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

这一“紧急申请”的研究是由于对浮石筏(S)的短暂研究机会所推动的，浮石筏最近是由汤加群岛Home Reef火山的一次浅海爆炸喷发产生的。这次喷发发生在2006年8月9日至11日，从喷发而来的浮石筏(S)已经到达斐济，并沿着之前到达澳大利亚东部的浮筏的类似轨迹向西推进。木筏将在明年内抵达澳大利亚东部，那里很大一部分浮石将搁浅在海岸线上，漂流活动将基本完成。漂浮的浮石筏是一种重要但知之甚少的自然现象，从硅质爆炸喷发和风和洋流的扩散，到生物群的招募和远距离运输。浮石筏为许多海洋物种的远距离扩散提供了重要的自然媒介，克服了其扩散范围的生理限制，并允许浅水海洋生态系统之间的间歇性接触和交流，否则这些生态系统仍被广阔的深海隔绝。浮石漂流将是地质历史上的一个重要过程，在未来，它可能会作为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中浅海硅质岩浆喷发的岩石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，汤加-克尔马德克群岛火山相对少量的爆炸性喷发每五至十五年产生一次浮石筏。从8月9日开始，Home Reef火山的海底爆发产生了浮石筏，目前正在经过热带珊瑚礁的重要区域，时间将与晚春产卵事件以及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之窗，以更详细地了解浮石漂流的机制，一系列生物群如何利用这一媒介，以及将生物群远距离扩散到全球生物多样性的重要区域大堡礁的成功程度。

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.