New volcanic island created by an underwater volcanic eruption in Japan
The Iwo Jima Volcano is a submarine hot spot located south of the Japanese island of Iwoto. According to the Global Volcanism Programme, it began erupting on 30 October from a vent near Okinahama in the south-eastern part of the island. The eruption has been ongoing for almost a month, and on 1 November it created a new lava island that has grown to almost 500m in length.
The new volcanic island is visible in this image acquired by one of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites on 27 November.
The twin Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites (Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B) play an important role in monitoring volcanic activity: the high spatial and temporal resolution, as well as the multi-spectral capabilities of its imager, allows monitoring of different volcanic processes and enables hot spot detection.
