eklemetti | February 25, 2009
The people who remain in Chaiten face the potential for a devasting pyroclastic flow, so says Jorge Muñoz of the SERNAGEOMIN in Chile. The volcano is still producing large ash columns on Tuesday and a flyover of the dome forming inside the caldera has lead to the concern that a collapse on a larger scale than those seen last week could wipe out the town for good.
The government hopes news like this from volcanologists might convince the last remaining residents of Chaiten to leave, but no indication of this has come to pass. In fact, things sound like they're getting heated in the fight…
eklemetti | February 25, 2009
So, there has been a lot of talk about "volcano monitoring" over the last 24 hours, now hasn't there?
Now, I'm not going to revisit this discussion, but as an example of why it might be important, there is an article today about the location of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines (near the potentially active caldera Natib). These are the sorts of issues that need to be dealt with in regards to volcano monitoring - the cascading effect of an eruption. During the 1980 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens, there was a chance that volcaniclastic sediment from the eruption could have dammed…
eklemetti | February 24, 2009Not much new to report with Redoubt except that folks in Alaska are getting, well, a little punchy.
AVO currently reports (7:12 AM):
Volcanic tremor and occasional discrete earthquakes continue at Redoubt. Since 00:00 local time on 2/24, tremor amplitude at nearby stations has gradually increased, and the number of small earthquakes on nearby stations has increased slightly.
Redoubt isn't exactly making us volcanologists look too good lately. That is the nature of the beast, I suppose.
eklemetti | February 23, 2009
I have never had to leave my home in an evacuation from a natural disaster. I'll put that out there right now. So, I might not fully understand the emotions going through people when they find out that they have to leave their home by no fault of their own because nature has decided that where they live is no longer livable. I especially don't know what it might be like if you are then told you can never go back. You might have a home there. You might own a business there. You might have grown up there. Your great grandparents might have lived there over 100 years ago. Yet, you are told -…
eklemetti | February 23, 2009Nothing much to report on the Redoubt front except more of the same. The latest report from AVO says (6:44 AM):
Redoubt Volcano has not erupted. Volcanic tremor and intermittent discrete earthquakes continue. Data for the past few hours (since 00:00 AST on 2/23) has consisted almost entirely of low-level tremor, with few discrete earthquakes.
So, it seems that Redoubt continues on its holding pattern. In other fronts, the Anchorage Daily News is running a good synopsis of the monitoring AVO does on volcanoes in the Aleutian chain in Alaska. More updates as seen fit.
eklemetti | February 22, 2009
Lava issuing from the current eruptions at Kilauea have started a third ocean entry (and the second within the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park). The entry is not as dramatic as some, forming a slow, dripping entry of lava into the ocean (see linked video footage), but every little drip adds a little more land to the big island of Hawai'i.
In some other Hawaiian volcano news, the USGS have also posted a video showing the filling and draining of the lava lake in Halemaumau that started last year. Usually, the crater was surrounded by steam and fumes from the degassing magma, but the thermal…
eklemetti | February 20, 2009
Galeras, in Colombia, appears to have entered a new cycle of activity as it has erupted for the second time in a week. A large explosion occurred this morning that was accompanied by falling ash and rocks (ballistic bombs) from the event. It is unclear how far the volcanic products travelled from the vent, but Colombian officials did raise the alert level back to red and ordered new evacuations.
eklemetti | February 19, 2009Jonathan Castro has reminded me that I need a refresher on the proper terminology for ash columns related to volcanic eruptions. It is very easy to start mincing words and using them inappropriately - and that is the sort of sloppy reporting and discussion I am trying to avoid.
So, to refresh my (and our) memory on ash clouds and how to classify them, we can go back to one of the indispensable textbooks on volcanology, Cas and Wright's Volcanic Successions. The classification scheme they provide is summarized in the figure above. It shows the heights of various eruption columns and the…
eklemetti | February 19, 2009
UPDATE 2/19/2009 9:45 AM: Well, it seems that my hunch was at least partially right. Reuters (and Paula Narvaez, special envoy to the Chilean president) is calling the eruption as result of "what appeared to be a partial collapse of its cone."Â So, we might have seen the oversteepening of the dome growing in the Chaiten caldera that lead to a collapse, producing (likely) a pyroclastic flow and either an accompanying plinian eruption as the pressure was released or an ash column associated with the pyroclastic flow itself. Now, I might not take Reuters word for it, but it makes sense…
eklemetti | February 18, 2009
I found this little press release that doesn't have a huge amount of information, but is interesting nevertheless. The Coordinating Committee for Prediction of Volcanic Eruptions of Japan (nice name) is putting seven volcanoes on "24/7" monitoring. That sounds like we might see a lot of eruptions in Japan soon ... except that their rationale was that these volcanoes "are likely to affect public life by erupting or becoming active in the coming 100 years". That is quite the window of eruptive opportunity! The question is what exactly "24/7" monitoring - does this mean that someone/something…
eklemetti | February 18, 2009Not much to add to the Redoubt Watch this week. The volcano continuing to experience increased seismicity and AVO is watching it closely. Sounds like we'll be doing the same for the time being.
eklemetti | February 15, 2009
UPDATE 2/15/2009 20:30 PM: Marta Calvache of INGEOMINAS says that seismicity has all but stopped at Galeras after the eruption Saturday night, however the area will be kept on alert for more potential activity. However, even with the eruption, apparently there are very few people in the evacuation centers - never a good sign if something really big were to happen at the restless Colombian volcano. Â
Last night, Galeras, near Pasto in Colombia, erupted, prompting an evacuation of nearly 7,000 people living near the volcano. The first CNN article linked above, for some reason, says that…
eklemetti | February 13, 2009We've now had three weeks of waiting for Redoubt, and all we have to show for it is steam, seismicity and lots and lots of press. As of today, Redoubt continues with the same: elevated seismicity, constant monitoring, think it will erupt.
Current status from AVO:
Redoubt Volcano has not erupted. Elevated seismicity is continuing, dominated by ongoing volcanic tremor and occasional small earthquakes. A storm system is moving across the Redoubt area at present, which will make for poor viewing conditions today. Associated winds are causing a small increase in seismic amplitudes on some seismic…
eklemetti | February 11, 2009I get a fairly steady stream of emails from Eruptions readers, some of which are very worth a post, but sometimes it takes me a while to get around to posting. This is my second attempt to catch up on these mailbag emails. Remember, feel free to email me questions or comments whether you want.
Reader Aldo Piombino sent me an email last month after my post on potential Antarctic volcanism asking about some more unknown volcanoes. He brings up Mt. Marsili in the Tyrrhenian Sea (including a post of his own, in Italian), a volcano of which I was not aware. It is a submarine volcano (info on…
eklemetti | February 11, 2009The NASA Earth Observatory website posted this great image of Redoubt taken from Landsat images in 2000.
You can see a few neat things. The main thing I notice is that the Drift River Oil Terminal is in about the worst place you could put an oil terminal near a volcano like Redoubt. All the material from recent eruptions at Redoubt get focused down into the Drift River, which then heads off into the Cook Inlet via the Drift River flood plain (upper right hand side of the image). When this image was taken, the Drift River is still grey with volcanigenic material even 10 years after the last…
eklemetti | February 10, 2009Is the volcano just toying with us?
After yesterday's steam plume (woo.), Redoubt was relatively normal today, albeit still at the heightened state of readiness. However, the steam plume has waned today compared to yesterday.
Now, whether this is actually a signal that the magma is not rising up into the volcano as rapidly as before or this is just the quiet before the storm is anyone's guess. This very well could be like the 2004-08 Saint Helens episode that ended up being fairly benign with only passive eruption (if there is such a thing) of dome material (hat tip to Boris for bringing up…
eklemetti | February 9, 2009Jury duty is done, so here is a little update.
Redoubt is puffing away, producing a more prominent steam plume than it has over the last week (but that may be more weather-related than magma-related.) Beyond that, the volcanic gases keep coming and the earthquakes keep coming.
eklemetti | February 8, 2009Guess what?
Still rumbling, still steaming, but still no eruption.
I'll put money on the idea that Redoubt will erupt tomorrow, when I have jury duty.
eklemetti | February 6, 2009Just to keep us appraised of the situation at ever-steaming-and-shaking Redoubt:
From AVO (2/6/2009 11:05 AM)
Unrest at Redoubt Volcano continues.Â
After the tremor episodes of yesterday, seismic activity has remained slightly elevated relative to the last few days.Â
The volcano has not erupted.
That is about it. A few quick hits about Redoubt (as the world waits) include an article on potential redirected air traffic if the volcano erupts, an update mentioning that if the snow is falling during an eruption, radar won't pick up the ash until its at 15-20,ooo feet , how British Columbia is…
eklemetti | February 6, 2009
For those of you interested in what happens in the realm of submarine volcanism, I can pass on some tidbits I've gotten about NW-Rota 1, a submarine volcano in the Mariana Islands (see bathymetry above). Dr. Ed Kohut (Petrogenex), a friend of mine from my days at Oregon State Univ., is currently on a JAMSTEC research cruise in the Mariana Islands, visiting the area about NW Rota-1. He reports:
"We just reached NW-Rota 1. It is still actively erupting. To put that in perspective, it has been observed erupting every time it has been visited since 2003. Today's actvity is not as vigourous as…