As Tonga recovers from the double disaster of a massive eruption and tsunami, volcanologists begin to piece together just how large this eruption was.
and infrastructure destroyed. We are now beginning to get a better sense of what happened and how big this blast was.
Images of the volcano after the eruption show that little remains of the main island. Instead, two small promontories stick out of the Pacific. In an image from Planet , large biege pumice rafts can be seen -- products of this massive eruption.images captured the destruction of the tsunami waves that ran up the shore as high as 50 feet .
First off, a word of warning: estimating the size and power of volcanic eruptions is tricky. You need to measure ash deposits, look at changes in the volcano's shape, collect all the data you can about the height of the ash column and the composition of the material that came out. All of this can't be done quickly, especially when the volcano is mostly under the surface of the ocean.
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