Filipina geologist Jenny Anne Barretto
Jenny Anne Barretto/fb
Following a series of earthquakes in the Philippines, an AI-generated image of the Apolaki Caldera, considered to be “the world’s largest known caldera,” went quickly viral as reported by the news outlet republicasia.
When large volumes of magma erupt violently, a volcano may collapses downward into the now empty magma chamber, forming a circular depression called caldera after the Spanish word for cauldron.
In 2019, a team of marine geophysicists published a study describing a large underwater mountain massif found east of the island of Luzon. Based on sonar surveys of the seafloor, the researchers suggests that the submarine mountains represents the remains of a volcanic caldera with a diameter of 150 kilometers (93 miles), twice the size of the famous Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming.
But the AI-generated image significantly exaggerates of the caldera
A 150-kilometer-wide depression discovered during a survey in the Philippine Sea may be the world’s largest volcanic caldera.
Google Earth/Barretto et al. 2019
In response to the AI image, geologist Jenny Anne Barretto, one of the authors of the 2019 study, shared a social media post, correcting claims that the recent seismic activity in the Philippines is somehow linked to the caldera and dismissing claims that the Apolaki volcano could erupt in the coming years.
Recovered rock samples show that the caldera formed between 47.9 to 26 million years ago, whit no signs of recent volcanic activity.
