eklemetti | October 16, 2009
A 1995 photo of Gaua volcano in Vanuatu.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that there were signs that Mt. Garet, part of the larger Gaua volcano in Vanuatu was potentially showing signs of a eruption - the first since 1982. It turns out that the rumbling and sulfur odors reported by local residents were correct and it appears that Gaua did indeed erupt. The latest report from the Geo-Hazard section of the Department of Geology, Mines and Water Resources in Vanuatu:
After the assessment of the Geohazards team on Gaua
volcano from 3-7 October 2009, it is confirmed that Mont Garet volcano is
going…
eklemetti | October 15, 2009Before we get to the latest SI/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report (WVAR), I wanted to draw your attention to some nifty NASA Earth Observatory images from the current activity at Soufriere Hills in Montserrat. After a few puffs last week, the volcano is now releasing a relatively constant stream of ash and steam, this after ~10 months of quiescence. The two images, one on October 12 and one on the 13th, suggest there is a lot of a variability, day to day, in the plume. See the latest WVAR for more info on Soufriere Hills.
On to the Report!
Highlights this week (not including Soufriere Hills…
eklemetti | October 14, 2009Happy Earth Science Week!
Mt. Baker in Washington, USA.
The Mount Baker Volcano Research Center (MBVCC) run out of Western Washington University has posted a series of new pictures and movies of the summit region of Mt. Baker (taken from 2006 to 2009). They also sent out links to some great images of the recently-exposed edge of the old crater rim on Mt. Baker. The crater had been buried by the ice/snow cap on the volcano until this year, but John Scurlock was able to capture a photo of the rim of the crater from an airplane this summer. The grey layer is ash/tephra likely from activity at…
eklemetti | October 13, 2009It took a few more guesses than some, but Boris Behncke correctly identified MVP#9 as San Miguel in El Salvador.
The current MVP standings:
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
gijs - 1
Anne - 1
Cam - 1
gg - 1
The Bobs - 1
Boris Behncke - 1
Still no repeat winners, making for a crowded platform at the top.
San Miguel in El Salvador, photographed from the ISS.
As for our MVP, San Miguel is one of the most active volcanoes in El Salvador. It has had half a dozen eruptions over the last 25 years, most recent producing a small (VEI 1) explosive eruption in 2002. Most eruptions fall into the…
eklemetti | October 12, 2009Busy Monday with Dr. Steven Squyres, the Principle Investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER; otherwise known as the plucky Spirit and Opportunity) is at Denison to give a talk and meet with students.
On that note, here is Mystery Volcano Photo #9.
And if you have any more questions for me to consider to ask Dr. Jonathan Castro, email them to me soon at
Good luck!
eklemetti | October 9, 2009Somehow I missed a week of the SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Reports and almost missed another. Here is this week's update!
Highlights (not including Chaiten, Soufriere Hills or Cleveland) include:
The alert level at Galeras in Colombia was raised to Red after an explosion on September 30 and returned to orange ... and then yellow ... after activity tapered.
Sakurajima in Japan produced 1.8-4.3 km / 6,000-14,000-tall ash-and-steam plumes, along with incandescent tephra that was thrown almost two kilometers from the vent.
Multiple steam-and-ash plumes reached 4.3 km / 14,000 feet at Langila…
eklemetti | October 8, 2009I mentioned this at the end of the post on recent Nature paper by Castro and Dindwell on the speed of rhyolite magma ascent at Chaiten, but I'll break it out to get your attention:
>Do you have a burning question about the Chaiten magma you'd love to be able to ask Dr. Castro? He has kindly offered to answer some questions about Chaiten and his research for Eruptions readers. Send me your questions at
and I'll choose some of them for Dr. Castro to answer. I'll post the interview and the answers to your questions here on the blog.
So do it! Send me your questions for Dr. Castro!
eklemetti | October 8, 2009Chaiten has made it back into the news in the past couple days, both with new events at the caldera and with findings from the initial blast in May 2008. Here goes:
Chaiten erupting in 2008.
Third Dome Spotted
The latest USGS/SI Weekly Volcanic Activity Report mentions that over the last week, Chaiten experienced what was likely a significant dome collapse of one of the two domes growing in the caldera. People living close enough to the volcano to see the ash plume noticed it became larger and darker on September 29th. Afterwards, visual observations of the caldera by air confirmed that a…
eklemetti | October 7, 2009Sometimes it is hard to keep up with the mountain of remote sensing (or not so remote) images that get released on the internet. Over the last few days, the NASA Earth Observatory has released a bunch of images/videos of current eruptions, so I thought I'd round them all up here for you to peruse.
Soufriere Hills releasing puffs of ash-and-steam on October 6, 2009. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory.
Four new images in the recent past:
A nice, clear picture of an ash-and-steam plume from Rabaul in PNG was captured by the Terra satellite's MODIS imager on September 30, 2009. The…
eklemetti | October 6, 2009So, the field still stands unblemished, having identified all 8 MVPs, usually within less than 7 tries. Nice job!
Current MVP Standings:
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
gijs - 1
Anne - 1
Cam - 1
gg - 1
The Bobs - 1
MVP #7 was Arenal in Costa Rica. It was initially going to be Rincon de la Vieja, but somehow I mixed up the pictures. I think a lot of you know a lot more about Arenal than I do, but it is one of the most active - and easily visited - volcanoes in the Western Hemisphere.
Eyjafjöll volcanoHekla from the northwest in Iceland, not your MVP #8.
MVP #8 was Eyjafjöll (or…
eklemetti | October 5, 2009Two volcanoes that have been rumbling and rocking for a while now made some noise today:
Kliuchevskoi Volcano in Russia.
Soufriere Hills on Montserrat had a relatively impressive explosive event, producing a ~3 km / ~11,000 foot ash plume - its first eruption in 10 months. This was after a sharp increase in seismicity at the West Indies volcanoes since Sunday. This is a bit of a surprise as the eruptive period at Soufriere Hills was seen to be coming to an end - however, this eruption isn't really anything out of the ordinary according to James White Jr., the acting director of the…
eklemetti | October 5, 2009The last MVP was decidely (and unintentionally) way too easy ... but congratulations to gg for getting it on the first guess. To make up for that "gimme", here is a bit more of a puzzler.
MVP Standings
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
gijs - 1
Anne - 1
Cam - 1
gg - 1
eklemetti | October 5, 2009Today's a busy Monday with not much volcano news, so here's a new Mystery Volcano Photo.
MVP Standings:
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
Cam - 1
Gijs - 1
Anne - 1
Good luck!
eklemetti | October 4, 2009And not because the Indians' season is finally (mercifully) over (zing!)
Cleveland steaming away in a 2008 AVO image.
Cleveland (the volcano) erupted on Friday, producing an ash column that reached 4.5-6 km / 15,000-20,000 feet. The full report from AVO:
Satellite data indicate that Cleveland volcano erupted briefly this morning at ~0730 UTC (2330 AKDT) 02 October 2009, producing a small, detached ash cloud that drifted northeast of the volcano at maximum altitudes of 15,000' to 20,000' (4.5 - 6.1 km) .
AVO has no real data seismic data right now for Cleveland, so only satellite imagery…
eklemetti | October 2, 2009News to finish up your week:
Summit area of Hualalai in Hawai'i
Another day, another "threat" of volcanic eruption in Australia. I'm impressed with the abject fear Aussies seem to have for this perceived increased threat of an eruption - or at least what the press wants you to believe. This time, watch out near Bundaberg, Townsville and Cooktown in southeast Queensland!
In more press-related exaggeration, the Siberian Traps - a flood basalt eruption from, well, thousands of rift/vents in Siberia - is boiled down to being one Siberian volcano by the Telegraph. Dr. Mark Sephton of the…
eklemetti | October 2, 2009
Gaua volcano in Vanuatu.
Gaua volcano in Vanuatu is showing signs that it could be headed towards an eruption. News reports from the island nation in the south Pacific Ocean mention "increased seismic activity, generating sulphurous gas and ash into the atmosphere and affecting water supplies." However, officials in Vanuatu have only raised Gaua's alert status to 1 on a scale of 5 and stories of previous evacuations suggest that people might not take the volcano that seriously if it does continue to rumble:
My father and one of my brothers was on Gaua when there was evacuation in 1973. They…
eklemetti | October 1, 2009The current Mystery Volcano Photo standings:
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
Cam - 1
Anne - 1
It is a tight race!
Here's MVP #6 ... give it your best shot.
eklemetti | October 1, 2009I've never been very good about asking for donations for anything, mostly because I know that for many of us, money can be tight. However, when it comes down to it, there are almost always people less fortunate than those of us who can spend our time blogging - or reading blogs - on the interweb. October is Donors Choose Month here on ScienceBlogs and us geobloggers - Kim at All My Faults are Stress-Related and Anne at Highly Allochthonous have joined forces to get donations for geo-related charities/projects - for example, helping an inner-city class in Chicago get a set of rocks for the…
eklemetti | September 30, 2009The big geology news right now is the M8 earthquake in American Samoa that generated a killer tsunami (which made it all the way to the Bay Area in California).
Mammoth Mountain in California's Long Valley region.
In more benign, volcano-related news:
The aviation alert level at Redoubt in the Alaska has been returned to Green/Normal, which means that for all intents-and-purposes, the eruption that started earlier this year is over. The new dome totals ~91 million cubic yards of lava, slowly adding back to the north side of the volcano.
Eruptions reader Doug C. pointed out to me that there…
eklemetti | September 29, 2009As fall descends on the northern hemisphere, spring starts in the southern. Luckily for us, it means that we get better views of the southern Andes in Chile ... which means the NASA EO could train one of the many "eyes in the sky" (specifically the EO-1) on Chaiten. The volcano is still erupting, going on 16 months, since it caught everyone off guard in May of 2008. As you can tell from the image (linked and below), Chaiten is slowly filling in the pre-2008 caldera with new rhyolite dome growth - you can see that the pre-2008 dome within the caldera (see the picture taken from the ISS in 2003…