Llaima (Chile) erupts (Updated)

Llaima 2008

Update 7/2/08: Sounds like the lava flows from Llaima are increasing ... or that there are more of them. The lava flows, as mentioned below, pose a threat to melt the ice on the volcano and produce lahars, or at least flooding.

Lots of news this morning about a new eruption at Llaima in Chile. The composite volcano is in south central Chile (the lakes region) about 430 miles south of Santiago. This is at least the third time this year that Llaima has erupted, and this time a lava flow is heading down the volcano towards the Rio Calbuco as far as 800 m downslope. The fear is the lava flow could begin to melt snow to create lahars - mixes of water and volcanic material to create a volcanic mudlfow - and evacuations of the elderly have been made around the volcano. However, Llaima is relatively remote and so far this eruption poses no threat to populated areas.

Llaima is one of the noisier volcanoes in South America, erupting frequently in historic times. It has been known to erupt both explosively and effusively, mostly in the VEI 1-2 range, mostly as basaltic andesite to andesite in composition. The last "large" eruption was in 1994, an event that involved both summit and flank vent eruptions of lava and ash, however, there have been at least 10 smaller eruptions since then.

More like this

Bárðarbunga is arguably the scariest of the 30 or so active volcanoes in Iceland. Extreme volcanoes don't always have extreme eruptions, but they are scary because they have the capability for extreme events, uniquely so. Bárðarbunga - under the ice cap at the top left - from Google maps It is…
When I was designing my summer session class, I ran into a problem. If I really wanted my students to achieve the course goals, they would need to spend a lot of time on a computer. In a 3-times-a-week lecture course, I might expect them to do that work outside of class, but we were going to be…
Calbuco is a volcano in southern Chile. This one erupts fairly frequently averaging about every 20 years, sometimes quite impresively. The largest eruption during historic times in Chile occurred at Calbuco in 1894. It is erupting now. Evacuations have been ordered. Here is some amazing…
Pumice is rock that is ejected from a volcano, and has so much gas trapped in it that it can float. So when a pumice-ejecting volcano (not all volcanoes produce pumice) goes off near a body of water, you can get a raft of rock floating around for quite some time. By and by, water replaces the gas…