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00:03 Islands can literally pop out of nowhere if an underwater volcano begins to erupt.
00:08 And recently, just off the coast of Japan, that's exactly what happened.
00:11 These images show that violent eruption that experts now say has produced a small landmass near the Ogasawara archipelago.
00:18 The eruption began on October 21st with what volcanologist Tetsuya Nakata told the Japan Times
00:23 was a vertical jet of solidified magma that shot high above sea level.
00:27 The eruption was afterwards kept going by relatively constant underground volcanic bursts.
00:32 Eventually, all of that volcanic material landed back in the water and began to build up,
00:37 resulting in the volcanic island that resides there now.
00:40 They say the volcanic eruption was still going more than a week later,
00:43 but by November 3rd, it was simply blowing ash into the sky.
00:46 Experts say the island is now around a mile wide, but the eruption is still happening.
00:51 Though because it's no longer spewing lava, it's unlikely to grow much larger, at least at the moment.
00:55 And Nakata says that's pretty much par for the course with regards to volcanoes around Japan,
01:00 where a month of eruption is fairly standard.
01:02 Japan resides in an area known as the Ring of Fire,
01:04 a volcanically active portion of the Pacific Ocean that stretches across the globe.
01:09 [music]
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