Chaiten

The slow summer for volcanic eruptions continue. Only 11 updates in this week's USGS/SI report. Thanks again to SI's Sally Kuhn Sennert for compiling the news! Highlights this week include (not including Kilauea) include: Tungurahua in Ecuador produced some minor lahars on August 21 to go with steam-and-gas emissions. Popocatépetl in Mexico produced an ash plume that reached ~8.2 km / 27,000 feet on August 20 and continued to produce steam-and-ash plumes throughout the week following. Over on the Kamchatka Peninsula, both Koryaksky and Shiveluch produced significant ash plumes (reaching 3-5…
Chaiten in Chile erupting in January 2009. Even after over a year of activity, Eruptions readers are still captivated by the volcano. Thanks for sending me your questions about volcanoes and volcanism. I'll try to tackle some hear - but as always, keep the questions coming! Send them to For those of you who have submitted a question but don't see the answer here, do not fret. Likely it just means that I needed to do a little more research into the question and will get to it in a later mailbag! So, without further ado ... Mark M.: Here in the Appalachians we have very dense crystalline rock (…
We've already talked about how many active volcanoes reside in Indonesia, but this week's USGS/SI update just drives that point home. Listed in the update are no less than 5 volcanoes were activity is being seen or is on the increase (Karangetang, Slamet, Dukono, Batu Tara and Makian). This doesn't mean mention the activity at Anak Krakatau, Rinjani or Semeru. Amazing. Anyway, highlights - not counting Indonesia or the South American trio - from this week's report (as usual aptly put together by Sally Kuhn Sennert) include: A ~8,000 foot / 2.4 km ash and steam plume from Bagana in Papua New…
Volcano news ahoy, today brought to you by Islands. Lake Kivu, located along the border the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda A gorgeous satellite image (brought to us by the NASA EO) of a steam plume and ash from the ongoing eruption at Shiveluch in Kamchatka. The ash distribution stands out remarkably well on the white snow, with the central circle of ash near the vent/dome and then the wind-aided ash blanketing the terrain to the northeast of the volcano (and a little bit to the south). Nature has a post reminding us that one of the big hazards at Nyiragongo/Nymuragira is not the…
Here's the latest news from the USGS and SI Global Volcanism Program. It might not record every little volcanic noise in the world each week, but nothing like getting all the major volcanic events summarized on a weekly basis. Highlights this week (not including Nyiragongo, Redoubt and Galeras): The eruption at Rinjani in Indonesia continues, with elevated seismicity and 300-600 meter plumes. Sporadic strombolian eruptions from the Crater C at Arenal, Costa Rica (since late April) High seismicity, 100 meter domes and continued dome collapses continue at the two domes growing at Chaiten, Chile…
Some brief tidbits from the volcanic realms: Active volcanism at NW Rota-1 Kilauea? Explosive? You might think of Kilauea as a volcano that generates impressive Hawaiian-style eruptions with fire fountains reaching 100s m and dazzling lava flows, but Don Swanson at HVO sees evidence of a big explosive event at Kilauea. This eruption was ~1,000-1,600 years ago and may have produced a plinian-scale eruptive column and threw cm-scale chunks up to 17 km from the vent. The intermingling of life and active volcanism always seems counterintuitive, but when you're talking undersea volcanism, all…
Chaiten erupting in May 2008. Image courtesy of ONEMI. Speaking of anniversaries, this weekend is the one-year mark for the Chaiten eruption (in spanish) in Chile, the first eruption at the volcano in ~9,000 years. Yes, indeed, the rhyolite eruption that caught most everyone by surprise is still going strong one year later, with two domes growing within the caldera (in spanish). The eruption produced some of the most impressive and sustained ash columns in years (see below) - climbing to 16 km/9 mi, abundant lahars and pyroclastic flows from the emergence and growth/collapse of the domes and…
Has a week gone by already? It is time for another USGS/Smithsonian GVP Weekly Volcano Activity Report. Highlights (beyond Fernandina, Pagan and Redoubt) include: A new underwater eruption at NW-Rota 1 in the Mariana Islands. Increasing seismicity and incandescence from the rhyolite domes forming at Chaiten, Chile. A spike in sulfur dioxide emissions from Kilauea, Hawai'i to 700 tonnes/day (up from a 2003-07 average of 150 tonnes/day). 4.5-7.5 km / 15-26,000 foot ash columns produced at Shiveluch in Kamchatka from new lava dome. Continued dome growth and ~6 km / 26,000 foot ash columns from…
It has been rather quiet on the volcano-front in the last week. Redoubt and Llaima (in spanish), after a few weeks of intense eruption, are both back on Orange Alert. News of the eruptions from Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai and Fernandina is rather sparse in the details. The news of volcanism in 2009 seems to have settled down. A few tidbits I caught over the weekend: ChaitenDamage wrought by the eruption of Chaiten on the town of Chaiten in Chile, taken in early December 2008. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. Don't you feel like you're read this sort of story before after other…
Chaiten erupting on January 19, 2009. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. It is hard to believe that we are less than one month away from one-year anniversary of the beginning of the eruption at Chaiten (and with it, the one-year anniversary of this blog!) The volcano in southern Chile is still erupting away, creating at least 2 dome complexes within the older caldera. These domes have been experiencing periodic collapses, creating block & ash flows, some of which have made it out of the caldera and down close to the ghost town of Chaiten. Along with the block & ash flows,…
Image courtesy of Calvin Hall. Taken 3/28/2009 during an eruption at 10:59 AM3:28 PM. UPDATE 4/2/2009 at 11 AM Pacific: I'm moving this up from the comments, but Eruptions reader Doug Cole pointed out (and I have no idea how I missed this) that Redoubt has a new webcam! This one is at the DFR seismic station, ~8 miles / 12 km northeast of the volcano. Great views on it today showing the extent of the ash around Redoubt and the steam/ash plume. This view will also be excellent if we get any dome collapse pyroclastic flows (see below). After a week of explosions and ash fall, Redoubt seems to…
Its been a busy week for volcanoes between the headline capturing Tongan and Alaska eruptions. Catch up on what you might have missed with the latest SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Report (for 3/18-3/24). Highlights (beyond Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai and Redoubt) include: Galeras, Colombia has settled down a bit More block-and-ash flows from the two dome complexes growing at Chaiten, Chile Strombolian eruptions at Mt. Etna, Italy Plumes of steam and minor ash were reported from Popocatépetl, Mexico A small lahar was seen at Tungurahua, Ecuador Ash plumes and incandescent tephra explosions were…
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…
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 -…
Jonathan 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…
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." 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…
It is hard to believe that the eruption at seem to come out of nowhere at Chaiten started over 8 months ago now, and apparently is still not showing many signs of abating. I did get a chance to see some great talks and posters at AGU last month about the Chaiten eruption, with the key points I took away being that Chaiten is erupting a very crystal poor rhyolite (<1% crystals) and that it seems that the source of the magma is relatively deep in the Andean crust. Also, there are some indications that the eruption at Chaiten may have been tectonically instigated - i.e., that earthquakes in…
2008 is almost finished and we've seen one of the few high-silica rhyolite eruptions in the past 100 years at Chaiten in Chile. Chaiten was definitely not high on the list of potential locations for a rhyolite eruption worldwide. However, Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming definitely is high of the list because it has erupted a lot of rhyolite over the last few 100,000 years (even discounting the big so-called "supervolcano" eruptions). This is why the current news of an earthquake swarm at Yellowstone is, in the very least, really interesting. The earthquakes - over 250 of them - started…
Well, the holidays (and its visitors) have derailed my blogging ability, so in that note, I will officially declare the Eruptions holiday until 12/30. Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) to all the Eruptions readers - and I just hit the 100,000 visit mark, a great Christmas gift for me! - and I'll catch up with some info on Chaiten, St. Helens and whatever volcano news that has happened in the interim.
Today was a lot of talking and posters. Talking mostly about all things concerning Taupo and Okataina volcanism in New Zealand. Posters ran the spectrum from learning some nifty new tricks to extract zircon crystals from a crushed rock to what happens to clay when you breathe it into your lungs. I also learned that being head of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory take a level head and focus (so Supervolcano was a lot closer to the truth than many might think - well, minus the whole eruption). Speaking of which, Chaiten continues to confound me. The first stuff out in the eruption was…