Natural Phenomenon at Sea

[jakeatolla]

Wow, this is cool. Nature is amazing.

 

[dicklittle]

Very interesting site. Thanks for posting! As for environmental issues I think people need to raise their awareness of global warming.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

I confess I'm a bit skeptical about the photos. They looked photoshopped to me.

I'm no geologist but I don't think new volcanic islands appear in the course of a few hours while a sailboat passes peacefully by. I think they take hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years to grow above the ocean's surface. This is what's happening right now off Hawaii with the slow birth of a new island to be called Loihi.

Just my opinion.

 

[JustAsking]

Tonga Island
More Tonga Island
More Tonga
Kavachi Island

I think small mountains and islands forming in a few hours from volcanic activity is not unheard of. Brought to you by the annoying Google guy.

 

[dong20]

Tonga Island
More Tonga Island
More Tonga
Kavachi Island

I think small mountains and islands forming in a few hours from volcanic activity is not unheard of. Brought to you by the annoying Google guy.

It's not, I remember reading about this and being amazed :

Icelandic Geographic / Surtsey Island / CNN Traveller

A lot of people think geological events require geological timeframes but it seems it's not so:

The lessons of Surtsey

Essentially seeking to justify creationism by citing such rapid events as 'evidence' that the earth is in fact only weeks, or pehaps a few months old, a year at most.

 

[JustAsking]

...Essentially seeking to justify creationism by citing such rapid events as 'evidence' that the earth is in fact only weeks, or pehaps a few months old, a year at most.

And failing miserably but not without providing some amusement.

 

[Heather LouAnna]

omg..the fucking music is killing me..

 

[B_big dirigible]

I think they take hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years to grow above the ocean's surface. This is what's happening right now off Hawaii with the slow birth of a new island to be called Loihi.

Surtsey, a bit of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which just didn't know its place, took a couple of days to form. Stuff was growing on it in less than a year.

When the Beagle was anchored in the bay at Valparaiso, there just happened to be a geological disturbance which raised the level of the rocks around the bay by at least a foot. One of Darwin's backers was Lyell, a champion of the new theory of Uniformitarianism. This postulated that the forces which had formed the landscape were still at work, and hadn't stopped with some ancient catastrophes, as believed by the Neptunists (catastrophic floods) and Plutonists (catastrophic volcanism). The idea of erosion, wearing down everything up to and including mountains, was obvious enough, but orogenesis - mountain building - was not so easy to envision. Darwin, on the Beagle, witnessed it in action (... lucky bastard, I'd say ...).

The geology of the Hawaiian chain is a bit specialized. There seems to be a fixed hot spot in the mantle, and as the earth's crust slowly drifts over it, the area over the spot becomes volcanic, and an island forms. After the bit of crust with the island on it moves off the hot spot, the island - really the top of a heavy mountain - starts to subside, partly from erosion but mainly from its own weight causing the crust under it to slowly sag. The chain is quite long, stretching to Midway and maybe beyond, so whatever's been happening there has been happening for quite a while.

 

[SpeedoGuy]

I stand corrected.

The knowledgeable posts here, the links provided, plus a second look at the photos revealed that what I interpreted as unrealisitically photoshopped images are actually the sailboat's sail shadow on the surface of the ocean.

Thanks, bigd, for the micro geology lesson on the origins of the Hawaiian chain, a place that's always fascinated me.

 

[Elmer Gantry]

The pics of the islands being created are truly wonderous. The forces involved are gargantuan and really make you feel more than a little small.

BTW, last time I checked, global warming is not responsible for triggering volcanic events.............

 

[B_big dirigible]

BTW, last time I checked, global warming is not responsible for triggering volcanic events.............

It's only known to trigger hysteria.