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The biggest underwater volcanic eruption Japan has seen since the end of WWII has left shores covered in pumice stone. In one video, stones are seen covering the waves, while images show fishing ports inundated with volcanic rock. The volcano, Fukutoku-Okanoba, is situated on the Ogasawara island chain, about 800 miles from Tokyo. It sits about 25 meters below the surface of the sea.... ...Huge quantities of pumice stone ejected from the volcano have now started washing up along coastlines in the Okinawa Prefecture....

The first jolt, which struck off the coasts of Japan’s remote Bonin Islands, was recorded at magnitude 7.9 and up to 680 kilometers (423 miles) underground, making it one of the deepest quakes of its size. Then another oddity emerged in the cascade of aftershocks that followed: a tiny temblor that, if confirmed, would be the deepest earthquake ever detected. The ultradeep quake, described recently in the journal Geology, is estimated to have struck some 751 kilometers (467 miles) beneath the surface in the layer of our planet known as the lower mantle, where scientists have long thought earthquakes unlikely,...

The Japan Meteorological Agency raised the warning level for Mount Aso to three on a scale of five, warning hikers and residents to avoid the mountain. The smoke rose as high as 3.5 kilometers (11,480 feet) above the crater, with pyroclastic flow pouring out 1.3 kilometers (0.8 mile) down the western slope of the mountain, the agency said. The explosion blew off volcanic rocks as far as 900 meters (2,950 feet) from the crater and ashfalls were detected in several towns in the Kumamoto and neighboring Miyazaki prefectures.

TOKYO (AP) — A volcano in southern Japan erupted Wednesday with a massive column of gray smoke billowing into the sky. The Japan Meteorological Agency raised the warning level for Mount Aso to three on a scale of five, warning hikers and residents to avoid the mountain....