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Report on Home Reef (Tonga) — September 1984


Home Reef

Scientific Event Alert Network Bulletin, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1984)
Managing Editor: Lindsay McClelland.

Home Reef (Tonga) Pumice from March eruption found 1,300 km to the WSW

Please cite this report as:

Global Volcanism Program, 1984. Report on Home Reef (Tonga) (McClelland, L., ed.). Scientific Event Alert Network Bulletin, 9:9. Smithsonian Institution. https://doi.org/10.5479/si.GVP.SEAN198409-243080



Home Reef

Tonga

18.992°S, 174.775°W; summit elev. -10 m

All times are local (unless otherwise noted)


Pumice that was probably from the March eruption of Home Reef was collected in August at Beautemps-Beaupré (northern Loyalty Islands, 20.4°S, 166.2°E) and on 3 September at Yate (southern New Caledonia, 22.15°S, 167.00°E), both roughly 1,300 km WSW of Home Reef. Fishermen reported that pumice arrived at Yate by 19 August or 1-2 days earlier during a few days of rough seas. The largest pumice fragment found was 9 cm long but the pumice averaged 1-2 cm in diameter. Small shells up to 1 cm long were frequently attached to the pumice. As of mid-September, no pumice had arrived in the Solomon Islands, roughly 2,600 km NW of Home Reef.

Geological Summary. Home Reef, a submarine volcano midway between Metis Shoal and Late Island in the central Tonga islands, was first reported active in the mid-19th century, when an ephemeral island formed. An eruption in 1984 produced a 12-km-high eruption plume, large amounts of floating pumice, and an ephemeral 500 x 1,500 m island, with cliffs 30-50 m high that enclosed a water-filled crater. In 2006 an island-forming eruption produced widespread dacitic pumice rafts that drifted as far as Australia. Another island was built during a September-October 2022 eruption.

Information Contacts: P. Maillet, J. Eissen, and M. Monzier, ORSTOM, New Caledonia; D. Tuni, Ministry of Lands, Energy, and Natural Resources, Solomon Islands.