eklemetti
Posts by this author
June 8, 2008
I mention this little human interest piece mostly because I am especially found of Mt. Tarawera (note: this link goes to the GVP page for Okataina, the volcanic cluster of which Tarawera is a member)Â in New Zealand. This Tuesday (June 10) is the 122nd anniversary of its most recent eruption, the…
June 6, 2008
I had been looking for some pictures of the recent eruption of Cerro Azul in the Galapagos, and finally I found some posted on the BBC. There are some rather stunning pictures of the rift eruption (#3), the lava flows heading downslope (over older lava flows, #4) and even a little lava spatter (#1…
June 6, 2008
Reuters has a short video showing some of the damage inflicted on Chaiten by the volcano of the same name. Looks like the ash, lahars and flooding have wiped out at least a third of the town (according to the voice-over) ... and in a sense, Chaiten (the town) lucked out as the destruction could…
June 6, 2008
A few reports this morning that Mt. Soputan, on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, is currently erupting. The reports indicate that there has been a lot of seismic activity and some ash emitted from the volcano. As with many volcanoes in the densely populated nation of Indonesia, there are…
June 4, 2008
If you needed any evidence that Chaiten is still erupting quite vigorously, just check out the MODIS image taken on 5/31 (above). The eruptive column is still delivering ash across southern Chile, over the Andes and into Argentina. This eruption just keeps on impressing me with its duration and…
June 3, 2008
The latest reports from Cerro Azul in the Galapagos indicate that the current eruption that started last week is over. The volcano erupted from Thursday to Sunday and produced lava flows that travelled 10 km from the vent, but little damage was reported. It is hard to tell from the report if this…
June 3, 2008
I've been trying to find information to post this week, but not much out their in the press this week.
I did like this article on the close relationship between Salvadoran coffee growers and Santa Ana/Ilamatepec Volcano. After being pressed into an emergency lecture yesterday here about the…
May 30, 2008
I always find it interesting how and why news of a volcanic eruption makes it into the press. Sometimes it is just to report the eruption itself, however, a lot of the time it is more to report the "human interest" side of the story, or in this case, the wildlife side of the story. Cerro Azul, one…
May 30, 2008
We've been hearing a lot of conflicting reports about the state and future of the Chaiten eruption. Now ending its fourth week of eruption, Chaiten was said to be easing up a bit, but recent reports have Luis Lara from the SERNAGEOMIN still worried about a potential collapse, followed by a…
May 29, 2008
I only post this because this is the sort of meaningless, unintelligible science journalism that drives me nuts. It doesn't really elucidate anything to the general public and it offers no details for the experts. I don't even know exactly what the findings were, because based on the article, this…
May 29, 2008
This isn't really new activity, but a report on the ongoing activity at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat in the West Indies. Soufriere Hills is a composite volcano that has been erupting for almost 11 years now, producing pyroclastic flows and ash fall that have wiped out entire towns on the island…
May 29, 2008
The Oregonian reports on the on-going desire to develop geothermal power in the Oregon and California Cascades and backarc. There have been attempted (or at least exploration) to develop geothermal power at Newberry Volcano, Crater Lake and Medicine Lake, but none have ever panned out. Well, it…
May 28, 2008
Some news from the Chaiten eruption. Apparently, LanChile has cancelled some flights around the region of southern Chile due to the ash. They likely implies that the eruption column is bigger than reported by the SERNAGEOMIN on Monday, but the report has little in the way of details. Sounds like…
May 27, 2008
If you're interested in the latest eruption at Mt. Etna (Italy), here are some great images posted at Stromboli Online. Nothing like some good spatter amongst friends.
May 27, 2008
Although the mainstream media seems to have lost interest in the Chaiten eruption beyond the "human interest" (or should I say "salmon interest") aspect of the eruption, there is still a lot going on at the volcano. The SERNAGEOMIN recently released this excellent photo of the erupting caldera:…
May 27, 2008
Looks like a lot of you have found my (fairly new) Eruptions blog via the kind post over on another excellent volcano blog, the aptly titled Volcanism Blog. That blog is run by Dr. Ralph Harrington, a historian, and I have to admit, does a much more thorough job with some of the foreign language…
May 26, 2008
I'm always amazed by the number of volcanic eruptions captured by satellites that we might not have ever even had known occurred otherwise. Case in point is Rabaul on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea. An Aqua satellite captured this shot of Rabaul erupting on May 20th, leaving a…
May 26, 2008
Tungurahua, one of the most active (and harder to pronounce) volcanoes in the Andes, has been experiencing explosions over the last few days. Not much in the report beyond the 125 explosions, increased seismicity and ashfall around the volcano. This is fairly typical behavior of Tungurahua:…
May 26, 2008
People living around Semeru Volcano, Indonesia, have been put on alert for a potential eruption. Indonesia's Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation has put the volcano on level 3 (of 4) alert and said "not to conduct activity at a radius of 4 kilometres from the crater, especially…
May 26, 2008
I think we know who wins this battle. At Ruapehu (New Zealand), it isn't really the lava that is the problem, but the lahars produced by mixing snow, crater lake water and volcanic debris. However, that is not stopping people from wanting to ski on the volcano. Never ceases to amaze me how people…
May 26, 2008
Everyone loves a "supervolcano"*. According to a recent report, Los Angeles will be erupting from underneath Yellowstone Caldera (Wyoming). OK, not really, but apparently there has been 7 cm of uplift underneath the footprint of the Yellowstone Caldera since 2004, which is a pretty good amount of…
May 26, 2008
I've made it back from my trip to Washington DC. The Smithsonian Institution is quite a fun place to visit, especially if rocks are your ilk. Be sure to check out the wonderful mineral collection at the Natural History Museum. I only wish the Global Volcanism Program would have a more interactive…
May 19, 2008
It has been rather quiet on the volcano news front over the weekend. A couple tidbits:
- There are some new data showing the sulfur dioxide flux from Mt. Etna (Italy). The image above is an eruption of Etna from 2001 (and it makes a great wallpaper).
- I've heard very little about Chaiten lately,…
May 17, 2008
Happy 28th anniversary of the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens eruption. The volcano had a catastrophic collapse of one side of the edifice that triggered the climatic eruption. Enjoy this clip from the CBS News from 3 days after the eruption.
Â
May 16, 2008
The latest eruption at Kilauea has increased the amount of vog on the big island of Hawai'i. Vog is more or less the same as the anthropogenic "smog" produced by car/industrial exhaust, but produced by volcanic gases (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide amongst others…
May 15, 2008
At first it seemed like the new eruptions at Mt. Etna (Italy) were petering out rather quickly. Instead, now it seems that there are fears that a new rift might be opening on Etna, which might mean more vents for lava to erupt. Apparently there has also been some seismic activity to go along with…
May 15, 2008
To keep us up to date on the goings-on at Chaiten in southern Chile, well, the volcano is still erupting! Yes, two weeks in and heavy ash is still being erupted from vent. The latest reports are vague, but Chilean officials are saying things like "There's been additional volcanic activity that we…
May 15, 2008
If Chaiten, Llaima and Puyehue weren't enough, the Chilean Regional Emergency Office is placing seismometers on Peteroa volcano after its shown signs of increasing activity. The volcano is located out on the border with Chile and Argentina and has a number of glaciers that start from the edifice.…
May 14, 2008
A bit busy today, so to borrow from the newest USGS/SI Volcanism Report:
On 12 May, the plume rose to an altitude of 8 km (26,200 ft) a.s.l.
During an overflight conducted by SERNAGEOMIN, four more plumes of a
similar altitude were generated by explosions and drifted NE. Several
hectares of burned…
May 13, 2008
I just read a report that the ash column at Chaiten is beginning to collapse. The SERNAGEOMIN says that the ash column is only 4.5 km tall now, as opposed to the 20 km it had reached earlier. Still, there are not reports of pyroclastic flows, but that could be a matter of hours or days at this…