Scientists have warned that a string of volcanic eruptions along the volatile ‘Ring of Fire’ could have been caused by an enormous earthquake.
The Krasheninnikov Volcano in Kamchatka, Russia, roared into life in a ‘historic’ eruption on Sunday.
As it erupted for the first time in over 500 years, the volcano sent a plume of ash 3.7 miles (6 km) into the sky.
According to experts, this destructive blast was likely triggered by the huge 8.8-magnitude earthquake which struck last week.
Last Wednesday, Russia was hit by the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded, sending people fleeing from tsunami warnings as far away as Chile and Hawaii.
Shortly after the tremor, another volcano in the Kamchatka region also erupted, sending streams of lava pouring down its slopes.
Dr Alexey Ozerov, Director of the Russian Institute of Volcanic and Seismic Sciences, said that there was a ‘direct connection’ between the powerful earthquake and these eruptions.
Dr Ozerov says: ‘We associate the eruptions with the earthquake, which activated magmatic centres, and “pumped” additional energy into them.’
Fears of eruptions along the Ring of Fire chain of volcanoes have been sparked after the Krasheninnikov Volcano erupted for the first time in 500 years
Last Wednesday, data from the US Geological Survey (USGS) showed an earthquake struck about 84 miles east-southeast of Kamchatka, Russia, at around 7:24 pm EST, marking the sixth strongest earthquake ever.
Just hours later, Klyuchevskaya Sopka, the largest volcano in the Kamchatka Peninsula, exploded with a stream of lava and ash.
On Sunday, the Krasheninnikov Volcano became the second volcano to suddenly erupt following the earthquake.
The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) called the eruption ‘historic’ and reported that clouds of ash travelled 46 miles (75 km) from the blast.
The last time Krasheninnikov erupted was sometime between 1423 and 1503.
Roughly nine hours after the eruption, KVERT issued an aviation ‘red alert’ warning of significant levels of ash being sent into the atmosphere.
As of Monday evening local time, the eruption remained ongoing with KVERT warning that ‘ash explosions up to 10 km (32,800 ft) a.s.l. could occur at any time’.
Following the eruption, the region was hit by another 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which triggered tsunami warnings all across the peninsula.
According to the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT), the ‘historic’ eruption sent a plume of ash 3.7 miles (6 km) into the sky.
This follows the eruption of the Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano last week. Scientists believe that both eruptions were caused by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake
Scientists now say that all three of these events could have been caused by Sunday’s earthquake.
Dr Jonathan Paul, a volcanologist from Royal Holloway University of London, told Daily Mail: ‘The earthquake released a huge amount of stress in the crust, which could have made an eruption easier by opening up new lines of weakness through which magma could travel upwards.’
Dr Paul says that the delay between the initial earthquake and the eruption of Krasheninnikov is likely due to the fact that the fractures in the rock took time to develop.
In the days between the events, magma would have been forcing itself through new lines of weakness and building up enough pressure to erupt.
These events have sparked concerns that more volcanic activity may be on its way.
Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula has an exceptionally high density of active volcanoes because it is situated directly above the Ring of Fire – a 25,000-mile chain of volcanoes that stretches around the Pacific Ocean.
Made up of numerous faults between shifting tectonic plates, the Ring of Fire is home to over 425 volcanoes, making up 75 per cent of all active volcanic sites on Earth.
This includes some of the most destructive volcanoes ever to erupt, including Krakatoa, Mount Tambora, and Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai.
Last Wednesday, Russia was hit by the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded, triggering tsunami warnings as far as Hawaii and the western United States. But experts warn that these could be only the first wave of disasters to come
Some scientists have suggested that a sufficiently large earthquake could trigger more volcanic activity along the Ring of Fire.
Michael Manga, a geoscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, previously told the Daily Mail: ‘The volcanoes in volcanic arcs, including Chile, the US Cascades, Japan, Indonesia and Kamchatka, are prone to erupt after earthquakes.’
Were the Ring of Fire to erupt, the results could be extremely dangerous.
People in the vicinity of a volcano would be at risk from falling rocks, toxic gases, deadly mudslides, and boiling hot pyroclastic flows.
The bigger danger would come from the fact that, as volcanoes erupt, they inject huge quantities of sulphur and dust into the upper atmosphere.
This could block out the sun and cause global temperatures to plummet as much as 1°C (1.8°F) for several years.
Dr Paul says: ‘Both the eruption and earthquake are bound together by plate tectonics.
‘Earthquakes are always a likelihood around the Ring of Fire because of localised plate tectonic activity.
Scientists believe that eruptions could have been triggered by the earthquake’s disruption of the volcano’s magma chamber. Pictured: The Klyuchevskaya eruption in 2021
The Ring of Fire, a 25,000-mile arc encircling the Pacific Ocean, is home to 75 per cent of the world’s active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. Some scientists say that large earthquakes could trigger eruptions all along the chain
The Ring of Fire contains some of the world’s most powerful volcanoes, including Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (pictured), which erupted in 2015 and 2022
‘Earthquakes are triggered because the movement of tectonic plates with respect to each other isn’t a continuous process; it takes place in fits and starts, because of the build-up and release of friction and pressure.’
However, although scientists say that more eruptions and earthquakes are possible, a mass eruption event is extremely unlikely.
Dr Paul says: ‘Earthquakes can only trigger volcanic eruptions when the volcano is “ready”; in other words, there is a sufficiently high build-up of pressure beneath the ground.
‘An analogy might be a can of Coke that has been shaken up; the earthquake would be lifting the ring-pull that leads to an eruption.’
Since this ‘ready’ condition isn’t very common in nature, earthquakes like those in Russia are unlikely to cause multiple eruptions.
WHAT IS EARTH’S RING OF FIRE?
The Ring of Fire is a horseshoe-shaped geological disaster zone and hotbed of tectonic and volcanic activity.
Roughly 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur in the belt, which is also home to more than 450 volcanoes.
The seismic region stretches along the Pacific Ocean coastlines, where the Pacific Plate grinds against other plates that form the Earth’s crust.
It loops from New Zealand to Chile, passing through the coasts of Asia and the Americas on the way.
In total, the loop makes up a 25,000-mile-long (40,000km) zone prone to frequent earthquakes and eruptions.
The region is susceptible to disasters because it is home to a vast number of ‘subduction zones’, areas where tectonic plates overlap.
Earthquakes are triggered when these plates scrape or slide underneath one another. When that happens at sea it can spawn tsunamis.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .