WHITE ISLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 8 May 1926, Page 1

WHITE ISLAND

EXPLOSIVE ERUPTION I’OSSIBI.I

WELLINGTON, May G. tn September. 191-1. White Island, ill the Bay of Plenty, was I lie si one of a frightful disaster. The operatives of a sulphur mining company were- swept away in an eruption. I>r T. A. Jaggar, the celebrated vuleanologist, who lives at Volcano House, near Hie crater of Kilauea, in a recent bulletin refers to articles in New Zealand newspapers about recent activity at White Island, and particularly to ail article by Dr .1. Allan Thomson, director of the Dominion Museum, who stated that the recent- eruption obviously lias rendered the crater oven safer than previously. Dr dagger says: “We would venture to caution our friends in New Zealand against putting too much confidence in this safety valve theory. White Island lias all the characteristics of a dangerous volcano. Like Bogoslof or like Krakatoa, the collapse above described, accompanied by rod cauliflower clouds thousands of feet high, and the opening of a new wall crack vent, means rngullinenf. If imgnlfment. continues, H may ln'enii flic retirement of the lava lying below at the end of a. pressure cycle. If our diagnosis of what happened at- Kilauea in the spring of D_M is correct, such retirement of deep lava may take several months, and be followed by a sudden collapse of the crater bottom. This, wo believe, accounts for the considerable delay of the Kraka-toa. Kilauea, and Pole© eruptions, after tlio first symptoms. Tarawera, in New Zealand, was a clear caso of engulfment. Engulfment opens voids which fill with water, and a steam explosion follows. Tn tho event of a. true explosive eruption, which can throw eight ton boulders, three miles,-a camp like that of the sulphur workers on White Island would be exposed to the first barrage.”