MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Volcano doubles area of toothfish rich island

The sub-Antarctic Australian McDonald Island has doubled in size in a week, with lava slowly engulfing two neighbouring outcrops after several eruptions over the past 13 years. The volcano had laid dormant for 75,000 years before erupting in 1992. Some landmarks have been obliterated and others created on the rarely visited cold and windswept island 4.100km southwest of Western Australia.

McDonald Island's uninviting terrain and surrounding hazardous seas mean it is almost impossible for humans to get ashore, but its new pumice beaches have attracted king penguins, according to Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell.

The World Heritage-listed island is already home to seals, macaroni penguins and other seabirds. It may be only 44 kilometres from Australia's other active volcano on Heard Island, but very little is known about McDonald Island due to its inaccessibility.

Its surrounding waters are better known as they are home to the Patagonian toothfish which poachers so much love.

Minister Campbell said a planned air link between Hobart and Antarctica could monitor the volcanic activity, as well as poaching in Australian waters in the Southern Ocean. The latest eruption, which occurred last week, was detected by remote satellite sensing.

"The McDonald Island volcano also is unusual because unlike most oceanic volcanoes, it sits on a shallow submarine plateau, which means its eruptions are not as wild and fiery as some, instead producing a slow-moving mass of lava that seeps and spreads," added Minister Campbell.

"Despite the slow-moving nature of the lava, eruptions over the past 13 years have caused startling changes to the island's geography, obliterating some landmarks and creating new ones." The island has doubled in size from 1.13 square kilometres to 2.45sqkm in a decade.

Professor Michael Stoddart from the Australian Antarctic Division forecasted that the environmental effects of the eruption could be positive.

"It's not a big pyrotechnic spectacle, the lava isn't boiling hot and cascading down the side of the mountain. The major effect that I would predict is that the next ship that goes by will be absolutely stunned by the increases in the amount of bird life they can see from the deck of the ship".

Actually Professor Stoddart said that according to the data gathered so far"there's extensive new beaches that have been formed probably of small blocks of pumice stone and that makes for an ideal habitat for seals and for penguins and for other wildlife, so we would expect to see the island well and truly colonized in the not too distant future".

In 1980 the last time the Australian Antarctic Program reached McDonald Island, over a million Macaroni penguins were counted as well as a large number of King Penguins.