Island is formed and destroyed in the Red Sea

A volcano erupted in the Red Sea in December 2011, apparently creating a new island. According to news reports, fishermen witnessed lava fountains reaching up to 30 meters (nearly 100 feet) high on December 19. By December 23, what looked like a new island had appeared. A thick plume can be seen in the 2011 image, dark near the bottom and light near the top, perhaps a mixture of volcanic ash and water vapor. The activity occurred along the Zubair Group, a collection of small islands off the west coast of Yemen. Running in a roughly northwest-southeast line, the islands poke above the sea surface, rising from a shield volcano. This region is part of the Red Sea Rift, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates pull apart and new ocean crust regularly forms.



Today there is no island visible. Often small islands like this are only temporary and once the eruption stops, wave action destroys the island.


Source: climate.nasa.gov/state_of_flux#Newislandappears_RedSea.jpg

Attachments:

Island forming in the Zubair Archipelago Re....kmz (1.72 KB)

Interesting, if fleeting! Good thing I didn't buy real estate there after all.

The initial post in this thread is something I came across as I was browsing through NASA's Images of Change. I think it is interesting so I chose the images and story from the site. Today I was browsing through the current Science News and saw an image and article about new volcanic islands. The islands look familiar and a quick check showed this little volcanic archipelago (Zubair Group) in the Red Sea is active again.



Wikipedia page

Attachments:

Zubair Archipeligo_02.kmz (466 B)