Abstract
PROF. OMORI has recently made two additions to his valuable series of memoirs on the eruption of the Sakura-jima (South Japan) on January 12, 1914. The fourth memoir deals with the continued changes of elevation in the neighbourhood of the volcano, and the fifth with the numerous earthquakes which preceded and followed the eruption (Bull. Imp. Earthq. Inves. Com., vol. viii., 1920, pp. 323–51 and 353–466). Until 1914 the Sakura-jima was an island in the Bay of Kagoshima, the inner bay to the north of it being a basin 12½ miles long from east to west and 7½ miles wide. A comparison of two series of levels made a few years before the eruption and in April and May, 1915, revealed a depression of not less than 20 in. in the northern part of the bay, and of from1 1 ft. to 5½ ft. round the coast of the former island, the centre of which was elevated in two places by as much as 30 ft. and 41 ft. In the winter of 1918–19 a new series of levels was made along the west and north coasts of the bay, from which it is seen that the depression of the inner bay gave place to an elevation, the mean rise from February, 1915, to December, 1918, being about 4 in. In 1917 a series of soundings was also made in the bay, and these show that there are three depressions (of maximum depth 85, 113, and 79 fathoms), the first being separated from the others by a submarine ridge running north from the volcano, and apparently due to the eruptions of A.D. 764, 146–76, and 1779. Comparing the new soundings with those made in 1906, there are seen to be three areas of fresh depression (from 3 to 4 fathoms) coinciding with the three depressions, and two areas of new elevation, the more important one (of 3 fathoms) being near the submarine ridge. Prof. Omori estimates that the total resultant depression of the district amounts to about one-quarter of a cubic mile, and the volume of lava and ashes ejected to slightly more than one-half of a cubic mile, and he suggests that this difference may account for the defect of gravity sometimes observed in the neighbourhood of a volcano.
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D., C. The Sakura-jima Eruption of 1914. Nature 106, 165–166 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106165b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106165b0