Environment & Energy

xchrom

(108,903 posts) Fri Aug 10, 2012, 12:56 PM Aug 2012

Vast volcanic 'raft' found in Pacific, near New Zealand

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19207810

A navy officer described the floating spectacle as the "weirdest thing" he had seen at sea

A vast "raft" of volcanic rocks covering 10,000 sq miles (26,000 sq km) of ocean has been spotted by a New Zealand military aircraft.

A naval ship was forced to change course in order to avoid the cluster of buoyant rocks, located 1,000 miles off the New Zealand coast.

The unusual phenomenon was probably the result of pumice being released from an underwater volcano, experts said.

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Vast volcanic 'raft' found in Pacific, near New Zealand (Original Post) xchrom Aug 2012 OP

a similar thing happened when el Hierro went off last year Viva_La_Revolution Aug 2012 #1

Thanks, learning a lot here. freshwest Aug 2012 #2

Volcanos have floaters? StrictlyRockers Aug 2012 #3

Icebergs weren't bad enough, now we get rockbergs? nt Speck Tater Aug 2012 #4

It's always something. Nt xchrom Aug 2012 #5

Viva_La_Revolution

(28,791 posts)

1. a similar thing happened when el Hierro went off last year

Reply to xchrom (Original post)

Fri Aug 10, 2012, 01:47 PM

Aug 2012

they called them 'restolingas'. Hot rocks (at night you can see the glow) rising from the volcanic vent, cooling and expanding and sending out white trails of gas. The ones in the Canaries are composed of heavier rock so they mostly end up sinking once they cool off, but some of the earlier ones did wash up on the shore.