Mount Showa Shinzan and the Mimatsu Diagram
One interesting aspect of volcanoes worldwide is that they continue to appear suddenly, grow, and change. But until the 1940s no one had kept an accurate record of the daily growth of a volcano. Then, in 1943 a major earthquake signaled that Mount Usu was again restless. The following year the land on one side of the mountain began to deform, producing what would become a new lava dome, a section that later became Mount Showa Shinzan. Over a period of almost two years a local postmaster, Mimatsu Masao (1888–1977), began making minute, accurate drawings to show the growth of this new mountain. When his work was published internationally a few years later, the “Mimatsu diagram” became a new reference point for tracking volcanic growth.