Giant Tonga Volcanic Eruption Was as Powerful as Krakatau in 1883, Scientists Reveal

Massive pressure waves raced through the planet after an underwater volcano erupted near the Pacific nation of Tonga.

Krakatau was one of the most destructive volcanic eruptions in recorded history and generated large ripples in the atmosphere.

Robin Matoza, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the first author of the book.

The research shows that the pressure pulse generated by the volcano was comparable to that of the Krakatau eruption.

The more powerful a wave is, the higher the amplitude.

A study published May 12 in Science suggested that the pulse jiggled the atmosphere and sent ripples across the ocean below.

The atmospheric waves generated small, fast-traveling meteotsunamis, which reached the shore hours before the conventional, seismically-driven tsunamis.

The Pacific Ocean was the primary location for these small andforerunner waves, but they were also seen in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, according to a research fellow at the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience in Japan.

The height of theforerunner was about a few centimeters, although it depends on the location, according to Kubota.

Dramatic photos show the aftermath of a volcano.

The volcano is northwest of the capital of Nuku.

It is one of 12 known underwater volcanoes in the Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arcs, a geological structure that runs along the western edge of the Pacific plate.

The mesosphere is the third layer of the atmosphere above Earth.

The amount of energy released in the eruption was comparable to what could be generated by up to 18 megaton of bombs detonating at the same time.

Matoza and a team of more than 70 scientists from 17 nations set out to document what atmospheric waves were generated by the blast.

They pulled data from numerous ground-based and space-borne monitoring systems that had recorded the eruption as it unfolded.

The team found that the Lamb waves were the most prominent. Lamb waves run along the surface of the Earth and are similar to sound waves in that they produce waves in the medium they travel through.

Matoza said that the effects of gravity become significant when Lamb waves propagating at extremely low frequencies.

NASA/Joshua Stevens/Kristopher Bedka/Konstantin Khlopenkov.

The Jan. 15 Hunga eruption can be seen from above.

Matoza told Live Science that Lamb waves are rarely observed for smaller volcanic eruptions.

The eruption of an underwater volcano caused a 4-foot tsunami to hit the island.

The ionosphere is a dense layer of charged particles that lies about 35 miles away.

Waves from the volcano site circled the Earth four times in one direction and three times in the other over the course of six days.

The Krakatau eruption generated Lamb waves that circled the Earth the same number of times.

The models of the Hunga eruption event that were produced by Nedjeljka and her colleagues align with the Lamb wave observations of the team.

The new Science study has provided more detail as to how these waves propagating, using various geophysical measurements, and we were able to mimic the Hunga Tonga Lamb wave just two days after the event.

The Lamb waves were connected to the speediest waves observed after the eruption by the scientists. They found that the timing of the Lamb waves and theforerunner waves seemed to coincide.

The waves that landed on the shore were more than two hours earlier than would be expected for a conventional wave.

Matoza and his colleagues reported that the Hunga eruption produced long-range sound waves and acoustic waves too low in frequencies to be heard by humans.

The audible sound waves followed the prominent Lamb waves.

Remarkably, audible sounds, consisting of short, repeated booms, were reported all across Alaska.

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The article was published by Live Science. The original article can be found here.