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Anatahan Island |
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Anatahan Island |
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This natural-color image of Anatahan Island from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on the Terra satellite represents an area of about 296 kilometers x 353 kilometers. This image of the Anatahan eruption was acquired on May 24, 2003 (during Terra orbit 18242).
Anatahan Island is one of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western tropical Pacific. These islands are situated along the Izu-Mariana margin where subduction of the Pacific plate beneath the Philippine Sea plate creates a series of island arc volcanoes and the Earth's deepest ocean trench.
Anatahan had no known historical eruptions until May 2003. The evacuation of the island's residents in 1990 was prompted by a shallow earthquake swarm that suggested the possibility of impending volcanic activity.
The Micronesian Megapode is an endangered species of bird that inhabits the island. Megapode chicks are precocial at hatching and the adults do not need to care for the young since they are feathered, able to walk, and able regulate their body temperature. Snorkelers around this island are likely to encounter the fish Achilles Tang and the Moorish Idol (Acanthurus achilles and Zanclus cornutus), which are found in the subtropical waters of the Mariana Islands.
Although Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan spotted the islands in 1521, he named them "Las Isles de las Velas Latinas" (The Islands of the Latine Sails). He later changed the name to "Las Islas de Los Ladrones" (The Islands of Thieves). Eventually (in 1668), the Spanish renamed them "Las Marianas" in honor of Mariana of Austria, the widow of Spanish King Philip IV.
Japan took control of the Mariana Islands in 1914 (the first year of World War l) and Germany released the islands to Japan in 1919. Japan received a mandate over the islands in 1920 (after the ratification of the League of Nations). American forces gained control of the islands in 1944, but it was not until 1947 that the area was recognized as a Trust Territory of the United States by the United Nations. The wreckage of a World War II B-29 Superfortress, a four-engine propeller-driven bomber, lies on the north side edge of the craters flat lands.
MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. These data were processed at the NASA Langley Atmospheric Science Data Center. Terra circles the Earth in the same orbit as Landsat 7, flying at an altitude of about 700 kilometers above the Earth's surface.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team.
Text acknowledgment: Clare Averill (Acro Service Corporation/Jet Propulsion
Laboratory), David J. Diner (Jet Propulsion Laboratory).
