Manam

This week went fast, didn't it? The Baekdu caldera along the North Korean/Chinese border. The NASA Earth Observatory have been giving us a steady diet of volcanic plumes over the last week, including PNG's Ulawun, Russia's Sarychev Peak (a very faint plume), both an ASTER and Terra image of the summit region at Kliuchevskoi and finally a mix of plume and clouds over PNG's Manam volcano. I wanted to also mention a brief article I ran into on the Changbaishan/Baekdu caldera along the Chinese and North Korean border. Although short on specifics, this article mentions a number of interesting (…

I'm still playing catch-up after my week in the desert, so I've seen a lot of articles I've wanted to mention ... but a certain other volcano has taken up a lot of my time. However, I will attempt to make amends for that now. By the way, would you believe Ubehebe Crater was closed? How do they close a volcano, anyway? However, I did get a great snap of a welded tuff on the road outside of Shoshone, CA. A strongly welded tuff near Shoshone, CA. The dark interior is remelted volcanic ash/tephra surrounded by less welded pink tuff with abundant pumice clasts. Denison student David Sisak is on…

Before it gets lost in the mists of time/finals, here is the weekly volcano report brought to us by the USGS and the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program. Highlights (not including Mayon, Soufriere Hills or Piton de La Fournaise): Fuego in Guatemala produced ash plumes that reached 4.1-4.7 km / 13,500-15,400 ft along with avalanches of volcaniclastic debris. Also in Guatemala, lava flows erupted from Pacaya, traveling hundreds of meters from the main vent area. Manam in PNG produced an 3 km / 10,000 foot ash plume as part of its renewed activity this year. The lava dome on Nevado del Huila in…

Two papers submitted, one to go. Keeps you quite busy, let me tell you. Lava flow from a 2006 eruption on Mayon in the Philippines. A few bits of news today: A few more details about the ongoing watch of Mayon in the Philippines . There have been apparently no changes in the shape of the floor of the crater as you might expect if magma was rising underneath. However, there has been an overall inflation of Mayon since the unrest began a few weeks ago. PHIVOLCS will be checking the sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide output of the volcano soon as well. Lots of articles this week about the "…

A week's worth of volcano news in one sitting, thanks to the USGS and Smithsonian Inst.'s Global Volcanism Program. Thanks again, Sally Kuhn Sennert for putting it together! This week's highlights include: Small ash column spotted at Manam, Papua New Guinea. We talked about Manam not too long ago. More details of the ongoing submarine eruption at West Mata in the Mariana Islands. The lava dome continues to grow on Redoubt, Alaska with no real collapse yet. Pilots spotted small (2.1 km / 7,000 foot) steam/ash plumes at Suwanosejima, Japan. 5-6 km / 18-25,000 foot ash plumes were produced by…

Manam in Papua New Guinea erupting in 2004 Five years ago, Manam volcano in Papua New Guinea erupted. The volcano is located on a 10-km island of the same name and when it erupted in 2004, it produced pyroclastic flows and lava flows to the tune of a VEI 4 eruption. It was decided that the 9,000 inhabitants of the island had to be evacuated but even so, five people died due to the eruption. However, there are still thousands of people in temporary care centers on the main island of Papua New Guinea. Tensions have flared with the local inhabitants, to the point that four former islanders have…