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 Advisories from the coast guard and the Japan Meteorological
Agency said the islet is about 200 meters (660 feet) in diameter. It
is just off the coast of Nishinoshima, a small, uninhabited island
in the Ogasawara chain, which is also known as the Bonin Islands.
The approximately 30 islands are 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south
of Tokyo, and along with the rest of Japan are part of the
seismically active Pacific "Ring of Fire."
The coast guard issued an advisory Wednesday warning of heavy black
smoke from the eruption. Television footage seen Thursday showed
heavy smoke, ash and rocks exploding from the crater, as steam
billowed into the sky.
A volcanologist with the coast guard, Hiroshi Ito, told the FNN news
network that it was possible the new island might be eroded away.
"But it also could remain permanently," he said.
The last time the volcanos in the area are known to have erupted was
in the mid-1970s. Much of the volcanic activity occurs under the
sea, which extends thousands of meters deep along the
Izu-Ogasawara-Marianas Trench.
Japan's chief government spokesman welcomed the news of yet another
bit, however tiny, of new territory.
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"This has happened before and in some cases the islands
disappeared," Yoshihide Suga said when asked if the government was
planning on naming the new island.
"If it becomes a full-fledged island, we would be happy to have more
territory."
The Japanese archipelago has thousands of islands. In some cases,
they help anchor claims to wide expanses of ocean overlying
potentially lucrative energy and mineral resources.
Japan has plans to build port facilities and transplant fast-growing
coral fragments onto Okinotorishima, two rocky outcroppings even
further south of Tokyo, to boost its claim in a territorial dispute
with China.
[Associated
Press; ELAINE KURTENBACH]
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