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| New island born from volcanic eruption. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory. |
Imagine coming across what some fishers in the Red Sea observed on 19 December—fountains of lava bursting from the surface of the water 30 meters/90 feet into the air.
... Followed four days later by the birth of a new island.
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| Plate boundaries and volcanoes of Africa. Blue arrow marks location of new island near mouth of Red Sea. Credit: USGS map, modified. |
The volcanic activity occurred among the Zubair Group of small islands off the west coast of Yemen. From the Earth Observatory page:
Running in a roughly northwest-southeast line, the islands poke above the sea surface, rising from a shield volcano. This region is part of the Red Sea Rift where the African and Arabian tectonic plates pull apart and new ocean crust regularly forms.
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| Zubair Group on 24 October 2007. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory. |
And here's what the Zubair Group looked like before the birth of the solstice island.
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