A Forgotten Volcano Just Erupted Beneath The Pacific — And The Tsunami Risk Is Climbing

Thu, 14 May 2026 11:08:14 +0000

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A submarine volcano nearly a mile beneath the central Bismarck Sea, north of Papua New Guinea, has just begun erupting for only the second time in recorded history. The first eruption was in January of nineteen seventy two — and that eruption is how we discovered the volcano existed at all. For fifty four years it sat silent, unmonitored and badly mapped, on a fissure ridge that almost nobody had reason to look at. Then on the eighth of May, a magnitude five point six earthquake opened a vent in the seafloor, and within hours an ash plume was climbing through thirteen hundred meters of seawater and rising another nine thousand feet into the atmosphere. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has not issued a warning. But two hundred kilometers south, at the bottom of the same sea, lies the debris fan of Ritter Island — a volcano that collapsed in eighteen eighty eight and killed several hundred people. Could the same kind of story be opening again?

🌙 TONIGHT'S DEBRIEF:

Central Bismarck Sea submarine volcano vent at one thousand three hundred meters depth, sustained ash column reaching nine thousand feet above sea level

Magnitude five point six magma-intrusion mainshock on May eighth at twelve twenty two UTC, eruption initiated within eight hours, swarm extending twelve to thirty kilometers from the primary vent

The eighteen eighty eight Ritter Island flank collapse anchors the worst-case scenario — four point six cubic kilometers of debris, runups up to fifty meters, several hundred dead across six hundred kilometers of coastline

The pre-climax phase of Hunga Tonga in twenty twenty two bounds the upper tail ceiling — and it looked operationally similar to what we are watching tonight

Six concurrent volcanic events across the western Pacific in two weeks — Sakurajima, Mayon, Dukono, Kanlaon, Lewotobi Laki-laki, and the Bismarck Sea — raise the question of whether the Pacific Plate itself is in an elevated state

👁️ WHAT WE'RE WATCHING:
The eruption is sustained. The earthquake swarm is rolling. The flank-collapse tsunami mechanism evades conventional warning architecture by design. The probability of a downstream catastrophic event is low — but it is meaningfully above baseline, and the conditions that would precede escalation are stacking right now. The next forty eight hours will tell us whether the magnitude floor is climbing or holding, and whether secondary vents are appearing along the ridge.

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⚠️ DISCLAIMER: This channel is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Our content draws from official scientific and government data sources, but also includes theories, speculation, and interpretive analysis. Statements about potential future events or connections between phenomena represent our own analysis and are not confirmed scientific conclusions. Always refer to official sources (USGS Volcano Hazards Program, NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, PHIVOLCS, PVMBG) for actionable safety information.

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