Mystery island in the Southern Pacific brimming with life

An island which sprung up more than three years ago in the Southern Pacific Ocean is covered in vegetation and bird life.

The island, located in the ocean surrounding Tonga, is also covered in a strange sticky mud according to NASA scientists.

Dan Slayback, from Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center, visited the remote island along with scientists and students from the Woods Hole's Sea Education Association (SEA) Semester's South Pacific cruise, to discover more about how islands form.

The team, which previously studied the island via satellite, visited the land mass in person last October with the findings outlined in a new blog post.

The island, which was caused by a volcanic eruption, is one of only three that have erupted in the last 150 years and "survived the ocean's eroding waves longer than a few months," the post reads.

Speaking of the black gravel on the island, Mr Slayback writes the sand is like pea sized gravel and can be painful as it gets underfoot.

"It's pretty flat, but there's still some gradients and the gravels have formed some cool patterns from the wave action. And then there’s clay washing out of the cone. In the satellite images, you see this light-colored material," he writes.

"It's mud, this light-colored clay mud. It's very sticky. So even though we’d seen it we didn't really know what it was, and I'm still a little baffled of where it's coming from. Because it’s not ash."

Researchers were also trying to determine the elevation of the island as well as collecting small samples and minerals.

Scientists are now working out how long the island will survive with erosion already taking place.