Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai (HTHH) Volcano:
A collaborative research team recently returned from a major 54-day voyage on CSIRO research vessel (RV) Investigator to explore the impacts of the devastating 2022 eruption of Tonga’s underwater Hunga Volcano.
- It is a submarine stratovolcano in the Tongan archipelago in the southern Pacific Ocean.
- The HTHH volcano includes the small islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai, along with shallow reefs along the caldera rim of a much larger submarine edifice in the western South Pacific Ocean, west of the main inhabited islands in the Kingdom of Tonga.
- The volcano is part of the highly active Tonga–Kermadec Islands volcanic arc, a subduction zone extending from New Zealand north-northeast to Fiji.
- The Tonga-Kermadec arc was formed as a result of the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Indo-Australian Plate.
- It has erupted regularly over the past few decades.
- Stratovolcano is a tall, steep, and cone-shaped type of volcano.
- Unlike flat shield volcanoes, they have higher peaks.
