eklemetti | March 18, 2009I probably won't comment too much on these, but if you need a rundown on every volcanic rumbling on the planet in a given week, nothing is better that the weekly reports compiled by the USGS/Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program. You can check them out both through the GVP website and as a convenient RSS feed.
eklemetti | March 18, 2009
The eruption of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano in Tonga looks to be a big one. Keleti Mafi, head of the Tongan geological service, calls this "a very significant eruption, on quite a large scale", which is no surprise considering some of the spectacular picture we saw of the eruption yesterday. In fact, the eruption is big enough that it has disrupted air traffic over Tonga, as Air New Zealand has issued a warning about the ash column - an ash column that has reached over 15,000 meters/50,000 feet! Luckily for the residents of Tongatapu, a mere 10 kilometers 50 km to the southwest SSE…
eklemetti | March 17, 2009
Image from keizo/weblog
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai (how's that for a name?), a shallow seamount in Tonga, appears to have erupted. An air passenger snapped some pictures of an eruption occurring in the ocean between the Tongatapu and Vava'u and pilots in the area report that (unsurprisingly), the feature is new.
Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai - at least the part above water (look in the bottom of the image, the islands are marked in green) - is made of two small islands that cap the main seamount and ring the volcano's caldera. The last known eruption from the volcano was in 1988 - over twenty…
eklemetti | March 17, 2009
Now that Redoubt has decided that Yellow/Advisory is not to its likely and has returned to an Orange/Watch status, I'll continue bringing new updates of the volcano has events unfold.
And nothing much has unfolded since the phreatic explosion that occurred on Sunday. The current state of the volcano, according to AVO, is minor seismic unrest and that is about it. They do offer some more details of the events on Sunday:
An AVO overflight Sunday witnessed activity from 11:30 AM until about 3:00 PM and was able to document ash emission from a new vent, just south of the 1990 lava dome and west…
eklemetti | March 16, 2009I've finished migrating my archives of the ol' Wordpress Eruptions (since May 2008), so if you're looking for more information, try clicking "Archives" at the top of the page and wander through there. I will be updating the archives with category linked for each volcano, but that might take a while to retrofit. Enjoy!
eklemetti | March 16, 2009Oh yes, and if you're into that sort of thing, you can follow Eruptions on the Facebook as well. I hear its on the interweb these days, so thats cool. Just click on the "Networked Blogs" link in the bottom left-hand side of this page (below the world map).
eklemetti | March 16, 2009
Oldonyo L'engai, Tanzania
As with most disasters, the best way to prevent a Katrina-like catastrophe is preparedness. The best successes in volcanic mitigation have been in places where the combination of monitoring, communications and practice fit together like so many legos in a set, allowing for a calm and orderly evacuation when the eruption, or signs of eruption, began (e.g., Rabaul in 1994). This is why it is always heartening to me to see articles about places trying to implement hazard mitigation plans for their volcanoes. Two examples are in the news today:
(1) Officials in…
eklemetti | March 15, 2009
Date: February 07, 2009 Image Creator: Bleick, Heather Image courtesy of AVO/USGS.
So much for my oh-so-eloquent eulogy for early 2009 activity at Redoubt.
AVO reports that it appears that the volcano has potentially erupted - or at least released a lot of steam and (possibly) ash.
Seismic activity at Redoubt has increased since about 13:00 AKDT and is continuing. An AVO observation flight reported that a steam and ash plume rose as high as 15,000 ft above sea level and produced minor ash fall on the upper south flank of Redoubt. Last reports are that the plume is now mainly steam.
Doesn't…
eklemetti | March 14, 2009I missed this the first time, but Click & Clack from NPR's Car Talk answered a question about how to volcano-proof your car.
If you want to hear it, click here. As usual, the guys in Cambridge (our fair city) do an excellent job with the information and the humor.
{Hat tip to Jen Glass at Arizona State}
eklemetti | March 14, 2009
Photo: The north flank of Mount Redoubt in early February 2009. Credit: Chris Waythomas / Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey
I've been following the waxing and waning of activity at Mt. Redoubt in Alaska for the past two months like many of you have. For a time there, the volcano had the nation's attention, both from the threat of a eruption near major shipping and oil hubs and from some questionable comments made by a certain Republican governor. However, nature sometimes doesn't play well with others, so after weeks of the Alaska Volcano Observatory's warnings that the…
eklemetti | March 13, 2009
2009 has been a busy year for Volcan Galeras in Colombia. The volcano has erupted at least twice this year already vigorously enough to prompt evacuations of the area. Galeras does tend to see cycles of eruptive activity, the last one started in 2000 after seven years of quiet. Many times, the eruptions are more visually impressive than hazardous (see the picture above from January 2008 from INGEOMINAS).
Luckily, Galeras is also once of the most watched volcanoes in South America. The INGEOMINAS (Colombian Geological Survey) staffs the Pasto Volcano Observatory (OVSP) to monitor the volcano…
eklemetti | March 12, 2009
Welcome to version 2.0 of Eruptions, the blog on volcanic eruptions and volcano research in general. I've been writing this blog (starting over on Wordpress) over the last year or so, but now it has found a new home here at ScienceBlogs. If you're wondering what to expect if you're new to Eruptions, I'll be bringing news of volcanoes that are erupting worldwide, distilling the scientific jargon, dispelling the misinformation and commenting on what the effects of the eruption(s) might be. I'll also try to bring in any volcanoes in the popular media that gets my attention (alas, it has been…
eklemetti | March 12, 2009Two tidbits from New Zealand:
- A recent survey of volcanoes in the Kermadec Arc north of New Zealand suggest that there is abundant - and recent - undersea volcanism. Scientists from University of Washington (one of my former homes) and Southhampton University (UK) explored a number of submarines volcanoes including Rumble II West, Rumble III and Brothers, which are all located along the same arc of volcanoes as New Zealand's own White Island and Mt. Edgecumbe. What they found was a change in the shape of Rumble III (1.4 km below the sea surface) since the last survey in 2007 - the summit…
eklemetti | March 11, 2009
Photos by Dr. Edward Kohut, all rights reserved, used by permission, 2009
Many times people think that volcanic eruptions affect the economy through the destruction inflicted upon the landscape during an eruption: lahars and pyroclastic flows destroying bridges and homes, ash ruining crops and water, lava flows overunning communities. However, in Hawai'i, a new effect of volcanism has been seen in the agriculture of the state. The volcanic fog - or "vog" as its called - has been causing major problems with farms on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Since the new activity at Halemaumau (see above)…
eklemetti | March 10, 2009I am back from the ion microprobe lab at Stanford after a few days of data collection, so I'll be trying to get back on posting schedule here at Eruptions.
UPDATE 3/10/2009 12:45PM: Here is a little (and I mean a little) more information, mostly adding that the local residents have been given a "warning" about the activity.
However, I did notice this morning at Sakurajima in Japan erupted after rumbling over the weekend. There aren't many details about the eruption beyond the fact that volcanic chunks were thrown a few kilometers from the vent, but the BBC does have some nice video of the…
eklemetti | March 10, 2009
AVO has officially downgraded the status at Redoubt from "Watch" (orange) to "Advisory" (yellow). The seismicity at the volcano has dropped off for the last couple weeks and signs that an eruption was imminent have waned. This, again, shows the difficulty in trying to predict the behavior of a volcano. All the signs were there at Redoubt - increased seismicity, increased heat flow at the summit (seen as melting ice and increased fumarolic output), increased volcanic gases (CO2 and SO2) - but as of right now, it seems like these signs only pointed to magma moving up the system, but not out of…
eklemetti | March 4, 2009
Folks have been suggesting that life on Earth started near volcanic vents for a long time now (and of course, some people don't buy it). Whether or not life sprung forth near hydrothermal vents, undersea black smokers or from the head of Zeus, it doesn't really change the fact that we find organisms living in these places today, expanding what we might consider "habitable" by leaps and bounds. Case and point, researchers from CU-Boulder have recently found a community of micro-organisms happily living near the summit of Volcán Socompa (above) in Chile in the hydrothermal vents. Now, having…
eklemetti | March 3, 2009
Count this as your mini-update for Redoubt, with the news being no news. Even AVO seems a little bored with Redoubt lately (not to say they aren't watching it as vigilantly as ever) as their last three updates have been exactly the same:
Redoubt volcano has not erupted. Seismicity is low, but above background levels and consists mainly of small discrete earthquakes. Night has fallen and no image is visible in the webcam.
However, down the road (arc-wise) in the Aleutians, AVO has raised the alert level at Okmok Caldera. New volcanic tremors were felt yesterday at Okmok, averaging about one…
eklemetti | February 28, 2009As there has been a lot of chatter about the goings-on at Redoubt, I thought I'd post the latest AVO update (3:35 PM):
Redoubt volcano has not erupted. Seismicity is dominated by small discrete earthquakes and tremor remains at the diminished levels of the past two days. Webcam images are now clear and show no change in the volcano.
Nothing doing. In fact, seems quieter than it has been in the last few weeks.
eklemetti | February 26, 2009The Redoubt watch is now been going for well over a month and this is how quickly things can change when monitoring volcanoes. The headline in my volcano RSS, when I saw it said:
"Redoubt quiets after weeks of activity, though eruption still possible"
By the time I clicked on the link, the headline for the KTUU TV article became:
"Redoubt steaming at strongest level, seismic activity calms"
The seismic event refered to happened yesterday afternoon (Alaska time) and the volcano rumbled for about an hour, getting picked up by seismometers all around the Cook Inlet. They also mention that steam…