the data more thoroughly, they say it was one of the largest eruptions in modern history - we just didn't realize it because it took place underwater.
The eruption of the Havre Seamount was not initially noticed by scientists. Havre Seamount was only discovered in 2002, and researchers weren't even aware that the area was volcanic. But as it erupted, it offered passengers on an airline flight over the Southwest Pacific an unusual display: a raft of porous,
floating rock (known as pumice), as big as 150 square miles - that's 50% bigger than the surface of Paris.
Maggie de Grau was a passenger on that flight. Like many others on that plane, she took photos of the strange phenomenon, which she proceeded to email to Dr. Scott Bryan, a senior research fellow at Queensland University of Technology. The raft grew even more, and Bryan contacted some of his colleagues, ultimately discovering that a few military pilots had also witnessed the event days and weeks after the eruption. An officer in the Royal Australian Navy was quoted as saying that it was "the weirdest thing [he had] seen in 18 years at sea." It was at that point that scientists knew they had something much bigger on their hands.
"We knew it was a large-scale eruption, approximately equivalent to the biggest eruption we've seen on land in the 20th Century," said Rebecca Carey, a volcanologist at University of Tasmania and Co-Chief Scientist on the expedition.
Comment: Back in 2015 off the US North West coast, a submarine volcano named 'Axial Seamount' erupted stunning scientists.
With increased volcanic activity on land (connected with a minute slowdown in planetary rotation) a comparable escalation of their underwater counterparts seems logical.