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Garvin Et Al, 2018. Geophysical Research Letters Geophysical Research Letters RESEARCH LETTER Monitoring and Modeling the Rapid Evolution of Earth’s 10.1002/2017GL076621 Newest Volcanic Island: Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai Key Points: (Tonga) Using High Spatial Resolution • Volumetric erosion for new hydromagmatic island is Satellite Observations approximately 0.0026 km3/year • Demonstrated first meter-scale J. B. Garvin1 , D. A. Slayback2 , V. Ferrini3 , J. Frawley4, C. Giguere5, G. R. Asrar6 , documentation of landscapes and 7 topography for a new volcanic island and K. Andersen over its initial stages of erosional 1 2 evolution (approximately 3 years) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, Science Systems and Applications Inc. at NASA Goddard Space 3 4 • Satellite-based measurements of Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA, Herring new island predict lifetime of up to Bay Geophysics at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, 5Canadian Space Agency, Saint-Hubert, approximately 42 years Quebec, Canada, 6Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA, 7Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC/UMD), College Park, MD, USA Supporting Information: • Supporting Information S1 • Figure S1 Abstract We have monitored a newly erupted volcanic island in the Kingdom of Tonga, unofficially • Data Set S1 known as Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai, by means of relatively frequent high spatial resolution (~50 cm) • Table S1 2 • Table S2 satellite observations. The new ~1.8 km island formed as a tuff cone over the course of a month-long hydromagmatic eruption in early 2015 in the Tonga-Kermadec volcanic arc. Such ash-dominated eruptions Correspondence to: usually produce fragile subaerial landscapes that wash away rapidly due to marine erosion, as occurred J. B. Garvin, nearby in 2009. Our measured rates of erosion are ~0.00256 km3/year from derived digital topographic [email protected] models. Preliminary measurements of the topographic expression of the primary tuff cone over ~30 months suggest a lifetime of ~19 years (and potentially up to 42 years). The ability to measure details of a young Citation: island’s landscape evolution using satellite remote sensing has not previously been possible at these spatial Garvin, J. B., Slayback, D. A., Ferrini, V., Frawley, J., Giguere, C., Asrar, G. R., & and temporal resolutions. Andersen, K. (2018). Monitoring and fi modeling the rapid evolution of Earth’s Plain Language Summary A new volcanic island in the southwestern Paci c Ocean was monitored newest volcanic island: Hunga Tonga via high-resolution satellite imaging over ~30 months since its time of formation in early 2015. This island, Hunga Ha’apai (Tonga) using high unofficially named Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH), was not expected to persist as land for more than a spatial resolution satellite observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 45, few months, but our observations have documented its lifetime for at least 36 months. Using topography 3445–3452. https://doi.org/10.1002/ derived from high-resolution satellite images, the above sea level volume of the island was measured over 2017GL076621 time, leading to a “volumetric” erosion rate that was compared with other oceanic islands. The HTHH island is disappearing much faster than Surtsey, but far slower than recent nearby activity indicates. Regional Received 30 NOV 2017 Accepted 21 MAR 2018 submarine topography shows that shallow-water topology may be an important factor in explaining the Accepted article online 26 MAR 2018 unanticipated lifetime of this new island, together with internal strengthening by hydrothermal Published online 20 APR 2018 mineralization. The stages of erosion at the HTHH island may have implications for similar landforms discovered on Mars and their evolution in association with surface water levels. The range of plausible lifetimes for this Tonga island system ranges from about 19 to 42 years, at our measured current rates of erosion (0.0026 km3/year). 1. Introduction and Background Starting around 19 December 2014, a surtseyan eruption was observed near 20.5°S, 175.4°W in the Tonga- Kermadec Islands volcanic arc (Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network, 2015), followed by the emer- gence of a new island (Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai, HTHH) by early 2015 (Woolaston, 2015). Initial high spatial resolution satellite observations by Airbus’ Pléiades illustrated the resulting island with a total 2 2 ©2018. The Authors. new land area of ~1.74 km (1.94 km including the interior crater lake) and relief of ~120 m (Figure 1, This is an open access article under the left). The new island formed between two older Tonga islands (Hunga Tonga to the NE and Hunga terms of the Creative Commons ’ Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Ha apai to the W; Figure 1), on the rim of the ~5 km diameter submarine Hunga Caldera (Bryan et al., License, which permits use and distri- 1972). A 2009 eruption (Vaughan & Webley, 2010) that produced a smaller area of new land to the south- bution in any medium, provided the west of Hunga Ha’apai washed away due to intensive marine abrasion after ~6 months. The lifetime of the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications 2009 island and others that formed via hydromagmatic processes in this region prompted local experts to or adaptations are made. suggest that the 2015 HTHH would face a similar demise (Luntz, 2015). GARVIN ET AL. 3445 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1002/2017GL076621 Figure 1. The Airbus Pléiades-1A image (left) at the end of the eruptive stage (19 January 2015). This is the initial, preero- sional expression of the new island (Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai) with an inset showing its location (red circle). The current state of the island 2.75 years later (right) is shown in a DigitalGlobe WorldView-2 image obtained on 19 September 2017. The evolution of the coastline is depicted in the outlines, with colors ranging from red for January 2015 (early) to blue for September 2017 (latest). Given the apparent dominance of ash in this surtseyan style eruption (Cronin et al., 2017), early indications suggested that the island would wash away in a few months due to intensive marine abrasion, as was observed at the nearby 2009 eruption (location marked in Figure 3; Vaughan & Webley, 2010). Because typical ash-dominated eruptions rarely produce island landscape systems that survive for more than several months (Nunn, 1994), we organized a coordinated satellite observation effort involving the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Radarsat-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and DigitalGlobe WorldView (WV) high-resolution (~50 cm panchromatic) visible imagery (via the U.S. Government’s EnhancedView contract) to document what was believed to be the anticipated “death of the island” by the end of 2015. Our initial sequence of satellite observations suggested that the island could persist and offer an opportunity to quantitatively document the stages of erosion and ultimate destruction in ways not previously possible at such spatial and temporal scales (Figures 1 and 2). We hoped to evaluate whether island volumetric changes due to natural causes at meter scales (NRC ES Decadal Survey, 2007) could be effectively measured. Preliminary results (Figure 1) suggested the following approach: 1. Using meter-resolution satellite observations, document the volumetric rates of change of the overall island for the purpose of accurately projecting island survival timelines 2. On the basis of volumetric erosion models developed for other oceanic islands (Garvin et al., 2000; Berrocoso et al., 2012; Ramalho et al., 2013; Perron, 2017), quantify the observed island erosion to inves- tigate geologic processes that stabilize such fragile landscape systems, such as hydrothermal alteration (e.g., Jakobsson, 1978) The continuing survival of the HTHH tuff cone (i.e., ~1.74 km2 in coastline-defined area; Figure 1) over the past ~36 months motivated our development of an island lifetime prediction model using measured volumetric erosion rates (Perron, 2017). Figure 2 illustrates the initial (post construction) state of the island (March 2015) from ~2 m spatial resolution SAR in comparison with its current appearance (February 2018). Deposition of eroded material to the north- east produced a spit that eventually formed an isthmus connected to the preexisting Hunga Tonga island. This is defined by specific strandlines identifiable in the high-resolution SAR backscatter data (Figure 2), which are indications of discrete erosional-depositional pulses. 2. Materials, Methods, and Context As described in Nunn (1994) and other compilations about volcanic island evolution (Perron, 2017; Ramalho et al., 2013), there are multiple pathways by which newly formed landscapes erode, due to factors including geologic setting, local bathymetry, climatological patterns, and predominant composition of the materials involved. Surtsey offers a well-documented example that has been described comprehensively GARVIN ET AL. 3446 Geophysical Research Letters 10.1002/2017GL076621 Figure 2. Canadian Space Agency Radarsat-2 Spotlight SAR images from 16 March 2015 (blue) and 4 February 2018 (red) at ~2 m spatial resolution (C-band HH at 44° incidence), orthorectified using DEMs generated from DigitalGlobe acquisitions close in date. The loss of ~20% of the island’s initial area from marine erosion over time is evident, with redeposition as isthmus deposits (in red) to the NE and SW. Zones of
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