There is a chance that a volcanic eruption off Mexico's coast could cause a wave like the one that devastated Tonga. What causes the plates to shift? Scientists went to a remote archipelago to look for answers.
The Revillagigedo Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean several hundred kilometers from the Mexican coast and are known as "Mexico's Galapagos".
One of the archipelago's volcanos, Barcena, last erupted spectacularly in 1953. Both are active today.
The four islands, which were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2016 and are uninhabited apart from navy personnel, are not accessible to the public.
It takes about 24 hours or more by boat to get there, and few civilians visit apart from scuba drivers lured by giant manta rays.
An international team of 10 scientists carried out a week-long mission last month to try to determine if there will be another volcanic eruption.
The leader of the group is a professor at the University of the Netherlands.
Challenging convention.
The fear is that a volcano like the one that erupted in January could cause a large wave to hit Mexico's Pacific Coast.
" Whenever there are active island volcanos, there are always possibilities of generating tsunamis," said a scientist at Mexico's Institute for Scientific and Technological Research of San Luis Potosi.
Modeling based on previous volcanic activity is what volcanologists are looking for, he said.
The team hopes that its analysis of minerals brought up by past eruptions will help to understand the motion of tectonic plates, which cause earthquakes and volcanic activity.
Plates move over the mantle. Is the plate being pushed by the mantle? Is the mantle doing anything?
The motion of the mantle caused by the transfer of heat from the Earth's core to the outer layer causes the plates to move.
The mantle is a big lake of rock that is not convecting, which is what Van Hinsbergen believes to be the case.
If that is true, everything that we see, at least on timescales of tens of millions of years and shorter, is driven by gravity pulling plates down. He said that it would make the whole system simpler.
The mission received funding from a Dutch program for ideas that are almost certainly wrong, but if they are not they will have big implications.
The results of the analysis of the samples will be known later this year.
There will be a new year in 2022.
Citation: Scientists scour 'Mexico's Galapagos' for quake, volcano clues (2022, April 23) retrieved 23 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-scientists-scour-mexico-galapagos-quake.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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