Pumice rafting and biota dispersal across the Southwest Pacific following the 9-11 August 2006 Home Reef submarine volcanic eruption, Tonga.

这项“紧急申请”的研究是由于研究最近在汤加群岛Home Reef火山浅海爆炸喷发产生的浮石筏的短暂机会而引起的。火山喷发发生在2006年8月9日至11日，火山喷发产生的浮石木筏已经到达斐济，并沿着先前木筏到达澳大利亚东部的轨迹向西移动。木筏将在明年到达澳大利亚东部，那里的大部分浮石将搁浅在海岸线上，漂流活动将基本完成。浮石浮筏是一种重要的自然现象，但人们对其了解甚少，从硅质爆炸喷发产生的浮石，到风和洋流的扩散，再到它们对生物群的吸收和远距离运输。浮石筏为许多海洋物种的长距离传播提供了重要的天然载体，克服了它们传播范围的生理限制，并允许浅海生态系统之间的间歇性接触和交流，否则这些生态系统将被广阔的深海隔离开来。浮石漂流在过去的地质过程中是一个重要的过程，在未来，它可能成为受人类活动破坏的生态系统恢复物种和生物多样性的自然机制。在许多情况下，浮石筏也是了解岛弧环境下浅海硅质岩浆爆炸喷发成因和喷发过程的唯一记录。西南太平洋是研究这些现象的关键区域，每隔5到15年，汤加-克马德克群岛上相对较小的火山爆发就会产生浮石筏。浮石筏是由8月9日开始的Home Reef火山海底爆炸喷发产生的，目前正在通过热带珊瑚礁的重要区域，其时间将与春末产卵事件和夏季气旋季节相对应。因此，这些浮石筏提供了一个短暂的机会，可以更详细地了解浮石筏的机制，各种生物群如何利用这种载体，以及它如何成功地将生物群长距离传播到大堡礁，这是全球生物多样性的重要地区。

The research in this 'Urgency Application' has been prompted by the brief opportunity to study pumice raft(s) that were recently generated by a shallow marine explosive eruption at the Home Reef volcano in the Tongan Islands. The eruption occurred from August 9-11, 2006, and pumice raft(s) from the eruption have reached Fiji and are progressing westward following a similar trajectory of previous rafts to eastern Australia. The rafts will reach eastern Australia within the next year where a large proportion of the pumice will be stranded along the coastline, and the rafting event will largely be completed. Floating rafts of pumice are an important, but poorly understood natural phenomena, from their generation by silicic explosive eruptions and dispersal by wind and ocean currents, to their recruitment and long-range transport of biota. Pumice rafts provide an important natural vector for the long-range dispersal of many marine species, overcoming physiological limitations on their dispersal range, and allow intermittent contact and exchange between shallow marine ecosystems that otherwise remain extremely isolated by vast stretches of deep ocean. Pumice rafting will have been an important process in the geological past, and in the future, it may serve as a natural mechanism for ecosystems damaged by human activity to recover species and biodiversity. In many cases, pumice rafts also represent the only record with which to understand the petrogenetic origins and eruptive processes of shallow marine explosive eruptions of silicic magma in island arc settings. The Southwest Pacific is a key area to study these phenomena with pumice rafts being generated once every five to fifteen years from relatively small-volume explosive eruptions from volcanoes in the Tonga-Kermadec islands. The pumice rafts, generated from the submarine explosive eruption at the Home Reef volcano beginning August 9, are currently passing through important areas of tropical reefs, the timing of which will correspond to the late Spring spawning events, as well as the summer cyclone season. These pumice rafts therefore provide a brief window of opportunity to understand in much greater detail, the mechanisms of pumice rafting, how this vector is exploited by a range of biota, and how successful it is for the long-range dispersal of biota to the Great Barrier Reef, an important area of global biodiversity.