NASA Earth Observatory
eklemetti | October 22, 2009I did an excellent job of forgetting my notes from GSA 2009, so no wrap up on the meeting until tomorrow, but we do have some new volcano news to digest:
The crater of El Reventador in Ecuador in an undated photo.
Ecuadorian officials have called for evacuations around El Reventador. The Ecuadorian Geophysics Institute says that the volcano's "activities were measured at a level considered high, with permanent seismic signals indicating explosions while the southern side of the volcano crater could be seen as incandescent.". Three provinces near the volcano were put on alert evacuated as a…
eklemetti | October 7, 2009Sometimes it is hard to keep up with the mountain of remote sensing (or not so remote) images that get released on the internet. Over the last few days, the NASA Earth Observatory has released a bunch of images/videos of current eruptions, so I thought I'd round them all up here for you to peruse.
Soufriere Hills releasing puffs of ash-and-steam on October 6, 2009. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory.
Four new images in the recent past:
A nice, clear picture of an ash-and-steam plume from Rabaul in PNG was captured by the Terra satellite's MODIS imager on September 30, 2009. The…
eklemetti | September 29, 2009As fall descends on the northern hemisphere, spring starts in the southern. Luckily for us, it means that we get better views of the southern Andes in Chile ... which means the NASA EO could train one of the many "eyes in the sky" (specifically the EO-1) on Chaiten. The volcano is still erupting, going on 16 months, since it caught everyone off guard in May of 2008. As you can tell from the image (linked and below), Chaiten is slowly filling in the pre-2008 caldera with new rhyolite dome growth - you can see that the pre-2008 dome within the caldera (see the picture taken from the ISS in 2003…
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, 2009
Koryaksky (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…
eklemetti | August 21, 2009The summit crater at Kilauea in Hawai'i has had a busy summer and now that fall is around the corner (yikes!), there is a bit of new info on activity in the crater.
Halema`uma`u Crater emitting a steam plume in January, 2009.
First off, the NASA Earth Observatory released an image of the steaming crater area of Halema`uma`u. The image captures the new plume of steam and volcanic gases that have been coming from the crater. The latest news reports that the glow (albeit faint) from the underlying magma has returned to the crater after the rockfall earlier this summer. Also, sulfur dioxide…
eklemetti | August 6, 2009In case you don't frequent the NASA Earth Observatory, I thought I'd call your attention to some images they recently posted that are, again, excellent shots of volcanism captured from space.
The current plume from Tavurvur Crater at Rabaul was shot by the MODIS imager on Terra in early August. The plume is mostly made of volcanic gases and steam, but minor amounts of ash are also found - and remember, even small concentrations of ash in the air can be hazardous to aircraft.
Shiveluch has been having a busy summer, with moderate-to-large plinian eruptions produced by the emplacement (and…
eklemetti | July 17, 2009Some of the articles you might have missed this week ...
A lava flow from Kilauea breaks local traffic laws in the Royal Gardens subdivision, Hawai'i
The Mayon Watch continues in the Philippines. No eruption yet, but some of the local newspapers are printing stories talking about "odd animal behavior" and other local "myths" about predicting the volcano, such as the wells drying up. Now, this is not to say that these things might have some predictive value (especially changes in the water table near the volcano as it inflates/deflates), but so far there are no robust scientific studies that…
eklemetti | July 8, 2009Two 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 "…
eklemetti | June 18, 2009
Sarychev Peak erupting on June 12th. Image taken on the ISS, courtesy of the NASA EO.
The eruption as Sarychev Peak seems to be waning a bit, at least according to some of the latest images from the NASA Earth Observatory's collection of MODIS shots. The ash plume is less prominent - and strikingly more grey than before, possibly if it contains a higher proportion of water vapor than the earlier plumes. However, it isn't these brand new shots that captured my attention but rather one of the possibly most stunning volcano images I've seen in years (above). This captures Sarychev Peak as a…
eklemetti | June 17, 2009
Flight path for Continental Flight 009 from Newark to Tokyo, diverted back to Newark due to the threat of ash from Sarychev Peak. Image courtesy of Flight Aware.
The eruption at Sarychev Peak is continuing to disrupt all sorts of flights that head towards Asia. There are lots of unhappy travelers who have had to "enjoy" a 12 hour flight that took them from Newark, NJ to ... Newark, NJ (see yesterday's Continental Flight 009 above). There have been a multitude of flights affected by the ash, many reported here on Eruptions by travelers or relatives (keep them coming!) It will be interesting…
eklemetti | June 14, 2009
Sarychev Peak in Russia erupting on June 14, 2009. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory.
The transpacific air routes over the Aleutians, the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands are a prime location for the threat of ash to commercial aviation. Many of these volcanoes, especially on the western side of the Pacific Ocean are not closely monitoring and sometimes only remote sensing techniques can keep track of the activity.
Case in point is the current eruption at Sarychev Peak in the Kuril Islands. The volcano is on one of the southern-most Kuril Islands (Ostrov Matua) in Russia…