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Earth Japan Science

A New Volcanic Island Has Appeared Near Japan (japantimes.co.jp) 54

Posted by EditorDavid from the leaving-lava dept.
"A new island has been discovered near Iwo Jima," reports long-time Slashdot reader thephydes, "located around 1,200 kilometers [746 miles] south of Tokyo, after a submarine volcano began erupting late last week, the Japan Coast Guard said Monday." Japan Times reports: The new island is C-shaped with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer [0.6 miles]. It was discovered after the volcano some 50 km south of Iwo Jima, part of the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific Ocean, started erupting on Friday...

New islands have been confirmed in the area in 1904, 1914 and 1986, with all of them having submerged due to erosion by waves and currents. The one found in 1986 sank after about two months, according to the coast guard.
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A New Volcanic Island Has Appeared Near Japan More

A New Volcanic Island Has Appeared Near Japan

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  • Oh great, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday August 21, 2021 @03:42PM (#61715531) Journal

    yet more islands to squabble over with China

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Wrong part of the ocean. Or worse joke. Vacuous Subject.

      Not much to hope for with this story, however. Why is it supposed to be of interest here? Sea bottom fluctuations interest who?

      But maybe someone will come up with a funny name for the new island?

      • Re:Oh great, (Score:5, Funny)

        by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Saturday August 21, 2021 @04:32PM (#61715639)

        Wrong part of the ocean.

        Yes, China will soon claim that Japan is floating in the wrong part of China's Ocean.

        Japan should better move out soon.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Sounds racist or possibly a dull joke attempt.

          But if not, then right now it's America's ocean and used to be British.

          • Sounds racist

            As we know from other posts about BLM, you are a racist yourself. That's probably why you can't comprehend that being adversarial to a country has nothing to do with race.

            Pop quiz: How many different races did Mao consider to be Chinese?

          • Sounds racist

            Lighten up, Francis.

            • I've seen too much bigotry and racism to take it lightly. Even including a close relative who I knew well. But more to the point, even when there's a basis (and the Chinese government deserves plenty of criticism), mindless attacks tend to be ineffective. They tend to wind up looking like the bull predictably charging the cunning matador.

              Funny story time? For some years I thought the Soviets were a major threat and I spent a lot of years studying why and how. Then I concluded they were harmless, but my conc

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          Steve Jobs crossbred with Xi

        • China needs humans and technology to make islands. Japan just has Gojira do it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by drnb ( 2434720 )

        Wrong part of the ocean.

        Not necessarily. The islands Russia has are basically claimed as a WW2 prize and/or compensation. China could do the same, saying they were owed more than they received in 1945.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          NAK

        • The post-WW2 agreement left many things ambiguous, including the status of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands between Taiwan and Okinawa, and the Dokdo/Takeshima Islands between Japan and Korea.

          A lesson here is that after you nuke someone, make sure you get everything you want before letting them rebuild their country.

          • Pretty sure we did. Last I checked neither the Republic of China nor Korea nuked anyone in WWII. The currently fascist/previously communist CCP probably wishes they had though.

      • Wrong part of the ocean.

        Not really, at about 750 miles south of Tokyo that seems about the same latitude as Hong Kong.

        And it certainly seems within the original "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" so it is well positioned for the v2.0 "Co-Prosperity Sphere" that China is working on.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Z^-1

        • The eruption is occurring in undisputed Japanese territorial waters.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by drnb ( 2434720 )
            The Philippines and Vietnam and others once thought their waters were undisputed too.

            • The islands in the South China Sea have never been undisputed.

              China's claim dates back to the Qing Dynasty.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by drnb ( 2434720 )

                The islands in the South China Sea have never been undisputed. China's claim dates back to the Qing Dynasty.

                China also claimed the land of Korea, Vietnam, etc in antiquity. It means diddly squat today, as it does for maritime claims. No more than Italy claiming the English Channel because Britain and Gaul were Roman occupied.

      • Why is it supposed to be of interest here? Sea bottom fluctuations interest who?

        Oh come on, bottom fluctuations are always funny, particularly when they occur at inappropriate moments in movies and sitcoms.

    • "yet more islands to squabble over with China"

      It's half-moon shaped, so obviously a Muslim island.

    • New islands have been confirmed in the area in 1904, 1914 and 1986, with all of them having submerged due to erosion by waves and currents. The one found in 1986 sank after about two months, according to the coast guard.

      Don't tell Hank Johnson!

  • To say that the island sank is to suggest that it was previously afloat, which in fact it was always standing on the seabed. It may be fair to say that it sank from view, but only that it did so due to erosion.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      Considering the timing, it's probably not erosion. More likely the sea bed is rising and falling due to mantle fluctuations. (But I haven't researched the details and don't think I can work up the motivation to do so.)

      • There are collapses that happen throughout the cone, but I think it is actually fair to say that if the mount is not visible at lowest low tide, then the island has sunk.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          I don't think it's easy for extruded lava to do much of anything, but the magma domes can inflate and deflate, raising and lowering the seabed that the island is resting on, even without strong earthquakes. But now you're making me feel like I should read up on the latest research...

      • More likely the sea bed is rising and falling due to mantle fluctuations.

        The timescale is wrong. Mantle fluctuations happen at millimetres per year (metres per millennium, so several millennia to travel through the tidal range "splash zone"). To get movements of metres per month, you're looking at either fault movements (essentially instantaneous), magma movements in a sub-surface magma chamber (metres/ month, see for example, the recent inflation/ eruption/ deflation SW of Reykjavik), or gas movements (met

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          Basically concurrence and you seem to be confirming my understanding, except that I would say tsunamis are the big killer (though you might be thinking of the tsunamis which are specifically related to undersea landslides).

          • In regard of death rates. Hmm, well, it's not a clear distinction. Ultimately, volcanic islands are unstable (look at, for example, the long series of volcanoes of decreasing height stretching for several thousand km to the NW from the Big Island of Hawaii ; they started big and get smaller with time), so when they fall apart (in instalments) by what we call "sector collapse" with the consequent potential for major death tolls from tsunamis impacting on distant coasts, then yes, those deaths are ultimately

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by shanen ( 462549 )

              Again, I think what you say is in agreement with what I remember reading about the topic, but I was considering tsunamis triggered by active faults. And yes, I was thinking about the particular case of 2004, but largely because I don't know the mechanism of that tsunami.

              When you mentioned Krakatoa, I was pretty sure you were referring to the 1883 eruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] But that reminded me of an earlier and bigger one, and that search led to the big list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/. [wikipedia.org]

              • I was thinking of the collapse of the SW flank of Anak Krakatau (literally "child of Krakatoa"), a minor volcano that has grown by frequent, small eruptions on the site of the former Krakatoa. Several years ago - I forget how many, but literally a handful - it was having one of it's regular little grumbles, throwing out a bit of ash, very much a business-as-usual day. Then suddenly BLAM! a substantial tsunami with (I think) a dozen or so deaths, a few hundred houses washed away, and significantly, no notice

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Let's try not to lose [suwalls.com] this one.

    • It was afloat. On magma. Like everything else on earth.
  • Quick everybody, start fighting over it!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • A New Volcanic Island Has Appeared Near Japan

    Has China or Russia claimed it? Both?

    • It's Japanese territory, other side of the main islands from Japan or Russia. Given past experience with such things, though, it's not impossible. The US could even get involved, due to its connection with the Northern Marianas. But yes, it's Japan, belay the conspiracy theories. And like the others before it, it'll probably be eroded flat and underwater within a year or 2.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by drnb ( 2434720 )
        750 miles south of Tokyo is not other side of the main islands in any sense other than longitude. If its on the other side of anything that would be Taiwan.

        • not other side of the main islands in any sense other than longitude.

          Pop quiz... which directions does longitude measure?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by drnb ( 2434720 )

            not other side of the main islands in any sense other than longitude.

            Pop quiz... which directions does longitude measure?

            Did you imagine something other than east/west? From China, the "other side" of Japan would be farther east. Hence that "rising sun" stuff.

  • Before it sinks?

  • New islands have been confirmed in the area in 1904, 1914 and 1986

    New islands pop up in other places and times. For example, in 1963 a new island appeared off Iceland. It is called Surtsey and does not appear to be going anywhere at present.

    Hawaii is an island chain with new ones at one end and old ones at the other. The newest one is Loihi Seamount. If the age of the ones at the other end of the chain indicates anything, this new one could be around a really long time!

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