New Island Born in Red Sea: NASA (PHOTOS)

The yet-to-be-named island has formed in the Zubair archipelago, a collection of small islands off the west coast of Yemen, and lies between Haycock Island and Rugged Island, according to NASA.

The new island was first revealed in a photograph by NASA's Earth Observatory's satellite on Dec. 23, in which white ash plume was seen rising from the sea, indicating an eruption. 

The undersea eruption occurred in a region which is part of the Red Sea Rift, which is "where the African and Arabian tectonic plates pull apart and new ocean crust regularly forms", according to scientists.

In early January, a new satellite image revealed that the submarine eruption had risen completely above the water surface and a fragment of land surrounding the eruption was spotted, indicating the formation of a new island.

According to scientists, the landmass has now grown to about 530 by 710 meters (1,700 by 2,300 feet) in size.

"In contrast to the fragmented rock that forms when lava interacts directly with water, lava that solidifies on land is tough, so this new island is likely to stick around," the scientists added.

New satellite images, taken on Jan. 15, indicated the eruptions had stopped and the island had already formed, as a part of the Zubair archipelago, which is about 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the coast of Yemen.

The photographs released by NASA, which are reproduced below, show the formation of the new island:

The Zubair archipelago consisting of Haycock Island and Rugged Island in the Red Sea, off the west coast of Yemen, as seen on Oct. 24, 2007. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

A volcanic eruption is see in the Red Sea in this satellite image taken on Dec. 23, 2011. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

The satellite image, acquired Jan. 7, 2012, suggests that the eruption had risen completely above water and a land surrounding the vent had grown. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

The new island formed on the Red Sea is seen in the image taken on Jan. 15, 2012. Image courtesy EO-1/NASA

ESA ISS Image: Magical Island of Zanzibar

The fascinating island of Zanzibar, off the East African coast.

Credit: ESA/NASA

The World Islands project in Dubai

A development is seen on one of the islands of The World Islands project in Dubai.

Picture: REUTERS/Jumana El Heloueh

New Volcanic Island forms in Red Sea

A new island is forming in the Red Sea. About 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the coast of Yemen, an undersea eruption began in mid-December 2011.

This satellite image suggests that the eruption has risen nearly completely above water.

A plume of steam, other volcanic gases, and ash spews from a distinct cone. The land surrounding the vent has grown, and is now about 530 by 710 metres (1,700 by 2,300 feet) across.

In contrast to the fragmented rock that forms when lava interacts directly with water, lava that solidifies on land is tough, so this new island is likely to stick around.

Picture: NASA / AFP/Getty

ESA ENVISAT Image: Spitrsbergen, Norway's Glacier island

Spitsbergen, Norway’s largest island, is pictured in this image, acquired on 6 September 2011 by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). 

Bordered by the Arctic Ocean to its north and the Greenland Sea to its west, Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago.

Credits: ESA

Bordered by the Arctic Ocean to its north and the Greenland Sea to its west, Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago.

The island has many glaciers, mountains and fjords – long inlets created by glacial activity.

Because of its high latitude, average summer temperatures are between 4 °C and 6 °C, while winters drop to around −20 °C. The North Atlantic Current, however, gives Spitsbergen significantly higher temperatures than other places at the same latitude.

Arctic foxes, reindeer and polar bears roam the land here. The surrounding waters are home to whales, dolphins and walruses.

This image was acquired on 6 September by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar. 

ESA ENVISAT Image: Qeshm Island, Jewel of the Persian Gulf

This Envisat image features the largest island in the Persian Gulf: Iran’s Qeshm Island.

This long thin island lies just a few kilometres off the Iranian coast near the narrow Strait of Hormuz.

The Straits of Hormuz separate the Persian Gulf to the west and the Gulf of Oman to the southeast.

Qeshm Island harbours the Hara Biosphere Reserve, the largest stretch of mangrove forest along the Persian Gulf shoreline.

This network of shallow waterways and forest can be seen clearly in the image, between Qeshm Island and the mainland.

The image was created by combining three Envisat radar images from 2009 (7 May, 29 October and 3 December) over the same area. The colours result from changes in the surface between acquisitions.

Credits: ESA

NASA ISS Image: Agathonisi, Greece

Beautiful Agathonisi, Greece

Giant Rabbit Skeleton (Nuralagus rex) found on the Spanish island of Minorca

Unfrotunately, Nuralagus rex, also known as the Menorcan King of the Rabbits was too big to hop.

Due to his short stiff spine he would have been forced to clumsily haul himself along like a beaver getting out of water, researchers have said.

A creature initially mistaken for an extinct tortoise has turned out to be a giant bunny that had tiny ears and couldn't hop.

The 5-million-year-old remains of Nuralagus rex were found on the Spanish island of Minorca by independent researcher Josep Quintana. 

At an estimated 12 kilograms, it was around 10 times the weight of wild Spanish rabbits today.

Quintana came across the first fossil in the early 1990s when he was 19. He initially thought it was part of an extinct Minorcan tortoise. Later, Meike Köhler and Salvador Moya-Sola of the Autonomous University of Barcelona's Catalan Institute of Paleontology identified it as a giant rabbit.

Now the three have uncovered enough fossils to reconstruct the entire animal and name it. They say its closest relative was Alilepus, a now-extinct genus whose members were about a tenth the size of N. rex and lived in Eurasia and North America at the time.

Land bridge

Quintana says the ancestors of N. rex colonised Minorca 5.3 million years ago when sea levels in the Mediterranean dropped by about 1.5 kilometres, connecting the Balearic Islands to the mainland.

As sea levels rose again and cut Minorca off, N. rex evolved separately from Alilepus. It shared the island with tortoises, bats and a large dormouse species, and in the absence of predators chose life in the slow lane. 

"If you don't have natural enemies, why run?" asks Quintana. Gradually, its legs grew shorter, its ears shrank and its spine lost the curvature that helps rabbits hop.

Journal reference: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol 31, p 231

NASA ISS Image: Volcanic Leeward Island

One of the volcanic Leeward islands, and part of a green archipelago, bearing the remants of recent activity.

Onekotan Island, Kuril Islands, Russia

Snow cover highlights the calderas and volcanic cones that form the northern and southern ends of Onekotan Island, part of the Russian Federation in the western Pacific Ocean.

Calderas are depressions formed when a volcano empties its magma chamber in an explosive eruption and then the overlaying material collapses into the evacuated space.

In this astronaut photograph from the International Space Station, the northern end of the island (image right) is dominated by the Nemo Peak volcano, which began forming within an older caldera approximately 9,500 years ago. The last recorded eruption at Nemo Peak occurred in the early 18th century.

The southern end of the island was formed by the 7.5 kilometer (4.6 mile) wide Tao-Rusyr Caldera. The caldera is filled by Kal’tsevoe Lake and Krenitzyn Peak, a volcano that has only erupted once in recorded history (in 1952).

Extending between northeastern Japan and the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, the Kurils are an island arc located along the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” Island arcs form along an active boundary between two tectonic plates, where one plate is being driven beneath the other (subduction).

Magma generated by the subduction process feeds volcanoes—which eventually form volcanic islands over the subduction boundary.

Volcanic Hazard Map Produced For Island Of Gran Canaria

Volcanic Hazard Map Produced For Island Of Gran Canaria

Spanish and French researchers have defined the age, location, size and geochemistry of the volcanoes of Gran Canaria during the Holocene, 11,000 years ago, in order to draw up a map of volcanic hazards for the island.

The research shows that the area of greatest volcanic activity is one of the most heavily populated areas in the north east of the island, which has suffered 24 eruptions over the period studied.

The team of French and Spanish scientists led by researchers from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) and the "Jaume Almera" Institute of Earth Sciences (CSIC, Barcelona) combined the data from previous studies with the results of analysis of 13 new radiocarbon ages in order to gain an understanding of the history of the island and predict the areas to be struck by future volcanic eruptions.

The result, which has been published recently in the Journal of Quaternary Science, is a map of volcanic hazards for Gran Canaria, describing risk scenarios.

"We have identified 24 volcanic eruptions that took place over the past 11,000 years on Gran Canaria. We know that volcanism was concentrated in the northern sector of the island and produced small monogenetic strombolian cones (eruptions that are not very violent and which release lava and pyroclastic flows) and, occasionally, phreatomagmatic calderas (which release ash), Alejandro Rodriguez-Gonzalez, lead author of the study and a researcher at the ULPGC, tells SINC.

In order to create the map, the researchers based themselves on detailed field work, which enabled them to define the limits of the various volcanic units (cone, lava and horizontal spread of pyroclastic flows) with a great degree of exactitude, using geomorphologiccal and stratigraphic criteria.

The data now made available by the scientists makes it possible to better evaluate the scale and type of future eruptions in this area. By working out the areas, before and after, of each eruption using Digital Land Models (DLM), the researchers have developed a novel and very detailed morphometric methodology for this kind of volcanic environment.

The study started with palaeotopographical reconstructions of areas affected by recent volcanic activity. "This allows our methodology to show geomorphological changes according to volcanic type and the periods of erosion involved", explains Rodriguez-Gonzalez.