  We present a model of vacuum tunneling through a classically forbidden region
where a scalar field changes its value simultaneously over the entire volume of
a (meta)stable ancestor vacuum with spherical curvature. The tunneling leaves
the geometry unchanged but rearranges the energetic contributions of the matter
sources, leading to an inflating solution with residual positive curvature. We
show that there exists a parametric regime where this solution is
self-consistent and dominates the overall tunneling rate. We conclude that an
experimental detection of positive curvature, while not necessarily likely,
therefore does not rule out the possibility that our present observer patch
originated from semiclassical vacuum tunneling in a string or field theoretic
landscape.
