Giant pumice raft reaches Australia

A vast raft of volcanic pumice stones that floated across the Pacific is helping to revitalise Australia’s embattled Great Barrier Reef


Aug 2019: Undersea Volcano F erupts, ejecting trillions of pumice stones – frothy volcanic glass filled with solidified gas bubbles – that are light enough to float


Cone
40mbsl*

Caldera: Volcanic crater from 2001 eruption


INDONESIA
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
AUSTRALIA
WA
Perth
NT
SA
Adelaide
Great Barrier Reef
Townsville 
QLD
Brisbane 
NSW
Sydney
Canberra
Melbourne
TASMANIA
SAMOA 
FIJI
Vava’u Islands, TONGA
Pacific Ocean
Auckland
NEW ZEALAND
Wellington

1,000km 620 miles


Pumice raft – twice size of Manhattan – drifts across Pacific to Australia
Each small rock attracts marine organisms like algae, barnacles and corals – which help rejuvenate Great Barrier Reef

2km 1.2 miles


*metres below sea level


Pictures: Philipp Brandl (GEOMAR), Joshua Stevens (NASA Earth Observatory), Creative Commons 
Sources: ScienceAlert, GEOMAR, Smithsonian Institution  
© GRAPHIC NEWS