Japan has gained another island to add to its already impressive collection after an undersea volcanic eruption 1,200km south of Tokyo created a new landmass.
Experts said the tiny island emerged from a series of eruptions that began in October near Iwoto Island, part of the Ogasawara island chain in the western Pacific.
Fukashi Maeno, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo's earthquake research institute, confirmed that the water-type eruptions occurred about one kilometer off Iwoto, forming a land mass about 100 meters in diameter, reports The Guardian.
When magma ejected from eruptive activity comes into contact with seawater, it cools and solidifies, rising layer by layer until it rises to the surface.
The island is made up mainly of pumice, a volcanic rock with a low density. A storm surge or a particularly violent eruption could sweep it away at any moment, as happened to the Tongan island of Hunga-Hapai, wiped off the map by the 2022 eruption off the coast of Tonga in Polynesia.
Earlier this year, geographers declared that the Japanese archipelago, previously thought to consist of four main islands and about 6,000 much smaller and mostly uninhabited islands, actually consisted of twice as many.
Using digital mapping technology, the Japan Geospatial Information Authority said it had identified a total of 14,125 islands - 7,273 more than previously thought.
