Tongan volcano eruption unleashed highest plume on record

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Link: Tongan volcano eruption unleashed highest plume on record | Reuters

 

WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The powerful Jan. 15 underwater eruption of Tonga's Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in the South Pacific produced a plume that soared higher into Earth's atmosphere than any other on record - about 35 miles (57 km) - as it extended more than halfway to space, researchers said on Thursday.

 

The white-grayish plume unleashed by the eruption in the Polynesian archipelago became the first one documented to have penetrated a frigid layer of the atmosphere called the mesosphere, according to scientists who employed a novel technique using multiple satellite images to measure its height.

 

The plume was composed primarily of water with some ash and sulfur dioxide mixed in, said atmospheric scientist Simon Proud, lead author of the research published in the journal Science. Eruptions from land-based volcanoes tend to have more ash and sulfur dioxide and less water.

 

The deafening eruption sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and produced an atmospheric wave that traveled several times around the world...