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Weekend Wrapup: Etna & Chaiten

By eklemetti on May 19, 2008.

Etna 2001

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, mostly because I don't think much has changed. The last update provided by the SERNAGEOMIN was on 5.16 (in spanish) and pretty much that is exactly what it says: the volcano continues to erupt. Apparently some USGS folks will be arriving on the scene soon as well. Most of the town of Chaiten has been destroyed (as reported before here) and there is concern for various nature preserves in Patagonia as well.

I will be out of town all week, so updates may be sporadic. I'll be giving a talk at the Smithsonian Institution (along with some other non-volcano-related activities). I'll try to update if something big pops up!

Tags
Andes
Ash fall
basaltic eruption
Chaiten
Chile
Etna
explosive eruption
historic eruption
italy
remote sensing
volcano monitoring

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Have only really just discovered that there are such things as volcanic blogs, excellent! I have just been to Etna (returned to the UK last night) the upper slopes have a covering of snow and the wind is a constant threat to those who wish to venture up to the summit area. as for getting to the top end of the Valle del Bove, well that is just not possible at the moment and one German man has already lost his life this winter trying to do just that so anyone wanting to get to the lava flows in this area need to think about waiting till the spring or early summer. Anyway the activity at the moment is nothing at all special in the scheme of Etna things, bet to wait for the right erupting to come along as it regularly does on this volcano. That said we had a fab time exploring the les dramatic, but for me just as interesting aspects of the volcanic story of Etna; such as the recent follows juxtaposed with the older more vegetated ones, the many parasitic cones including the infamous Monti Rossi that in 1669 fed two flows of lava, one that nearly destroyed Catania. The story about this particular eruption makes great reading (see Alwyn Scarth's book Vulcan's Fury for the account)

If you are interested please visit my recently re-lunched website that has more Etna tails and images among other volcanoes.