Birth of an Island

Plate tectonics (first called continental drift) is the current model of the inner workings of the Earth.
Oceanic plates are located at the mid ocean ripples.
At these locations, the oceanic crust is very thin, a few kilometers thick, the lava comes to break through until the permanent surface through large cracks of thousands of kilometers long.
These fissures, called rift ocean are filled with lava that cools by moving closer to the area in contact with water.
The lava then crystallize on each wall of the crack, thus creating new oceanic crust by removing the oldest crust.
This separation occurs at a few centimeters per year and that is Europe and North America were almost joined there are 150 million years, have gradually removed the each other.

* The major tectonic plates, bounded by the lines of earthquakes (plate of North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Pacific, Australia and Antarctica).

Surtsey is a volcanic island created off the coast of Iceland, the Westman Islands archipelago.
Eighty volcanoes seventeen aircraft, including Surtsey, the system consists of volcanic Westman Islands.
It was formed quickly, following a series of volcanic eruptions underwater.
The first eruption began 130 meters below the Wed, November 10th, 1963, the island of Surtsey emerged from Icelandic waters 14 November 1963 and has spread to the surface of the water for only four years. The nouvell73 meters.
Upon apparitions Surtsey as 1.41 km2 and has a height of 1, the island is closed to the public, only scientists are allowed to attend.
The island of Surtsey is a World Heritage Site of UNESCO since 2008.

* the island of Surtsey in 1999.

* birth of the Icelandic island of Surtsey is out of the waters in November 1963. credit : University of Colorado

Tonga Islands region is prone to volcanic eruptions underwater forever.
This is due to plate tectonics as these islands are actually located on the Pacific Ring of Fire where earthquakes and volcanoes accumulate.
The Pacific plate moves closer to the Australian plate at an average speed of 7.7 centimeters per year.
On Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 8 am local 17 (20H17 GMT), an earthquake of magnitude 7.9 hit the Tonga islands and a spectacular volcanic eruption occurred off the coast of Tongatapu island, located precisely on the Ring of Fire in the South Pacific.
A swell from west to east through the French Polynesia has three hours later, said the High Commission in French Polynesia.
Low elevations of sea level were recorded, 18 cm and 20 cm at Papeete to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas.
Tahiti lies 8 478 miles from Tonga.

* The epicenter of the quake was located 210 km from Nukualofa, the capital of Tonga, and 480 km of the islands Ndoi in Fiji at a depth of 10km.