Friday, March 20, 2009

Ring of Fire

I had never heard of Tonga until this week.



I had heard of the "ring of fire" before but couldn't have told you the exact range or size of it. It turns out its a very big area in the Pacific.

Quoting from MSNBC article: "Tonga, a 170-island archipelago about halfway between Australia and Tahiti, is part of the Pacific "ring of fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching from Chile in South America through Alaska and down through Vanuatu to Tonga."

This is very cool...an actual underwater volcano erupting near Tonga...mother nature truly in action. There are actually 36 underwater volcanos like this one clustered together in this area and this could happen with any one of them. Fortunately it's currently not a threat to nearby islanders. No mention of big waves/tsunami created by this volcanic activity. You would think a big wave or swell from the volcano would be swamping that boat full of scientists/photographers.


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