A newly formed land

Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai: An underwater volcano surfaced in 2015, joining two landmasses together. This is not uncommon in the Kingdom of Tonga for islands to form. Although these masses usually go as fast as they come, as the ocean erodes these soft materials quickly. Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai is different. This land mass is predicted to last 100s of years due to its solidifying crust. Inside the caldera of the volcano, a lake as been created. Although not as salty as the ocean surrounding it, we discovered there is an osmosis occurring through the small rocks creating the joining island. We also gathered this relationship with the ocean by finding hot spots around the crater lake. Knowing that if there was no osmosis occurring then the water would be much warmer. 

Pictured you can see the inside of the caldera and the different rates of erosion of the volcano. In the second picture is (from left to right) the volcano, the preexisting island Hunga Ha’apai, and the Robert C Seamans at the North side of the landmass. Coming to this new land form was quite amazing. Although it was shocking to see how much plastic pollution littered black pebble beaches. No humans live here yet man made products wash up everyday carried by the strong currents of the region. I was apart pf one of the teams that collected the debris yet during our time there, we tried our best to clean up as much as we possibly could.