Discovery of the Largest Historic Silicic Submarine Eruption

Abstract

It was likely twice the size of the renowned Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980 and perhaps more than 10 times bigger than the more recent 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption in Iceland. However, unlike those two events, which dominated world news headlines, in 2012 the daylong submarine silicic eruption at Havre volcano in the Kermadec Arc, New Zealand (Figure 1a; ~800 kilometers north of Auckland, New Zealand), passed without fanfare. In fact, for a while no one even knew it had occurred.

The Eruption of Submarine Rhyolite Lavas and Domes in the Deep Ocean – Havre 2012, Kermadec Arc

“…The eruption of Havre caldera volcano (31 • 6.5 S, 179 • 2.45 W) in the Kermadec arc in 2012 ( Figure 1A) was first detected by the appearance of extensive floating pumice rafts on 18th July, 2012 (Global Volcanism Program, 2012;Carey et al, 2014;Jutzeler et al, 2014;Carey et al, 2018). Carey et al (2018) estimated the bulk volume of pumice in the rafts to be ∼1.2 km 3 .…”

210Pb-226Ra disequilibria in young gas-laden magmas

“…The volume of the eruption is estimated at about 1.5 km3, making it the largest and deepest recorded silicic submarine eruption16. A pumice raft resulting from this eruption spread across the southwest Pacific and Tasman Sea over the ensuing months17.…”

Pleistocene to Holocene offshore tephrostratigraphy of highly explosive eruptions from the southwestern Cape Verde Archipelago

“…Kano, 2003;Allen and McPhie, 2009) that can occur at depths up to 1400 m bsl (Carey et al, 2014), whereas studies on eruptions in deeper waters hitherto only comprise mafic magma compositions (e.g. Head and Wilson, 2003;Clague et al, 2009).…”