The "raft" was caught by NASA Earth Observatory days after a submerged spring of gushing lava 130 feet down may have ejected close to the island of Tonga. The subsequent raft of pumice shake is the size of Manhattan and is gliding toward Australia, NASA said.
Days after the discovery, an Australian couple cruising to Vanatu on a sailboat experienced the raft.
The sheer volume of the mass, made up of "pumice stones from marble to ball size," obstructed their ship.
The "lava masses" made by the emission remain superficially on the grounds that "such pumice rocks are loaded with openings and pits, and they effectively drift," NASA said.
"These lumps of pumice make phenomenal, floating homes for ocean living organisms, helping them spread.
When the raft floats into Australian waters, Queensland University of Technology geologist Scott Bryan tells the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that it will be canvassed in a variety of ocean life forms. Its landing "will bring new sound corals and other reef inhabitants to the Great Barrier Reef.
That, essentially, will help reestablish the Great Barrier Reef – which is the world's biggest coral reef and earth's greatest structure made by living organisms.
Image Credit: NASA