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A navy
officer described the floating spectacle as the "weirdest thing"
he
had seen at sea
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A vast
"raft" of volcanic rock covering 10,000 sq miles (26,000 sq km) of
ocean has been spotted by a New Zealand military aircraft.
A naval
ship was forced to change course in order to avoid the cluster of buoyant
rocks, located 1,000 miles off the New Zealand coast.
The unusual
phenomenon was probably the result of pumice being released from an underwater
volcano, experts said.
One navy
officer described it as the "weirdest thing" he had seen at sea.
Lieutenant
Tim Oscar told the AFP news agency: "As far ahead as I could observe was a
raft of pumice moving up and down with the swell.
"The
[top of the] rock looked to be sitting two feet above the surface of the waves
and lit up a brilliant white colour. It looked exactly like the edge of an ice
shelf," the officer said.
Researchers
aboard the ship, HMNZS Canterbury, suggest that the source of the pumice was an
underwater volcano (seamount) known as Monowai, located to the north of New
Zealand.
The pumice
is likely to have been formed when lava from the seamount came into contact
with seawater, and as it is less dense that water it quickly rises to the
surface of the ocean.
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