VOLCANO - GEOGRAPHY
News: INCOIS keeps watch on Barren-island volcano eruption
What is in the news?
●
The volcano on the Barren
Island of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands is being closely watched to check
for signs of an eruption which could lead to a tsunami or a monstrous undersea
landslide akin to what had happened in Indonesia in 2018.
● The monitoring is being carried out by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), which houses the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) here.
About Barren-island volcano:
●
It is India’s only active volcano.
●
It has become active again.
●
After
lying dormant for 150 years, Barren Island volcano
erupted in 1991 and since then it is showing sporadic activity. Now it is
erupting in small episodes of five to 10 minutes.
●
It is claimed that
volcanoes are erupting the rising magma formed deep in the mantle due to the
melting of the subducted Indian Ocean crust.
●
The volcanic island is
part of Andaman Islands. Its
northern part is barren and is uninhabited. It is also devoid of vegetation.
● The volcano about 140 km northeast of Port Blair has been emitting smoke and is not capable of causing major destruction.
About Tsunami Early warning system in Indian Ocean:
●
The Indian Tsunami Early
Warning System (ITEWS) was established in 2007
and is based at & operated by
INCOIS, Hyderabad.
●
It is an integrated
effort of different organizations including the Department of Space (DOS),
Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR), Survey of India (SOI) and National Institute of
Ocean Technology (NIOT).
●
ITEWS comprises a
real-time network of seismic stations, tide gauges and a 24X7 operational tsunami warning center to detect tsunamigenic
earthquakes, to monitor tsunamis and to provide timely advisories to vulnerable
communities.
●
Indian scientists can
detect large undersea earthquakes in the Indian Ocean in real-time and provide
a tsunami warning in 10-20 minutes after the earthquake occurs.
●
Though the devastating
tsunami of December 2004 has faded away from public memory, ITEWC continues its
round the clock vigil for unusual happenings on the sea to give advance warnings to 25 countries apart from India.
● Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO (also known as UNESCO-IOC) accredited Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) as Tsunami Service Provider (TSP) for 28 Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) countries, along with Indonesia and Australia in 2011, for issuing regional warnings.
Go Back to the basics:
About INCOIS:
●
INCOIS was established in
1999 as an autonomous body under the
Ministry of Earth Sciences.
●
INCOIS through Indian
Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) is the nodal agency to provide tsunami
advisories to India.
●
It is coordinating with
the Disaster Management Officials (DMOs) for implementation of Tsunami Ready
programme in India.
● It conducts IOWave Tsunami mock exercises biannually to strengthen the readiness to handle the emergency situations with stakeholders.
Volcano:
●
It is a rupture in the
crust of a planetary-mass object (like Earth), that causes hot lava, volcanic
ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
●
On Earth, volcanoes are
generally found where tectonic plates (like Eurasian, Pacific, Somali, etc)
diverge or converge. Examples- volcanoes occurring in mid-oceanic ridge and
Ring of Fire.
●
Eruption of volcanoes can
be hazardous for humans and other lives living in its vicinity and volcanic ash
may be a threat to aircrafts. Volcanoes can also cause
● Large volcanic eruptions inject water vapor (H2O), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), ash, etc into the stratosphere to heights of 16-32 km.
Types of volcanoes based on frequency of eruption:
1. Active Volcano:
●
Active volcanoes are
volcanoes that are either erupting or on
the verge of eruption.
●
There are around 500
active volcanoes on Earth, excluding those submerged beneath the oceans.
●
Every year, approximately
50 to 70 active volcanoes erupt, most of them being around the pacific “ring of fire”.
● Mount Etna (Italy), Hawaiian Islands (Pacific Ocean), Mauna Loa (Pacific Ocean), Mount Vesuvius (Italy), and Barren Island (India) are some examples of Active Volcanoes around the world.
2. Dormant Volcano:
●
A dormant volcano is one
that is not erupting at the present but
has erupted in the past and is expected to erupt again.
●
The distinction between
active and dormant volcanoes can be hazy.
●
Some volcanoes can last
thousands of years without erupting, thus they are theoretically predicted to
erupt in the future, but it could take many lives.
●
Another of the Big
Island's five volcanoes, Mauna Kea, last erupted 3,500 years ago, but it is
predicted to erupt again, but no date has been set.
●
People living in the
neighborhood of dormant volcanoes are frequently complacent and unprepared when
an eruption occurs.
● This was the case in 1980 with Mt. St. Helens.
3. Extinct Volcano:
●
Extinct volcanoes are
considered to be dormant and unlikely to
erupt again.
●
Example: Kohala, the Big
Island of Hawaii's oldest volcano, hasn't erupted in 60,000 years and isn't
expected to erupt again.
●
However, because many
Hawaiian volcanoes are in the process of rejuvenation, this classification
isn't completely accurate.
●
Aconcagua of the Andes is
a typical example of an extinct volcano.