My fascination with volcanoes had humble origins. In school, I was more concerned with getting high scores in ‘Mob Wars’ and ‘Space Invaders 2’ on my scientific calculator than I was in the subject of Geography. Roles were literally reversed a few years later when I was forced to teach a bunch of similarly uninterested year 11ers in graphically mapping natural hazards in the Pacific. During this time, I spent plenty of my nights cramming textbooks and literature and I started to take an interest in plate tectonics, in particular, converging oceanic boundaries.
Fast forward another few years and I am living just around the corner to one of most active submarine volcanoes in the south Pacific Ocean…Kavachi
Alright, maybe it’s not that close, but Kavachi is under 60 clicks from Patuake. It gets its name from the sea god of the Vangunu and Gatokae peoples, and is also reffered to locally in the Marovo as Rejo te Kavachi…”Kavachi’s oven’.
Kavachi volcano is located at a tectonic location called a triple junction. It is located on the Pacific plate only 30 km northeast of its convergent boundary with the downgoing Indo-Australian plate.
Research vessels, like CSIRO’s Franklyn, have spent a bit of time out there plotting depths and mapping the boundaries. At the moment, they reckon that the cone from the volcano rises from roughly 1 km up to 70 m, with a diameter of 8km. Kavachi, however, has a long history of eruption and temporary island building. When Kavachi erupted in 2003, a 15- metre high island was formed above the waves, but it was eroded soon after. When it is not erupting, mud, sulfur, rock fragments and gas bubbles still punch to the surface.
These are a few pictures I nicked from Corey from Wilderness Lodge.
I haven’t dived Kavachi itself, but I have dived on islands close by. Apparently it is quite common to hear this loud crunching sound from Kavachi. The other thing Kavachi is kinda famous for is sports fishing. BIG Yellow Fin Tuna, Mahi Mahi and Sail fish feed off the shoals. Hopefully this post is one of two, and next time I can tell you from personal experience.
Cheerio
solomontime 