Perilous Times
Pacific submarine volcano issues 'massive underwater eruption'
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 31, 2010 2:29 p.m. EDT
(CNN) -- A rapid Pacific submarine volcano eruption has exhaled a steam
and ash cloud in the air and left a trail of debris on the surface of
the water near Sarigan Island in the Northern Mariana Islands, U.S.
officials said Monday.
Game McGimsey, a volcanologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said the
vent, lying 1,000 feet under the surface, issued a cloud 40,000
reaching feet in the air.
As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service evacuated 16 people,
mostly its scientists, from the Northern Islands off Saipan following
the eruption, reported the Saipan Tribune. The area is U.S. territory.
The current volcano alert level is advisory, and the current aviation
color code is yellow, meaning volcanic activity has decreased
significantly but continues to be closely monitored for possible
renewed increase.
Satellite images show no sign of ongoing activity, according to a
report form the USGS.
Seismographs indicate a rapid and short-lived onset and that the
eruption lasted a couple of minutes, McGimsey said.
"It seems to be just one big burp," said Mike Middlebooke, a senior
forecaster at the National Weather Service in Guam, about the cloud
burst.
The vent lies seven miles south of Sarigan, an uninhabited island that
was used as a copra plantation during World War II, in the Northern
Mariana Islands, a chain between Hawaii and the Phillipines in the
Pacific Ocean about 3,800 miles southwest of Hawaii.
Evacuees from the islands Sarigan and Pagan were all U.S. Marine and
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands scientific crews, McGimsey
said.
The USGS monitors don't have instruments on submarine volcanoes, and it
took a while for scientists to pinpoint the exact location of the
volcano, McGimsey said.
Satellites picked up the ash cloud on Friday. The cloud detached from
the area above the vent, indicating the underwater eruption had ceased,
he said.
Scientists, who originally thought the cloud came from the Anatahan or
Sarigan volcano, identified the cloud source by the large amount of
debris and water discoloration above the vent, he said.
While people aren't encouraged to hang around, there are no
restrictions on the area, Middlebrooke said.