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Earthquake swarm and probable submarine eruption
Between 11 and 22 January, RSP stations on Tahiti recorded about 10,000 seismic events near Teahitia (figure 4). From 15-19 January, about 50 seismic events stronger than ML 3.5 were recorded. A number of those were felt by some of the inhabitants of Tahiti, 40 km SW, and three, of magnitudes 4.0, 4.2, and 4.4, were felt by the entire population. Very intense, high-frequency, long-duration volcanic tremors were recorded 19 January. Talandier noted that the intensity and duration of the tremors pointed to magmatic transfer. He also stated that this swarm certainly led to a submarine eruption, as did previous swarms. There were more events and greater seismic energy release in the January swarm than in previous swarms in April-May 1982, July and December 1983, and April-May 1984. Only the 1982 swarm had stronger deep activity.
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Figure 4. Seismicity near Teahitia during 5 January-23 February 1985. Number of recorded earthquakes at 12-hour intervals (solid line), duration of high-frequency tremor in minutes (bars), and cumulative seismic energy release (dashed line, log scale). Courtesy of J. Talandier. |
Information Contacts: J.M. Talandier, Lab. de Géophysique, Tahiti.
The Global Volcanism Program has no Weekly Reports available for Teahitia.
Reports are organized chronologically and indexed below by Month/Year (Publication Volume:Number), and include a one-line summary. Click on the index link or scroll down to read the reports.
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Seismicity suggests first historical eruption
On 14 March, the RSP began to record earthquakes in the vicinity of a seamount, with a summit at about 2 km below sea level, located about 3 km W of Rocard submarine volcano (17.640°S, 148.60°W) and 40 km NE of Tahiti's Taiarapu Peninsula. The increasing activity consisted only of low-magnitude earthquakes until 25 March, when the five Tahiti-Moorea seismic stations began to detect volcanic tremor of 5-10 Hz frequency (figure 1). The Laboratoire de Géophysique attributed the tremor to magma movement and submarine eruptions. Periods of tremor, of variable duration but nearly continuous on some days, accompanied the increasingly numerous discrete earthquakes. Tremor began to decline after 9 April and none has been recorded since the 18th. As of 23 April, weak earthquakes and episodic 1.5-2 Hz seismic noise continued. More than 10,000 individual earthquakes (ML > 0.9) were recorded during the swarm, the strongest of which had magnitudes of 3.5-4 (ML) and were felt on Tahiti.
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Figure 1. Seismicity near Teahitia during 17 March-30 April 1982. Number of recorded earthquakes at 12-hour intervals (solid line), duration of high-frequency tremor in minutes (bars), and cumulative seismic energy release (dashed line, log scale). Courtesy of J. Talandier. |
No volcanic activity had previously been known at the seamount, for which the name Teahitia has been proposed. The activity was similar to that of Mehetia (90 km ESE), March-December 1981.
Information Contacts: J.M. Talandier, Lab. de Géophysique, Tahiti.
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Shallow earthquakes and high-frequency tremor
Between 11 and 20 July, the RSP recorded 3,000-4,000 shallow earthquakes at Teahitia, accompanied by high-frequency volcanic tremor (figure 2).
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Figure 2. Seismicity near Teahitia during 10 July-24 August 1983. Number of recorded earthquakes at 12-hour intervals (solid line), duration of high-frequency tremor in minutes (bars), and cumulative seismic energy release (dashed line, log scale). Courtesy of J. Talandier. |
Information Contacts: J.M. Talandier, Lab. de Géophysique, Tahiti.
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Seismic swarms indicate two submarine eruptions
From August 1983 to March 1984, the RSP recorded numerous sequences of low-frequency volcanic tremor and two seismic swarms associated with submarine eruptions at Teahitia. On 20-21 December, 300 very small earthquakes were recorded. From 3 March-15 April 1984, approximately 9,000 earthquakes were recorded, accompanied by low- and high-frequency spasmodic and harmonic tremor (figure 3).
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Figure 3. Seismicity near Teahitia during 3 March-17 April 1984. Number of recorded earthquakes at 12-hour intervals (solid line), duration of high-frequency tremor in minutes (bars), and cumulative seismic energy release (dashed line, log scale). Courtesy of J. Talandier. |
Information Contacts: J.M. Talandier, Lab. de Géophysique, Tahiti.
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Earthquake swarm and probable submarine eruption
Between 11 and 22 January, RSP stations on Tahiti recorded about 10,000 seismic events near Teahitia (figure 4). From 15-19 January, about 50 seismic events stronger than ML 3.5 were recorded. A number of those were felt by some of the inhabitants of Tahiti, 40 km SW, and three, of magnitudes 4.0, 4.2, and 4.4, were felt by the entire population. Very intense, high-frequency, long-duration volcanic tremors were recorded 19 January. Talandier noted that the intensity and duration of the tremors pointed to magmatic transfer. He also stated that this swarm certainly led to a submarine eruption, as did previous swarms. There were more events and greater seismic energy release in the January swarm than in previous swarms in April-May 1982, July and December 1983, and April-May 1984. Only the 1982 swarm had stronger deep activity.
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Figure 4. Seismicity near Teahitia during 5 January-23 February 1985. Number of recorded earthquakes at 12-hour intervals (solid line), duration of high-frequency tremor in minutes (bars), and cumulative seismic energy release (dashed line, log scale). Courtesy of J. Talandier. |
Information Contacts: J.M. Talandier, Lab. de Géophysique, Tahiti.
The Global Volcanism Program has no synonyms or subfeatures listed for Teahitia.
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There is data available for 4 confirmed Holocene eruptive periods.
1985 Jan 10 - 1985 Jan 25 Confirmed Eruption VEI: 0
| Episode 1 | Eruption | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1985 Jan 10 - 1985 Jan 25 | Evidence from Observations: Hydrophonic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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List of 3 Events for Episode 1
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1983 Dec 18 - 1984 Jul 14 Confirmed Eruption VEI: 0
| Episode 1 | Eruption | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1983 Dec 18 - 1984 Jul 14 | Evidence from Observations: Hydrophonic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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List of 4 Events for Episode 1
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1983 Jul 12 - 1983 Jul 26 Confirmed Eruption VEI: 0
| Episode 1 | Eruption | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1983 Jul 12 - 1983 Jul 26 | Evidence from Observations: Hydrophonic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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List of 3 Events for Episode 1
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1982 Mar 16 - 1982 May 19 Confirmed Eruption VEI: 0
| Episode 1 | Eruption | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1982 Mar 16 - 1982 May 19 | Evidence from Observations: Hydrophonic | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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List of 3 Events for Episode 1
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There is no Deformation History data available for Teahitia.
There is no Emissions History data available for Teahitia.
The Global Volcanism Program has no photographs available for Teahitia.
Maps are not currently available due to technical issues.
There are no samples for Teahitia in the Smithsonian's NMNH Department of Mineral Sciences Rock and Ore collection.
| Copernicus Browser | The Copernicus Browser replaced the Sentinel Hub Playground browser in 2023, to provide access to Earth observation archives from the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, the main distribution platform for data from the EU Copernicus missions. |
| MIROVA | Middle InfraRed Observation of Volcanic Activity (MIROVA) is a near real time volcanic hot-spot detection system based on the analysis of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data. In particular, MIROVA uses the Middle InfraRed Radiation (MIR), measured over target volcanoes, in order to detect, locate and measure the heat radiation sourced from volcanic activity. |
| MODVOLC Thermal Alerts | Using infrared satellite Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, scientists at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawai'i, developed an automated system called MODVOLC to map thermal hot-spots in near real time. For each MODIS image, the algorithm automatically scans each 1 km pixel within it to check for high-temperature hot-spots. When one is found the date, time, location, and intensity are recorded. MODIS looks at every square km of the Earth every 48 hours, once during the day and once during the night, and the presence of two MODIS sensors in space allows at least four hot-spot observations every two days. Each day updated global maps are compiled to display the locations of all hot spots detected in the previous 24 hours. There is a drop-down list with volcano names which allow users to 'zoom-in' and examine the distribution of hot-spots at a variety of spatial scales. |
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WOVOdat
Single Volcano View Temporal Evolution of Unrest Side by Side Volcanoes |
WOVOdat is a database of volcanic unrest; instrumentally and visually recorded changes in seismicity, ground deformation, gas emission, and other parameters from their normal baselines. It is sponsored by the World Organization of Volcano Observatories (WOVO) and presently hosted at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
GVMID Data on Volcano Monitoring Infrastructure The Global Volcano Monitoring Infrastructure Database GVMID, is aimed at documenting and improving capabilities of volcano monitoring from the ground and space. GVMID should provide a snapshot and baseline view of the techniques and instrumentation that are in place at various volcanoes, which can be use by volcano observatories as reference to setup new monitoring system or improving networks at a specific volcano. These data will allow identification of what monitoring gaps exist, which can be then targeted by remote sensing infrastructure and future instrument deployments. |
| Volcanic Hazard Maps | The IAVCEI Commission on Volcanic Hazards and Risk has a Volcanic Hazard Maps database designed to serve as a resource for hazard mappers (or other interested parties) to explore how common issues in hazard map development have been addressed at different volcanoes, in different countries, for different hazards, and for different intended audiences. In addition to the comprehensive, searchable Volcanic Hazard Maps Database, this website contains information about diversity of volcanic hazard maps, illustrated using examples from the database. This site is for educational purposes related to volcanic hazard maps. Hazard maps found on this website should not be used for emergency purposes. For the most recent, official hazard map for a particular volcano, please seek out the proper institutional authorities on the matter. |
| IRIS seismic stations/networks | Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Data Services map showing the location of seismic stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 0.18° (about 20 km at mid-latitudes) from the given location of Teahitia. Users can customize a variety of filters and options in the left panel. Note that if there are no stations are known the map will default to show the entire world with a "No data matched request" error notice. |
| UNAVCO GPS/GNSS stations | Geodetic Data Services map from UNAVCO showing the location of GPS/GNSS stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 20 km from the given location of Teahitia. Users can customize the data search based on station or network names, location, and time window. Requires Adobe Flash Player. |
| DECADE Data | The DECADE portal, still in the developmental stage, serves as an example of the proposed interoperability between The Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, the Mapping Gas Emissions (MaGa) Database, and the EarthChem Geochemical Portal. The Deep Earth Carbon Degassing (DECADE) initiative seeks to use new and established technologies to determine accurate global fluxes of volcanic CO2 to the atmosphere, but installing CO2 monitoring networks on 20 of the world's 150 most actively degassing volcanoes. The group uses related laboratory-based studies (direct gas sampling and analysis, melt inclusions) to provide new data for direct degassing of deep earth carbon to the atmosphere. |
| Large Eruptions of Teahitia | Information about large Quaternary eruptions (VEI >= 4) is cataloged in the Large Magnitude Explosive Volcanic Eruptions (LaMEVE) database of the Volcano Global Risk Identification and Analysis Project (VOGRIPA). |
| EarthChem | EarthChem develops and maintains databases, software, and services that support the preservation, discovery, access and analysis of geochemical data, and facilitate their integration with the broad array of other available earth science parameters. EarthChem is operated by a joint team of disciplinary scientists, data scientists, data managers and information technology developers who are part of the NSF-funded data facility Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA). IEDA is a collaborative effort of EarthChem and the Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS). |
