Mass Of Floating Volcanic Rocks Found Floating Off New Zealand Coast

A mass of floating pumice rocks bigger than Israel and New Jersey was spotted by New Zealand’s Air Force in the South Pacific. The rock raft was discovered on Thursday southwest of Raoul Island and measures 300 miles in length by at least 30 miles wide, according to a statement by the New Zealand Royal Navy.

The cluster of floating volcanic rocks resembles a polar ice shelf and is made up of lightweight pumice that was expelled from an underwater volcano, reports Yahoo! News.

The air force plane spotted the rocks 600 miles offshore from New Zealand, immediately informing a navy warship that was heading straight for it. Lieutenant Tim Oscar stated that, while he knew that his ship, the HMNZS Canterbury, was in no danger from the lightweight stones, he called it “the weirdest thing I’ve seen in 18 years at sea.”

Oscar stated of the massive island of floating rock that:

“As far ahead as I could observe was a raft of pumice moving up and down with the swell. The rock looked to be sitting two foot (half a metre) above the surface of the waves and lit up a brilliant while colour in the spotlight. It looked exactly like the edge of an ice shelf.”

CBS News notes that pumice is formed when lava from a volcano cools rapidly. The pores in the rocks are caused by trapped gas in the hardening lava, allowing the lightweight rocks to float. Scientist believe that the mystery pumice comes from the Monowai seamount, an underwater volcano that has been active along the Kermadec arc.

Officials added that the underwater eruption is most likely not related to the Mount Tongariro eruption earlier this week, which sent ash 20,000 feet into the sky. A group of researchers from GNS Science were traveling near the floating rock island on another military ship and changed course to collect samples of the pumice. They will analyze the stones to see where they came from.

A recent study has shown that pumice floats like the one off the coast of New Zealand play a big role in the evolution of life on Earth, because these floating islands can travel across long stretches of ocean. They have been known to ferry animals, plants, and colonies of microbes across oceans.

Check out footage of the floating pacific rock island below:

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