Underwater supermassive volcanoes have caused devastating eruptions in recent history, with events like the 2018 eruption off the coast of France’s Mayotte Island and the 2022 Tonga volcanic explosion. These eruptions are not uncommon, but what causes them to erupt so violently? This article will take a deep dive into the underwater supermassive volcanoes that wreak havoc on the world.

In May 2018, more than 11,000 earthquakes were recorded on Mayotte Island, with some unusual seismic hums detected by seismometers all over the world. A team of scientists led by Nathalie Fouier, a geophysicist at the University of Paris, discovered that this was a massive underwater volcanic eruption that had never been seen before. They deployed a variety of technological devices such as underwater seismometers and an echo sounder to explore the area and discovered roughly 17,000 seismic events between the end of February and the beginning of May 2019 at a depth of between 12 and 31 miles beneath the ocean floor. They also discovered 84 more occurrences when they searched at lower frequencies.

The crew was able to piece together the circumstances that led to the formation of the new volcano thanks to the data they gathered. They believe that the tectonic plate movement tore the crust apart, allowing magma to rise to the surface and form geologic dikes which are rocks that fill larger gaps and cut through surrounding rock layers. This enabled magma reservoirs beneath this layer to rise to the top layers as well as reactivating faults already present in the mantle. They were responsible for the earthquakes, which resulted in magma flowing to the sea floor where it erupted, resulting in the creation of a cubic mile of lava and the formation of a new volcano.

This new submarine volcano draws from the deepest volcanic magma pool known to geologists, with the reservoir where the magma originates located at a depth of approximately 34 miles or 55 kilometers beneath the surface. Volcanology has never before seen such a deep reservoir at the base of the lithosphere, which is the outer shell of the earth that includes the upper mantle and the crust.

The krakatoa disaster in Indonesia in 1883 was one of the deadliest occurrences of a volcano causing a tsunami in modern history when the volcano erupted into the water. It unleashed a tsunami that was more than 120 feet tall, large enough to submerge a six-storey skyscraper. It obliterated 300 cities and villages, killing almost 36,000 people.

The most recent supermassive underwater volcano eruption was the Hungertonga Hunger Harpai volcanic eruption that wreaked havoc on Tonga in January 2022. The eruption resulted not only in a tsunami, a sonic boom, and thousands of lightning bolts but may also result in acid rain. The eruption’s reverberations echoed throughout the world several times. More than 100,000 people in Tonga have been impacted directly or indirectly by the eruption, with at least three dead.

In conclusion, underwater supermassive volcanoes continue to pose a threat to the world, with the potential for devastating consequences like tsunamis, acid rain, and earthquakes. It’s important to understand the causes and effects of these eruptions to better prepare for future volcanic threats.