Rumble III Volcano “blew its top!”

Rumble III:  “Catastrophic Eruption”

According to a UPI report, the underwater volcano Rumble III,  located about 300km northeast of Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, has “blown its top.”

A ‘catastrophic eruption’ may have reduced the height of Rumble III underwater volcano by about 100m, researchers say. Image: GNS Science – Image may be subject to copyright.

Rumble III sits on the southern ridge of the Kermadec Arc of about 100 submarine volcanoes, and rises about 2,300m above the sea floor reaching to within 220m of the sea surface,  has reportedly changed shape since  2007 when it was last mapped.

Researchers  aboard the Thomas G Thompson, a US research vessel,  found a “startling change” in the shape of its summit, which has lost about 100m, with the 800m-wide crater completely missing.

“The whole of that crater seems to be infilled, and the cone’s missing —so probably it blew up and most of the debris slid into the crater,” A researcher  was quoted as saying.

Images taken by an underwater camera “showed the seabed strewn with lava boulders covered by black volcanic ash near the summit of the volcano,” the researcher said.

Rumble III Image

The Rumble III seamount, the largest of the Rumbles seamount group along the South Kermadec Ridge, rises 2300 m from the sea floor to within about 200 m of the sea surface. Collapse of the edifice produced a horseshoe-shaped caldera breached to the west and a large debris-avalanche deposit. Fresh-looking andesitic rocks have been dredged from the summit of Rumble III and basaltic lava from its flanks. Rumble III has been the source of several submarine eruptions detected by hydrophone signals. Early surveys placed its depth at 117 m, and later depths of about 200 m, 140 m, and 220 m were determined. Image and caption: GVP.

Volcano Name: Rumble III
Country:  NZ
Region:  South Kermadec Ridge
Volcano Type: Submarine volcano
Last Known Eruption:  Sometime after 2007
Summit Elevation:  -220 m (- 722 feet)
Latitude: 35.745°S (35°44’42″S)
Longitude:   178.478°E (178°28’42″E)

NZ Quake Report

Meanwhile a Magnitude 4.3 quake at a focal depth of 50 km struck about 50km south-west of the capital, Wellington on March 11 2009 at 9:46 UTC, GeoNet reported (Reference Number 3057877/G).

The epicenter of the earthquake was at: Latitude 41.70°S, Longitude 174.48°E

Earthquake map source: GeoNet, New Zealand. Image may be subject to copyright.

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