an exceptional eruption analyzed from floor to ceiling

The explosive eruption of the Hunga submarine volcano in Tonga on January 15 generated several exceptional atmospheric and geophysical phenomena. This is revealed in particular by an international study carried out by a team of 76 scientists from 17 country (Country comes from the Latin pagus which designated a territorial and tribal subdivision of extent…). Works compiled in a span of weather (Time is a concept developed by human beings to apprehend the…) very short, detail the amplitude of the waves coming from the eruption, which, according to the authors, are comparable to those of the Krakatoa (The Krakatoa, or Krakatau in Indonesian, is a gray volcano — type volcano…) (Indonesia), which occurred in 1883, more than a century (A century is now a period of a hundred years. The word comes from the Latin saeculum, i, which…). The data (In information technology (IT), data is an elementary description, often…) provide resolution and coverage of the field (A field corresponds to a notion of defined space:) of waves in evolution without common measure compared to what was available at the time. The article, published in the journal Science (Science (Latin scientia, « knowledge ») is, according to the dictionary…)is the first account rendered (Rendering is a computer process calculating the 2D image (equivalent to a photograph)…) full of atmospheric waves generated by the eruption.

This vast study brings together several French researchers from several laboratories (CNRM, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CEA-DAM-DIF, Institute (An institute is a permanent organization created for a certain purpose. It is…) of physical (Physics (from the Greek φυσις, nature) is etymologically the…) of the globe of Paris). It analyzes the volcanic explosion, the most powerful recorded since the last century, using various networks of terrestrial and space instruments: seismometers, microbarometers, hydrophones, GNSS (Global Navigation (Navigation is the science and the set of techniques that allow to:) Satellite (Satellite may refer to:) System), DART buoys, meteorological satellites.

Early evidence suggests that an eruption on January 14 pushed down the main vent from the volcano (A volcano is a terrestrial, submarine or extra-terrestrial relief formed by the ejection and…) under the sea ​​level (Sea level is the average height of the sea surface, relative to a level of…)initiating the explosion massive (The word massive can be used as:) occurred the next day. The January 15 eruption generated a wide variety of atmospheric waves, including booms heard 10,000 km away in Alaska. She also created a pulse that caused the unusual appearance of a disturbance resembling a tsunami (A tsunami (Japanese: ?tsu, « harbour » and ?nami, « wave ») is a…) a hour (The hour is a unit of measurement of time. The word also designates magnitude…) before the onset of the actual seismic tsunami.

Scientists were interested in the waves generated by this major eruption, among others: sound and infrasonic waves, Lamb waves, etc. The ionospheric signatures of most of these waves have also been observed using GNSS satellites. The published results exploit the synergy between different measurement technologies to study rarely observed phenomena (in particular thewave (A wave is the propagation of a disturbance producing a reversible variation in its path…) of Lamb). Coupling analysis dynamic (The word dynamic is often used to designate or qualify what relates to movement. It…) waves generated at the ocean-land-atmosphere interfaces make it possible to better characterize the eruptive source of the Hunga as well as the impulse response of the envelope fluid (A fluid is a perfectly deformable material medium. We group under this…) planetary (A planetary designates a mobile mechanical assembly, representing the solar system…) to an eruption of exceptional intensity. This study also highlights the new geophysical investigation methods and their combined contributions to characterize the mechanism and the short-term consequences of the eruption of this volcano.

To know more:
Matoza et al., Atmospheric waves and global seismoacoustic observations of the January 2022 Hunga eruption, Tonga (The Kingdom of Tonga is a state in Polynesia, in the Pacific Ocean, in…)Science, 2022.
Press release (A press release is a short document sent to journalists for the purpose of covering a…) of the’university (A university is an institution of higher education whose objective is the…) from Santa Barbara