Tonga eruption and tsunami: University of Michigan experts available to discuss

EXPERTS ADVISORY University of Michigan experts are available to discuss Saturday's undersea volcanic eruption near the Pacific island nation of Tonga and the tsunami that followed. Zack Spica is a seismologist and assistant professor of geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He studies volcanoes using seismic and acoustic waves to learn about their underground magmatic architecture and to monitor their activity. He has worked on several active volcanoes around the world. "The Hunga Tonga volcano eruption is a one-in-a-century event with a plume of ash that went up to 30 kilometers (about 19 miles) into the stratosphere. Like the Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1991, this eruption was not well anticipated and surprised the international volcano community,” he said. "However, what has changed since then is that today, the global network of sensors to monitor the eruption is much more advanced than before, and the volcano community was able to quickly assess the importance of this event.