The Birth of a New Island

The Birth of a New Island

Narration: LK Ward

Transcript:

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In 2015, Earth saw the birth of a new island,

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the first of its explosive type in 53 years.

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The blast was so large that nearby tourists caught the explosion on camera.

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Despite raging volcanic activity above and below the Earth’s crust, an event like this is pretty rare.

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Which is why it immediately caught the attention of Dr. Jim Garvin -

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Chief Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Mars expert.

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It should be a pile of basaltic andesite rocks.

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That’s what you expect in this kind of setting

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But there’s more.

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What answers does a Mars expert see in the island that the rest of don’t?

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The new island unofficially known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai

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is located in the remote Southwest Pacific,

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nestled between two other islands in Kingdom of Tonga.

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It’s the first island of its kind to erupt and persist in the modern satellite era,

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giving scientists an unprecedented view from space of its evolution.

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There are other islands being formed including one’s near Japan.

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Very nice, lava eruptions, classic.

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But this one was special because there was this explosive element that reminded us at first glance

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– not exactly – of the kind of eruption at Surtsey.

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This is the eruption Jim is talking about

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– an island born from a similar explosive eruption in 1963 and one of only

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three volcanic islands that have survived in the past 150 years.

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Very early in Jim's career, Surtsey was the first newly-formed oceanic island he ever studied.

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Years later, he went on to become NASA’s Chief Scientist

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pushing the agency’s priorities towards Mars exploration that eventually led to the creation of

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the Mars Exploration Rovers, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

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and the Mars Science Laboratory.

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So why is a scientist clearly fixated on Mars intrigued by new land on Earth?

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The truth is, the two systems are actually cosmically related.

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I think these small islands, small volcanic islands,

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freshly made, evolving rapidly, are windows into the role of surface waters on Mars

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as they have effected small land forms like volcanoes.

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And we see fields of them on Mars!

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There’s a lot to unpack there,

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but before you can understand the major significance of this on Mars,

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you have to understand why it’s a big deal on Earth.

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It really felt like we were witnessing something that nobody else had seen.

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That’s the voice Dr. Vicki Ferrini

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– one of the first pairs of eyes to see the new island from the deck of her research vessel.

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It’s this crazy, huge land mass that’s sticking up out of the water

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where we know there wasn’t one before.

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We watched this island change.

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And it got more and more exciting. It didn’t wash away.

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While there was massive erosion, there was redeposition protecting the island.

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The initial mass above sea level was eroding very quickly

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over the first three to six months and then it leveled off.

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So you kind of see a curve –

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a logarithmic fall off in change in that mass above sea level.

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Basically, the island dramatically changed shape and size every day

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for the first few months.

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About six months in, it finally stabilized.

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Vicki’s initial measurements and observations were crucial,

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but their research ship couldn’t get close to the island without risking a collision.

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Two French explorers who were sailing past the islands on their worldwide

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voyage became NASA’s eyes and ears, collecting some of the very first

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images and samples of the interior island.

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This is the Earth at its best.

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Because new land, new life, new landscapes

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and new patterns.

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How do they all work together?

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The combined observations, satellite images, samples

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and three-dimensional topographical maps lead Jim and the team

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to make some pretty stunning preliminary conclusions

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Scientists think that, in this case,

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warmed seawater interacted with ash after the eruption,

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chemically altering the fragile rock into a tougher material.

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But studying the life and death of land on Earth also has much broader implications.

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This island may give us insights into if –

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and how – life formed on Mars in its early history.

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Islands like this might have worked on Mars.

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Two or three billion years ago, lakes and small seas, filling depressions,

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persistent surface waters – the stuff we really strive to understand

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because it could have produced the conditions necessary for microbial life – or not!

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While the verdict is still out on whether or not liquid water

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on the surface of Mars may have produced life,

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scientists are currently running detailed chemical analysis of the island rock samples

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that will hopefully provide more answers in the months to come.

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Earth is a magical place because, really,

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it’s our point of departure for everything.

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And we come to realize in the last hundred years or so

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that it’s a far more dynamic world than we ever thought.

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Which begs the question,

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what new secrets will this planet we think we understand so well

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reveal in the next 100 years?

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