Jakarta –
Island-shaped piles of material appear on the surface of the water in Tanimbar Islands Regency, Moluccas, post earthquake with a magnitude (M) of 7.5 shook the southeastern western Moluccas. Piles of material in the form of islands also occurred in Nias after the 2005 earthquake.
“The removal occurred after the 2005 Nias earthquake, which indicated evidence of a fault or uplift fault in western Nias Island,” said Middle Earth Investigator, Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG), Supartoyo when contacted on Tuesday (10/1/2023).
Supartoyo could not confirm whether the island-like material pile was the same as the material pile on Nias. He said further investigations are needed.
“For the Tanimbar Islands areas, as much geological data as possible is needed before concluding this phenomenon,” he said.
Supartoyo reported that the mounds of material that formed at Nias at that time were scattered over a number of spots. However, mounds of material such as the islands on Tanimbar are in the same zone as Nias, i.e. the subduction whose collision does not produce magma.
“So Nias has a pretty wide distribution, so it’s not just an island. As for Tanimbar, I don’t know if it’s just local or there are other places that have experienced this. Maybe I need the data, the coordinates and then a material distribution whether this is raised only here or in other places as well,” said Supartoyo.
“In Nias, it’s a bit wide, so the conclusion is related to other faults that are in the subduction zone. For the case of Tanimbar, the subduction zone is also called simply a collision, a collision between two plates that doesn’t produce magma, volcanic mountains do not produce fire,” he explained.
Supartoyo said that unlike Nias and Tanimbar, the island-shaped materials of Sumatra and Java produce magma because they are in different areas. Thus forming a volcano.
“In Sumatra, Java, the collision of plates produces magma and causes a series of volcanoes to form. If not in the sea, it’s called a collision, so it’s pretty much the same as the Himalayan collision,” he said.
He hoped that the emergence of the island in Tanimbar would be harmless. He said his team would visit the site and collect some data for further follow-up.
“So we need data for that, is it general data or just local. If it’s just local, the question is why is it just there, not elsewhere. Hopefully if you look in the mirror from Nias it’s not dangerous, it’s relatively harmless that the phenomenon appears. We plan to have a team go there, we will discuss it first because it is not easy to reach the area there. We will discuss it, we will propose that a team go there to retrieve various data, including coordinates,” he added.
Isle appears in Tanimbar
Earlier, the islands appeared on the surface of the water in Tanimbar Islands regency, Maluku, after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake rocked southeastern Moluccas on Tuesday morning. Now the local community is evacuating the impact of the island-shaped material appearance.
“Findings in Teinaman village, North Tanimbar district, an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 7 resulted in a pile of material forming an island,” said the head of Teinaman village, North Tanimbar district, Bony Kelmaskossu, quoted from Antara, Tuesday (10/1/2023).
As a result of this phenomenon, the people of Teinaman village panicked and became afraid, so they fled temporarily.
“The policy that has been adopted, we have ordered the community to temporarily evacuate,” said Bony Kelmaskossu.
He hopes the government and related technical agencies will follow up on the phenomenon that has occurred in the village.
Separately, Luthfy Pary, coordinator of the BMKG-class Ambon geophysical station for data and information, explained the island phenomenon that appeared in the village of Teinaman. Luthfy admitted she could not provide more detailed information on this matter because she needed a more in-depth study.
As for the term similar to this phenomenon is ‘mud volcano’, but it needs to be studied further.
“The information we have is not complete whether the phenomenon is purely caused by the aftermath of the earthquake or not, so far we have not received accurate information,” he said.
A magnitude 7.5 tectonic earthquake is known to have occurred on Tuesday morning. The epicenter of the earthquake was located at the coordinates 7.37° South latitude and 130.23° East longitude, or to be precise, located in the sea at a distance of 136 km NW of West Southeastern Maluku, Maluku, at a depth of 130 km.
Taking into account the position of the epicenter and the depth of the hypocenter, the earthquake that occurred was of a medium type due to the subduction activity of the Banda Sea.
Watch the video: After the M 7.5 earthquake in Maluku, an island appears
(bridge/jbr)
