https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/ [login to see] /nuclear-test-monitor-calls-tonga-volcano-blast-biggest-thing-that-weve-ever-seen
Details about the underwater volcano eruption in Tonga, a week ago:
"The explosive volcanic eruption in Tonga on Saturday appears to dwarf the largest nuclear detonations ever conducted, according to a global group that monitors for atomic testing.
The shock wave from the blast was so powerful that it was detected as far away as Antarctica, says Ronan Le Bras, a geophysicist with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna, Austria, which oversees an international network of remote monitoring stations.
In total, 53 detectors around planet Earth heard the low-frequency boom from the explosion as it traveled through the atmosphere. It was the loudest event the network had detected in more than 20 years of operation, according to Le Bras.
"Every single station picked it up," he says. "It's the biggest thing that we've ever seen."
As large as the explosion was, it was not nuclear in any way, Le Bras adds. Radioactive fallout, the telltale sign of a true nuclear explosion, was not detected at any station." [. . .]