Melimoyu

Have guests in town, so I'm a little busy, but you can hopefully keep entertained with the latest Smithsonian/USGS Global Volcanism Program Volcanic Activity Report. Chile's Melimoyu volcano. The highlights (not including Taal and Eyjafjallajökull) include: Alaska's Cleveland volcano has been reduced to and alert status of "unassigned" (used when a volcano is not closely monitored so AVO doesn't know what exactly is "background") after a few weeks of activity. The same was done for the submarine volcano south of Sarigan in the Marianas Islands after no signs of activity since the eruption…

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…