An eruption of Home Reef in the Tonga Islands in March 1984 produced an island with an estimated size of 500 x 1,500 m and a height of 30-50 m. A plume to 12 km height was reported during the 1-5 March eruption and large amounts of floating pumice were later encountered by passing ships. This photo, taken on 23 March 1984, shows water discoloration surrounding the ephemeral island.

Photo by P.J.R. Shepherd (Royal New Zealand Air Force; courtesy of John Latter, DSIR, published in SEAN Bull., 1984).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license terms.

Keywords: submarine volcano

Home Reef