Lateiki was a tiny island in the archipelagic Kingdom of Tonga, formed in 1995 by an ebullient submarine volcano. Last month, that underwater firestarter decided it was time for some explosive redecorating.

An eruption in the southwest Pacific Ocean was first reported on Oct. 14 by a Tongan ship. The Tonga Geological Service then scanned through satellite imagery and noticed the paroxysm, at Lateiki, began a day earlier. Over the next week or so, various vessels, flights and satellites intermittently saw an ashy plume rising from the island.

By Nov. 1, it was all over; Lateiki was gone, its remnants swallowed by the volcano’s erupting maw. But this loss of Tongan territory was short-lived. As quickly as Lateiki self-destructed, it was reborn as a new island roughly 400 feet to the west. The new Lateiki, 1,310 feet long and 330 feet wide, is nearly four times the size of the old one.

Lateiki is highly practiced in the art of volcanic makeovers. Several of its eruptions reportedly built ephemeral shoal islands in the 18th and 19th centuries, and more definitively in 1967 and 1979. Until 1995, these islands lasted a few months before being chewed up by the waves.