Island appears in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; what did you find there?

The emergence of islands stems from the eruption of volcanoes underwater, as cooling magma creates rock. And that's what happened in 2015, when an island appeared out of the blue in the Pacific Ocean, drawing the attention of the scientific community. Recently, these scholars discovered the existence of life in the place.

Hunga Island Tonga

The new island formed through a rare process. It is the third time in 150 years that a land mass like this has held out for more than 12 months. Scientists named it Hunga Tonga. It still lies in the south Pacific Ocean today, more than seven years after the underwater volcano erupted.

There are many points that draw attention to this place, starting with the fact that this is the first event of its kind to take place in the tropics. For all the reasons listed by the scientists, the place became attractive to scholars, so a group soon began to investigate the details of its emergence.

In a recent study published in the magazine mBio, it was verified the emergence of life in Hunga Tonga.

This was after collecting materials from the island over the course of almost a decade of its existence. In all, there were 32 samples that account for the points that are at sea level to those that are 120 meters high, on the volcano.

After finding the bacteria, work began on sequencing their DNA.

The emergence of life in Hunga Tonga

According to the samples collected, there is a presence of bacteria that are capable of metabolizing sulfur and also atmospheric gases. Because of this, scientists work with the idea that their origin is in hot springs that we can associate with volcanic eruptions.

This rules out the more obvious idea that the bacteria reached the island via the ocean or bird droppings, but the secret may lie underground. Anyway, it was a discovery surprising, since the researchers expected to find cyanobacteria, but found microorganisms like those from hot springs.