eklemetti
Posts by this author
December 14, 2008
I don't know if the live-blogging AGU will work out, but we'll see.
However, I did find out today that Chaiten was a compositionally zoned eruption. Good times!
December 11, 2008
When people think about volcanic mitigation, a lot of time is spent worrying about monitoring and science. There is nothing wrong with this as we need to know what the volcano has done in the past and what it is doing now to predict its future activity. However, a very important piece of the…
December 11, 2008
Sometimes I wonder if we know more about the fates of people who died in a volcanic eruption over 1800 years ago than we do about most people who died in any given eruption this year. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with that - we're fascinated by both volcanoes and Roman antiquity…
December 10, 2008
The latest eruption of Sourfriere was captured from space, and NASA has just released the MODIS picture of the volcano in action. The image (above and linked) was taken 2 days after the first explosion of this unanticipated and unexpected eruption - December 4. You definitely get the idea of how…
December 9, 2008
My blogging frequency might be a little scattershot for the next few weeks thanks to the American Geophysical Union Winter Meeting in San Francisco (if you're at the meeting, you can always hear me talk about rhyolite genesis in New Zealand) and then the holidays. I will be experimenting with…
December 9, 2008
The BBC is reporting today on a study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters that attempts to establish a connection between large earthquakes and subsequent volcanic eruptions. The study is focussed on large Chilean earthquakes over the last 200 years (Chile has had some of the biggest…
December 5, 2008
The blasts and pyroclastic flow from earlier this week at Soufriere Hills in Montserrat were not the only show planned for the week, apparently. The volcano continues to erupt, with reports of continued ash and ballistic glowing bombs being erupted. These eruptions are the first major ones at…
December 4, 2008
Although this news isn't as threatening as the title of the article implies:Â HAWAII LAVA FLOW NEARS NATIONAL PARK, it is still some news as it could be the first lava flow to cross into the park in over a lava. The flow itself is headed towards what is called the "Waikupanaha ocean entry" on the…
December 3, 2008
Just to keep everyone on their toes, Soufriere Hills on Montserrat in the West Indies erupted today. The eruption produced a number of explosions and a pyroclastic flow that originated from the west side of the lava dome at the summit of the volcano. However, the most interesting bit comes from…
December 1, 2008
A quick update from Reunion Island on this fairly slow week, volcanically speaking:
"After permanent unrest with daily 30 to 100 seismic events, Piton de
la Fournaise volcano erupted again on Thursday November 27, 2008 at
11h50. The eruption is situated on the west side within the Dolomieu
crater…
November 24, 2008
The lahars and mudslides near Nevado del Huila - or, in particular, the threat of more - have prompted more evacuations. Although the known death toll from the eruption and its associated lahars is still officially only in the low double digits, at least 150 people are still missing, so that may…
November 23, 2008
I've found a few more details about the ongoing activity at Huila in Colombia, including a video report from the BBC. It seems that the eruption at Huila is a photocopy of what happened at Nevado del Ruiz in 1985 in its style: hot ash and gasses erupted from the crater melted ice/snow near the…
November 23, 2008
Â
Klyuchevskoy has already had a busy year and now we have some recent photos showing a lava flow that is snaking down the side of the volcano. The website with the lava flow image has a pile of other great eruption photos of Klyuchevskoy over the last couple of years and well worth the time to…
November 22, 2008
Eruptions and earthquakes go hand-in-hand a lot of the time. It only makes sense as magma needs to move under the crust, causing movement (i.e., earthquakes). Additionally, any sort of explosions caused by the release of volatiles might cause earthquakes or even the collapse of an edifice (which…
November 22, 2008
I have been out of town for the past few days, but we do have some big (and unfortunate) news from Colombia. Nevado del Huila in southwestern Colombia erupted today and the ensuing lahar (or volcaniclastic debris flow - it is hard to tell from the reports) killed at least 4 people, and possibly as…
November 17, 2008
So, I get a steady diet of email messages here at the Eruptions HQ, so I thought I could try a little roundup of the great information/links that you readers are sending (and I apologize for taking so long for some of these). Enjoy!
- Tim Stone tells us about GeoEye pictures of volcanoes. GeoEye…
November 17, 2008
Redoubt Volcano, in Alaska, is one of the more troublesome volcanoes in the state. Not only is it relatively close to population centers, but it also lies directly within the aircraft corridors above the Aleutians for planes headed to Asia and beyond. This means that USGS and AVO geologists have…
November 13, 2008
Just a brief note, but today (November 13) is the 23rd anniversary of the disastrous lahar at Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia. Over 23,000 people died when a lahar, started by a relatively minor eruption of the volcano, swept down the river valleys the side of the edifice and destroyed Armero and…
November 11, 2008
El Reventador, the composite volcano in Ecuador, has been producing explosions and ash for the last few days, so says reports from the country's  Geophysics Institute. El Reventador is only 100 km from Ecuador's capitol, Quito, and in 2002 the volcano blanketed much of the city in ash. However,…
November 11, 2008
I just got back from a 4 day field trip to the Long Valley Caldera in eastern California, so I'm a little behind on posting. The field trip was great and I had a chance to see a lot of pumice, a lot of welded tuff (in the form of the Bishop Tuff, the large ignimbrite that erupted from the Long…
November 6, 2008
One of Kamchatka's most active volcanoes is continuing to erupt. Shiveluch, in the northern part of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, produced a 26,000 foot (~8,000 meter) ash column today (November 6) as the eruptions that started in 2006 persist. The reports suggest little danger to people…
November 6, 2008
Sounds like we're beginning to get a better idea of what is erupting in Ethiopia. Ghezahegn Yirgu, a geologist at Addis Ababa University, reports that Dalla Filla Dalaffilla Volcano is the source of the eruption. Again, the eruption is being characterized as "lava flows" rather than an…
November 5, 2008
In one of the most oddly worded articles I've seen from the BBC, a lava flow from Erta Ale an unidentified volcano in the Erte Ale range in Ethiopia has erupted a significant amount of lava. The headline states "Ethiopia volcano sets lava record", which is strange on multiple counts, but mostly…
October 31, 2008
After nearly a year and a half of little lava dome growth at Soufriere Hills in the West Indies, this past July 26th, the volcano erupted new dome material. Why do I remind us of this, you ask? Well, the Scientific Advisory Committee at Montserrat feel that the dome growth might be restarting in…
October 27, 2008
Sorry about the dearth of posts. It has been a busy week here in Davis and I've been a little distracted by the upcoming election. Combined with the relative lack of volcano news this week, the posting has been lackluster.
However, that being said, I will try to make up for some of it by starting…
October 20, 2008
The headline for this entry sounds more dramatic than it is, but one of the last structures in the ill-fated Royal Gardens subdivision on the big island of Hawai'i finally met its fiery demise over the weekend. For those of you unfamiliar with the plight of the subdivision, Royal Gardens is part…
October 17, 2008
The only volcanic arc in the lower 48 states continues to be pretty darn quiet according to the USGS. The Cascade range that spans from Lassen Peak in the south to Mt. Baker in the north (and maybe Mt. Garibaldi in Canada) has been remarkably quiet in terms of eruptions for the last century. In…
October 16, 2008
Reports from Russia indicate that Klyuchevskoy, Russia's largest volcano, is erupting. It sounds like it might not be just a murmur as Alexei Ozerov from the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences says the volcano is spewing ash, rock…
October 15, 2008
There isn't really much information in this report, but Galeras in Colombia has been put on "high alert" for a potential eruption. The volcano did emit a ~2,400 meter steam (and ash?) column today, but beyond this, it is unclear what else might be happening at the volcano.
Galeras is the most…
October 13, 2008
The eruption of Kasatochi was a bit of a surprise to volcanologists who study the Aleutians, to say the least. The volcano itself has been quiet for likely over 100 years, but with relatively little warning, the volcano erupted over the summer, blasting ash (and a large amount of sulfur dioxide)…