According to a new study led by scientists from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, the 2022 eruption of a submarine volcano in Tonga was more powerful than the largest nuclear explosion in the United States.
The 15-megaton volcanic explosion from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, one of the biggest natural blasts in more than a century, caused a mega-tsunami with waves up to 45 meters high (148 feet) along the coastline of Tonga's Tofua Island and waves up to 17 meters (56 feet) on Tongatapu, the country's most populated island.
Largest Natural Explosion In More Than A Century
(Photo : MARY LYN FONUA/AFP via Getty Images)
Rosenstiel School researchers created a tsunami simulation of the Tongan Archipelago using data from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition and before-and-after satellite imagery, drone mapping, and field observations collected by scientists at the University of Auckland.
The findings demonstrated how the region's complex shallow bathymetry acted as a low-velocity wave trap, capturing a more than hour-long tsunami with waves as high as 85 meters (279 feet) one minute after the initial explosion.
The submarine volcanic eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, which formed the Tonga island chain and was caused by the convergence of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates, rivaled the 1883 Krakatau eruption, which killed over 36,000 people.
Despite its size and duration, the mega-tsumani caused by Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai claimed few lives, according to Sam Purkis, professor and chair of the Rosenstiel School's Department of Marine Geosciences.
The primary causes, we believe, are the unusual location, the COVID-19 pandemic, and raised evacuation exercises and awareness efforts carried out in Tonga in the years preceding the eruption.
The simulation also suggested that the eruption's proximity to urban areas saved Tonga from a more disastrous outcome.
While 2022 was a lucky escape, other submarine volcanoes have the potential to spawn a tsunami of the same magnitude, according to Purkis, who is also the chief scientist at the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation.
This eruption teaches us a lot about past and future tsunamis in Tonga and beyond. The eruption served as an excellent natural laboratory for testing hypotheses and models that can be used elsewhere to improve disaster preparedness and better understand similar eruptions and subsequent tsunamis preserved in antiquity and the geologic record.
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Tsar Bomba
More than 70,000 years ago, the largest terrestrial explosion occurred from the climate-altering Toba Supervolcano, as per LiveScience.
Tsar Bomba, a Soviet superweapon, caused the largest human-caused explosion on record. The Tunguska event, the largest extraterrestrial explosion in recorded history, occurred over Siberia in 1908.
Modern science provides several explanations for the Tunguska explosion. A space-bound projectile is the most likely culprit.
It could have entered the Earth's atmosphere and exploded with such force that it flattened trees for miles without leaving a crater.
Scientists have long speculated about the Tunguska impact. The most popular theory is that the explosion was caused by an icy body, such as a comet, entering the atmosphere.
On June 30, 1908, a 12-megaton explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia.
The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga leveled an estimated 80 million trees over a 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) area.
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