Massive rock raft found floating off New Zealand

Firstly I hope this is in the correct forum, being new at this I struggle to decide which is the best one to post in, but I believe that this one best fits the bill.

Here is an article that I have found on the breaking news website today.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A mass of small volcanic rocks nearly the size of Belgium has been discovered floating off the coast of New Zealand.

The stretch of golf-ball-size pumice rocks was first spotted this week by a New Zealand air force plane about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) northeast of Auckland. The rocks stretch for about 26,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles).

A navy ship took scientists to the rocks Thursday night. Naval Lt. Tim Oscar says the rocks appeared a brilliant white under a spotlight, like a giant ice shelf.

He says it's the "weirdest thing" he's seen in 18 years at sea.

Something is definitely happening in the ring of fire at the moment, a hell of a lot of activity it seems.

Here's the link:

www.google.com...

I checked all the links and couldn't find a photo of this thing. That sucks...

Maybe we'll get to see it later on, thanks...

Things are getting a bit interesting down under here in NZ. I did just see on our tvnz news the story about that under water eruption north of our country. Heres a link to the latest info on Mount Tongariro that could have a larger eruption at anytime. tvnz.co.nz...
Also our giant volcano off the bay of plenty, White Island, is showing alot of activity.

Heres a video to the volcanic rocks
www.nzherald.co.nz...

Heres the link on the hot pumice they found.

tvnz.co.nz...

Thats really out of it. im in Auckland. White island and Mt Tongariro going off in close time to each other is really full on, especially since we on the edge of the "pacific ring of fire" maybe this could be the start of a pole shift? There have also have been earthquakes in California??Which to my knowledge they have quiet a few but for someone to point out these recent earthquakes they must be out of the norm. Not trying to speculate or bring about anything else except for food for thought.

reply to post by fossy


Hey that's pretty crazy.
size of Belgium?! That's a lot of rocks.

Thanks for the post fossy.



Muzz

Well that's really weird... could this possibly be related to those recent earthquake predictions?

But OP the prediction forum doesn't seem appropriate for this story, it would be better suited to the "Fragile Earth" forum.

It's quite possible that this type of thing is relatively common on a geological timescale. Lots of volcanoes go off underwater over time, and a number of those are going to be spewing out lava of the right composition to form the floating pumice and some of them are going to make enough pumice in a single eruption to form a floating formation the size of belgium.

But still, it is size of decent sized geological activity.

Originally posted by Mkoll
It's quite possible that this type of thing is relatively common on a geological timescale. Lots of volcanoes go off underwater over time, and a number of those are going to be spewing out lava of the right composition to form the floating pumice and some of them are going to make enough pumice in a single eruption to form a floating formation the size of belgium.

But still, it is size of decent sized geological activity.

This and given the location of New Zealand its possible there was an erruption under the water, which would have bought this type of stone to the waters surface. However I'm not a geosciencey type person tho, this is based purely on logic.

reply to post by Mkoll


Yes obviously something like that happened, and it probably isn't weird when considered on a geological timescale... but it's still a rather odd large-scale event which could be an indication of something else to come.

Why does it look white? What is it? Just rock?

Ok, this just made the top of my weird but true list! Thanks!...spooky!

Originally posted by insaan
Why does it look white? What is it? Just rock?

It's Pumice. It is a volcanic 'rock', but its very light and porous and floats on the water

That's creepy. Sounds like the opening scenes of an apocalyptic movie.

I wonder if they could gauge the pumice to determine how much mass was expelled at eruption.

Sounds like from most reports its come from the undersea volcano Mount Monowai which lies North of New Zealand and the earthquake active Kermadec Islands. Interesting spot that!!

reply to post by aarys


Keep us updated when possible, this sounds real crazy to me.

As mentioned before, perhaps a precursor to some bigger eruption.

I think its getting more interesting right now, Arctic and Antarctic Storms , couple of mid EQ in Cali,
rocks the size of belgium, and i live right next to them......i know that is really huge............

Havent i read about possible tsunamis in the next days...................and it goes on and on

Originally posted by blueflash

Originally posted by insaan
Why does it look white? What is it? Just rock?

It's Pumice. It is a volcanic 'rock', but its very light and porous and floats on the water

Air trapped inside not the lightness. I think. But(t) I'm not a pumice expert so......

Good find nonetheless.

reply to post by fossy

A navy ship took scientists to the rocks Thursday night. Naval Lt. Tim Oscar says the rocks appeared a brilliant white under a spotlight, like a giant ice shelf.

He says it's the "weirdest thing" he's seen in 18 years at sea.

Interesting, and it makes me wonder just how unique this is world wide. With so much of our planet covered by oceans, it seems no surprise that this occurs, but I am still curious to what degree it may have occurred in the past and were there any consequences of concern.


ETA: "rock raft," I will have to add that to my collection of oxymorons!

Here's a pic or two:





A couple more pics on someone's blog
methodius.blogspot.com...