eklemetti | February 27, 2010
Screen capture of the MSNBC website on February 27, 2010 at ~5:30 PM eastern time.
Most of you have probably already heard about the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck today off the coast of Chile. This becomes one of the most powerful earthquakes on record and so far, the death toll has been relatively low - in the hundreds - especially compared to the horrific disaster of the Haiti earthquake from earlier this year. My thoughts go out to all in Chile recovering from the earthquake.
However, I am a little appalled at some of the coverage I've seen for this earthquake. MSNBC has become the…
eklemetti | February 26, 2010Catching up with some news:
Anatahan erupting in the northern Mariana Islands in 2003.
I ran across this article right before I got sick, but its been popping up around the interwebs (and is pretty interesting). It details a study in Molecular Ecology that suggests that populations of caribou in Canada's Yukon Territory were strongly effected by the White River Tephra. The White River Tephra is supposedly the largest Holocene plinian tephra (from a ash cloud fallout), with two components dating from ~1900 years ago and ~1250 years ago. The vent for the WRT is likely from a vent beneath the…
eklemetti | February 25, 2010The flu has retreated and I'm getting back on track. Huzzah!
I'll get back to the blog by posting this week's new USGS / Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcano Report. Looks like some interesting stuff in it ...
Looks like there were some small eruptions from Oldoinyo Lengai in Tanzania. The volcano is one of the few (only active?) carbonatite volcanoes in the world, erupting a lava composed primarily of calcium carbonate and sodium minerals with very little silica. It leads to the odd lava that erupt black (and cool ~ 500C) and cool to white, making it one of the…
eklemetti | February 23, 2010Posts might be a little sparse for the next few days - I'm recovering from a rather nasty bout with a flu-type thing, so I'm fallen behind in pretty much everything. I'll try to get back up to speed here in a few days, but if you run across any fascinating volcano news, feel free to post it here.
eklemetti | February 19, 2010Long week, quick news:
Tiatia in Russia erupting in an undated photo.
The latest USGS/Smithsonian Institution
_blank">Weekly Volcano Activity Report is up. One interesting bit in the report is a thermal anomaly at
_blank">Tiatia in Russia (just north of Japan in the Kuril Islands) - a volcano for which I am unfamiliar. However, it sounds great according to the
_blank">GVP: "Tiatia volcano, one of the most impressive of the Kuril Islands, consists of a beautifully symmetrical cone that rises above the broad rim of an erosionally furrowed, 2.1 x 2.4 km wide caldera. The volcano…
eklemetti | February 18, 2010
The Icelandic coast of Reykjanes where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge comes above sea level.
A number of Eruptions readers have noticed that seismicity along the Reykjanes Ridge that runs to the southwest of Iceland onto the island has increased over the last few days. Sure enough, checking the Icelandic Met Office page on seismicity on the island finds a lot of earthquakes on the southwest peninsula that is the manifestation of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge hitting the hotspot-related Icelandic landmass. The interaction between the Iceland plume and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is complex, with a step in the…
eklemetti | February 17, 2010
The rhyolite domes of Chaiten in Chile in an undated photo. Note how much of the previous Chaiten Caldera has already been filled by the new domes that started after Chaiten erupted in May 2008.
CNN International has a report that the National Emergency Office (ONEMI) in Chile has reinforced the "red alert" status of Chaiten (spanish). The volcano, which has been erupting since May 2008, had recently settled down to slow, but constant, dome growth. However, over the last 3 weeks, seismicity has been increasing at the rhyolite caldera, suggesting that we might be heading towards an upswing of…
eklemetti | February 17, 2010
Sakurajima Volcano in Japan, taken from the ISS on February 17. Image courtesy of Soichi Noguchi.
Eruptions reader Tim Stone sent me a link to the TwitPic feed for Soichi Noguchi, the Japanese astronaut currently on board of the International Space Station. The space traveller got a shot of Sakurajima from space, showing a beautiful plume drifting off - and great detail of the towns and roads near the volcano. Soichi has some other great shots (and comments to go with them), including my old haunt Seattle (with a comment about Ichiro), Mt. Aso - another Japanese volcano, and the Patagonian…
eklemetti | February 16, 2010Not a lot of big news, but a lot of little news:
Soufriere Hills at night during the late January 2010 dome growth episode. Note the hot rock falls from the collapsing dome. Image courtesy of Photovolcanica.
This might not be new, but Dr. Boris Behncke brought the new webcam at the rim of Chaiten in Chile to my attention. You get a birds-eye view of the growing dome from the edge of the caldera - pretty nifty view for a once-in-a-hundred-years sort of event.
The NASA Earth Observatory has posted a close-up of the Soufriere Hills imagethat I posted yesterday, showing the February 11 plume.…
eklemetti | February 15, 2010A couple bits of news:
The ash plume from the February 11, 2010 eruption of Soufriere Hills taken by theAqua MODIS camera. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory.
Flights have been disrupted in the West Indies since last week with the large dome-collapse eruptions of Soufriere Hills on Montserrat. The 10 km / ~35,000 foot ash plume is apparently lingering in the air at commercial flight levels, meaning delays, cancellations or long detours for many flights in the area. Flights in and out of Dominica, Guadelope, Montserrat, Anguilla, St. Kitts and Nevis have all been effected by the…
eklemetti | February 11, 2010Two impressive eruptions going on right now:
Soufriere Hills erupting on February 11, 2010. Image courtesy of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory.
Soufriere Hills just keeps on raising the bar during its new eruptive period. The volcano on Montserrat in the West Indies produced a 15 km / ~45 000 foot ash plume as the summit dome partially collapsed again. It was one of the biggest volcanic events at Soufriere Hills in the last 15 years, with 10-15% of the dome collapsing. One of the regional airlines in the West Indies have had to cancel flights due to the ash that has mainly been heading to…
eklemetti | February 11, 2010The Great Earthquake Swarm at Yellowstone that ushered in 2010 seems to be dying down, at least according to the USGS earthquake reports and analysis of the seismicity by the University of Utah and YVO. The daily updates on the earthquake swarms by Utah has ended. Looking at the earthquake over the last 7 days (see below), you can notice three things quickly: (1) since 2/6, there are much fewer quakes compared to a week and a half ago; (2) any sign the earthquakes were getting shallower seems to have ended; and (3) they seem to be generally smaller (< M1.5). Now, what does that mean? Like…
eklemetti | February 10, 2010Sally Sennert from the Smithsonian Institution sent me an email to say that this week's USGS/Smithsonian Institute Weekly Volcanic Report will be delayed due to the inclement weather in the Washington DC area. She can't connect with the server, so the report can't be updated on the Smithsonian website ... so here it is! Look for it to show up on the Smithsonian site with all the bells and whistles as soon as DC thaws out.
And a big thanks to Sally for sending me the Report to post.
***PLEASE NOTE: Website posting of the SI/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for 3-9 February 2010 will be…
eklemetti | February 10, 2010News for the snowy (well, here) midweek:
Lava flows from Kilauea surround an old structure at Royal Gardens in Hawai`i.
A hearty thanks to all the Eruptions readers who offered advice on where to find a couple of great volcano videos I've been trying to track down. I think I've found copies I can get a hold of at the USGS and discovered that Discover Your Northwest (formerly the NW Interpretative Assoc.) is expecting to get a DVD version of one of the videos this spring.
The folks at the Astronomy Picture of the Day put up this great image of strombolian eruptions and lightning at…
eklemetti | February 8, 2010
A pyroclastic flow from the February 5 vulcanian eruption of Soufriere Hills. Image courtesy of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO).
UPDATE: See some amazing images of the recent eruptive activity over on Stromboli Online. {Hat tip to the Volcanism Blog via Eruptions reader CK.}
One event that didn't eat much coverage over the weekend, at least here in the U.S., was the large eruption and explosions at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat. The volcano has had a resurgent winter since have a quiet summer of 2009. This weekend's eruption produced an ash plume that reached ~6.1 km / 20,000 feet…
eklemetti | February 8, 2010
This is a request more related to my teaching, but I thought I'd ask here. I'm trying to find copies of the UNESCO videos "Understanding Volcanic Hazards" and "Reducing Volcanic Risk". They were made by the Kraffts to help educate people on volcanic hazards, especially in developing countries. I've seen them both and they are great for introductory geology classes. However, the one source I knew of - the NW Interpretive Assoc. - doesn't seem to carry them anymore - and even if they did, the only format I know of is VHS, which is getting woefully obsolete.
So, do any of you know where I might…
eklemetti | February 7, 2010We've been discussing calderas recently on Eruptions (I wonder why) and the Laacher See in Germany came up. I've actually been to the Laacher See on a field trip lead by one of the world's experts on the caldera, Dr. Gerhard Worner. So, I thought I'd post some pictures and talk a little about this feature that up until maybe 5 years ago, I didn't even know existed.
Laacher See, Germany
The Laacher See is a caldera in the Rhine Valley of Germany (see below). It is only ~30 km south of Bonn and ~60 km south of Koln (Cologne), just to the west of the Rhine River. It is part of the East Eiffel…
eklemetti | February 5, 2010
Shiveluch in Kamchatka in an undated photo.
Just a quick note, but I got this email overnight regarding the status of KVERT, the Kamchatka-Kuril Island volcano monitoring body in Russia.
Scientists of KVERT Project return to the full KVERT operations (the
information ensuring of air services for the results of daily analysis
and evaluation of activity of Kamchatka and Northern Kuriles
volcanoes) and will discharge these obligations for 01 February - 30
April 2010.
So, after losing their funding, it has some back until the end of April (based on how I read this). Russian politics as usual?…
eklemetti | February 4, 2010News!
Pakistan is home to the world's tallest mud volcano in the region of Balochistan - and its somewhat near the reports of an "eruption" earlier this week.
Guess what? Since Wednesday evening, seismicity at Yellowstone has dropped precipitously. The last batch of earthquakes on February 3rd were also back to deeper levels - 8-9 km depth - compared to the potential shallowing earlier in the week. I'm sure the caldera will keep us on our toes, but as of now, it seems to have settled down a bit.
Over in Pakistan, there is mounting evidence that the recent "volcanic" eruption reported as, in…
eklemetti | February 4, 2010
A 2010 mud flow from Lok-Batan, a mud volcano in Azerbijian.
So, first there was all the Yellowstone talk. Then the unsubstantiated reports of a volcanic eruption in a decidedly unvolcanic part of Pakistan (what part isn't), then submarine volcanism off Japan. Now, we have a nrews report about an eruption in Azerbijian. Luckily, although the headline implies a magmatic event, the text of the article shows that this is, in fact, a mud volcano. The mud volcano is called Lok-batan (or Lokbata) and has erupted quite a few times over the last 150 years, as recently as 2005. Azerbijian has quite a…