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 gorgeous plume heading off into the Pacific. Sure, most likely someone might have noticed the eruption, but its good to see that we can find eruptions going on even when we're not really looking.
Rabaul is a caldera volcano that is most famous for the simultaneous eruptions of Vulcan and Tavurvur in 1994 that prompted the evacuation of the Rabaul (the city), ranking as a VEI 4 eruption. The volcanic system has been continuously erupting since 2006.
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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.
To the updates!
Batu Tara volcano in Indonesia. The volcano is currently producing small ash plumes.
A new Weekly Volcano Report from the Smithsonian GVP/USGS ... enjoy!
Highlights include:
Maybe I should just apologize right here and now for that title, but dang, I liked it.
Anyway, I've seen a lot of plume images cross my browser/inbox over the last day, so I thought I'd post a few of them.
Earthquake today in New Ireland, PNG. Lots of earthquakes in Papua Indonesia recently. What is the current status of Rabaul?