An Undersea Volcano appears near Madagascar

In late 2018, the island community of Mayotte, near Madagascar off the coast of Southeastern Africa, experienced a swarm of Earthquakes. The French geoscientists let by Nathalie Feuillet surveyed the seismically active area and have recently reported finding a new, undersea volcano!

Last month's paper in Nature indicates that "this is the largest active submarine eruption ever documented."

The report includes a compelling "side-by-side" mapping of the sea floor, just four years apart. Despite how familiar we've become with the undersea eruptions in Hawaii - Lōʻihi comes to mind - the Mayotte event was highly irregular. Alex Lopatka reported on this research in the latest issue of Physics Today, where he recounted a number of geophysical peculiarities involved in this particular event.

In other volcanic news, Halema`uma`u began erupting again just the other day, and the crater is filling rapidly!