Could a volcanic eruption off the coast of Mexico trigger a tsunami like the one that devastated Tonga? To study this risk, as well as the causes of earthquakes, a group of scientists visited a remote archipelago.
These are the Revillagigedo Islands, located in the Mexican Pacific, and known as the "Mexican Galapagos" due to its isolation and its biodiversity.
In the four-island archipelago there are two active volcanoes: Bárcena, which had a spectacular eruption in 1953; and the Evermann, which had it in 1993. Both remain active.
The Revillagigedo are in the middle of the ocean and reaching them it takes 24 hours by boat. Its only inhabitants are elements of the Mexican Navy and access is restricted.
For its natural wealth, in 2016 They were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. and among its few civilian visitors, divers attracted by giant manta rays, humpback whales, dolphins and sharks stand out.
But last March they were visited by an international team of 10 scientists who spent a week investigating if there could be another eruption and when it would occur.
"What we are looking for is to know how explosive and dangerous these volcanoes can be"said Douwe van Hinsbergen, a professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
understand rashes
The concern is that something similar to the cataclysmic eruption in January of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano will happen, and that a tsunami will rush over the Mexican Pacific coast.
That eruption left three dead and covered the archipelago with toxic ash and generated huge tsunami waves that reached the American Pacific coast. Its power was several hundred times greater than the US atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, according to NASA.
"Always, when there are active volcanoes, volcanoes on islands, there are always possibilities of tsunami generation", said Pablo Dávila Harris, a geologist at the Institute for Scientific and Technological Research in the Mexican state of San Luis PotosÃ.
"What we volcanologists are looking for is (to know) when the next eruption is going to happen"says the expert, explaining that, based on the historical record of eruptions, a model of the eruptive frequency can be established.
Scientists also hope that analysis of minerals ejected from past eruptions will help understand the movement of tectonic plates that cause earthquakes and volcanic activity.
"The plates move on the mantle (earth). Is the mantle pushing the plate or not?"Van Hinsbergen asks.
His hypothesis is that the Earth’s mantle is in fact "a large rock lake" that it is essentially immobile, what he estimates would have to rethink the theories of what produces the movement of the plates.
"If we can understand it, we could predict much better, for example, the process that causes earthquakes."Van Hinsbergen adds.
The mission received funding from a Dutch exploration program. This program, according to the scientist’s words, seeks to explore "ideas that are most likely wrong, but if they are not, they will have huge implications".
The collected samples were sent to Europe to be analyzed and the results are expected to be known later this year.