Gorely
eklemetti | July 21, 2010Kilauea lavas on the move near Kalapana. Image taken July 17, courtesy of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
Some news over the last few days:
The lava flows from Kilauea are moving with a vengeance right now, damaging roads and heading for some structures. The lava flows near Kalapana have moved almost 200 meters since Sunday, closing within 100 yards of homes in the area. The lava is moving to the east along Highway 130 and 137 - and tourists are making it difficult to get around as they park to watch the lava - upwards of 2,000 people! A number of people (and dogs) have had to be evacuated…
eklemetti | July 8, 2010So, I'm a little late with this thanks to a little hiatus, but I thought I would post the latest GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report. Thanks again to the Smithsonian, USGS and especially Sally Kuhn Sennert!
Some highlights include:
There were more ash explosions spotted at Ebeko in Kamchatka, producing ~1.8 km (5,900 foot) ash columns. This activity prompted KVERT to raise the Alert Status to Yellow. This goes along with news from a pile of other Kamchatka/Kuril Island volcanoes: Gorely, Tiatia, Karymsky, Kliuchevskoi and Shiveluch.
More activity at Arenal in Costa Rica - its almost always…
eklemetti | July 1, 2010Just a reminder, if you any questions for Sally Kuhn Sennert of the Smithsonian/USGS Global Volcanism Program - about the Weekly Report, about life at the GVP, about volcanoes - be sure to send them to me soon at .
Now, on to this week's update!
Some highlights (not including Gorely):
Lahars from Tungurahua in Ecuador moved blocks upwards of 2 m in diameter downstream over the last week and ash fall was reported over 20 km from the volcano's vent. For some reason, FoxNews decided to use an image of Tungurahua for an article on stats of natural disasters in 2009 - nice image, but the volcano…
eklemetti | June 28, 2010News!
The summit crater lake at Gorely in Russia, taken on June 21, 2010. Image courtesy of KVERT.
Eruptions readers have been abuzz about how KVERT will be closing shop (yet again) at the end of June. This would, of course, leave no local monitoring and expertise in the very active Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands in Russia. Right now Shiveluch and Gorely are both showing signs of increased eruption (along with other volcanoes in the arc). In fact, Gorely, which hasn't erupted since 1986, looks primed to have an eruption, with increased tremors, steam-and-gas emissions and a new summit…
eklemetti | June 20, 2010News for Monday!
Ngauruhoe in New Zealand, showing the dark lava flows of basaltic andesite on the slopes of the young volcanic cone. Image by Erik Klemetti, taken January 2009.
A couple pieces of news from two Russian volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula: (1) last week's report of activity at Gorely appears to be semi-substantiated with new photos on the KVERT website (Russian). The images from June 6 and 12 (2010) shows steam plumes coming from the volcano - one as tall as 500 meters. Now, this doesn't imply that an eruption occurred, but it might suggest activity on on the upswing. KVERT…
eklemetti | June 14, 2010The crater lakes at the summit of Gorely volcano in Russia.
Possibly lost in the vuvuzela noise, but Eruptions readers over the weekend noted that Gorely on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia had its first eruption in over 20 years. The Russian media has a brief report mentioning that the volcano produced an ash plume that "stretched over a hundred kilometers" (horizontally). The plume was causing some disruptions of local air travel and threatening a geothermal plant, but no real other details beyond that were offered. So far, there has been no update about the possible eruption on the KVERT…
eklemetti | August 31, 2009First day of class! As you might imagine, I'm a little scattered (well, with classes and the fact that we bought a house over the weekend. You know, just that).
The Tavurvur Crater at Rabaul erupting in 1994.
News!
The Examiner.com (SF) has a slideshow and brief article on the current excavations of ruins buried by the Santorini/Minoan eruption that occurred ~3950 years ago. The eruption wiped out much of the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea, but whether there was anyone actually still living on the island when it happened is still a mystery. It seems that most of the Minoans left the…
eklemetti | August 27, 2009Koryaksky (Koryak) in Russia
Yesterday in the USGS/SI update, I mentioned the current eruption going on at Koryaksky (a.k.a. Koryak). Today, the NASA Earth Observatory has some images of the plume from the Russian volcano heading out to the east over the Peninsula. The plume itself looks fairly diffuse and mostly whitish steam rather than laden with grey/brown ash. The last significant eruption from Koryaksky was a VEI 3 eruption in 1956-57 that produced ash fall and pyroclastic flows from the volcano.
One thing that is noted on the EO page is this snippet:
MODIS captured this plume days…