Japanese Volcanic Island Gets A Name And Could Survive Years

Back in November, the first reports of a new volcanic island off the coast of Japan surfaced. At the time, there were few details about the island and it was so new it didn't even have a name. Scientists said that they would hold off naming the island until they could see if it would survive more than a short time above the surface of the ocean.

The little volcanic island has now been named and some scientists believe that the island might survive more than a little while. The island is called Niijima and is 600 miles south of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean. The island is along the western edge of the volcanically active Ring of Fire.

The little island has continued to grow and images taken by the NASA satellite Earth Observing-1 show that the eruption is continuing and is still stirring up sediment around the edges of the young island. The Japanese Coast Guard reports that the island is now 19.8 acres in size, which is five times the initial size of the island.

Japanese scientists think that the island could survive for several years. That is assuming a major volcanic eruption doesn't occur and destroy the island. The island is part of Japan and will be added to the country's land mass holdings if it survives.

SOURCE: IBTimes