Update 5/3/08: SERNAGEOMIN (the Chilean Geologic Survey) is now concerned that the eruption of Chaiten may be a the precursor of a larger eruption, mostly owing to the long (~9,000 year?) repose time. This could be the beginnings of a southern Andean Pinatubo.
The towns around Chaiten are more or less deserted now as the volcano continues to spew ash and pumice - upwards of 15 cm of ash in some places.
Edit: fixed link (thanks Mark)
Edit 2: fixed date of last eruption from ~7,000 years ago to ~9,000 years ago.
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The Chaiten Volcano in Chile is erupting, first time in at least 2000 years, more likely the last eruption was about 10,000 years ago.
The eruption is intensifying and local towns are being evacuated
EOS image
(click for hi-res).
GDACS has issued a Green Alert
International Volcano Research…
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Bárðarbunga - under the ice cap at the top left - from Google maps
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There has been a lot of cool stuff posted while I was getting this blog set up. From my Google Reader shared items:
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just to let you know your link to ''may be a precursor of a larger eruption'' is broken. this is the correct fixed link.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/1924961/Th…
mark.
Fantastic points. Going to require some time to think about your story!
Exactly what I was looking for. I'm using this in my next blog post, you'll get a backlink of course.