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Physical Processes

Surtseyan Eruption

Tectonics and Volcanism

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A phreatomagmatic eruption style specific to shallow underwater or emergent coastal volcanoes, in which seawater flooding into the vent repeatedly interacts with rising magma to produce violent, cypress-shaped ash and steam plumes. Named for the eruption that built the island of Surtsey off Iceland beginning in 1963, the style is often the first stage by which a submarine volcano breaches the surface to build new land.

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