Low sulfur emissions from 2022 Hunga eruption due to seawater–magma interactions
The explosive January 2022 Hunga submarine eruption in Tonga injected unprecedented water volumes into the upper atmosphere, generating widespread climatic impacts. However, it ejected anomalously little sulfur compared with other eruptions of similar volume. We explain the missing sulfur with volatile budgets calculated from volcanic ash samples spanning the eruption. We show that magma was stored in a weakly stratified reservoir at 2.1 km to >5.6 km depth. Magma rose within <3 min and fragmented at 400–1,000 m below sea level. This preserves microscale chemical mingling including ~1 wt% contrasts in magmatic water concentrations. The 11-h eruption released a total of 319 Tg of magmatic water, which is <10% of that derived from magmatic seawater interaction. Comparing magmatic and residual glass sulfur concentrations shows a total release of 9.4 TgS, but >93% of this entered the ocean during submarine magma fragmentation. These results raise the concern that satellite SO2 monitoring underestimates the magma output of submarine explosions and they are probably near invisible in ice-core records, despite their climate influence caused by water injection into the upper atmosphere. Little sulfur from the 2022 Hunga submarine eruption reached the atmosphere due to seawater–magma interactions, indicating that the climate impact of this type of eruption may be underestimated, according to analysis of ash collected throughout the event.
Authors
- Joali Paredes‐Mariño (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5103-5452)
- Jie Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1080-6257)
- Terry Plank (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1665-0484)
- Jitraporn Vongsvivut (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0699-3464)
- Shane J. Cronin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7499-603X)
- Diego González‐García (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4430-2903)
- Chris Firth
- Sung-Hyun Park (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6303-4879)
- Annaleise R. Klein (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1239-2307)
- Mila Huebsch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1200-5963)
- Marco Brenna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6096-6999)
- Alexander R.L. Nichols (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8298-2882)
- Ingrid Ukstins Peate (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2315-9626)
- Alessio Pontesilli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3409-9531)
- Folauhola Helina Latu’ila
- Taaniela Kula
- James D. L. White (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2970-711X)
- Frank Ramos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7519-0027)
- David Adams (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8722-4108)
- K. G. Hamilton
Institutions
- New Mexico State University (US)
- Leibniz University Hannover (DE)
- Universidad Complutense de Madrid (ES)
- Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (AU)
- University of Auckland (NZ)
- Queensland University of Technology (AU)
- University of Canterbury (NZ)
- Australian Synchrotron (AU)
- Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (IT)
- Korea Polar Research Institute (KR)
- Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Food (TO)
- Columbia University (US)
- University of Otago (NZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Geoscience
- Published
- 2025-04-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01691-7
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Geological and Geochemical Analysis
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 13.06
Funders
- Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
- Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment