Underwater Volcanic Eruption Gives Birth To New Island Off Japan

A volcanic eruption formed a new island Wednesday morning in the Pacific Ocean to the far south of Tokyo, the Japanese coast guard and earthquake experts said.

The eruption is currently taking place southeast of Nishinoshima island, which is part of Japan’s Ogasawara island chain. It has already created an island with a diameter of 660 feet, suggesting that the vent was located in very shallow waters.

A volcanologist with the coast guard, Ito Hiroshi, told the FNN news network that it was possible the new island might eventually erode away. Although the uninhabited Nishinoshima grew in size between 1973 and 1974, and then became connected to a new island created by volcanic activity, during the last eruption.