volcano monitoring
eklemetti | December 29, 2009Not much new to report today, so I'll just add some notes to the two volcanoes in the news right now: Mayon and Redoubt.
Mt. Redoubt in Alaska, taken on September 23, 2009. Image courtesy of AVO/USGS, taken by Game McGimsey.
Mayon:
The volcano continues to show signs that a major eruption is in the works, but nothing new occurred over the last 24 hours. 2 km / ~5,000 foot ash plumes were produced from the new dome/flow complex, causing a potential aviation hazard, and the lava flows continued to be erupted. In evacuation news, animals are now being evacuated from the hazard zone around the…
eklemetti | December 28, 2009
The most recent image on the AVO website of the dome at Redoubt, taken in November 2009. Image courtesy of AVO/USGS, by Cyrus Read.
Not much information on this, but AVO just raised the alert status at Redoubt in Alaska to Yellow for the first time since late September. A series of small earthquakes were detected near the summit dome starting at 10 A.M. today, prompting the change of status.
The link to the complete text of the change in status doesn't seem to work on the AVO site, so here it is:
2009-12-28 09:53:11 - VAN/VONA
AVO is raising the Aviation Color Code to YELLOW and the Volcano…
eklemetti | December 28, 2009
Lava flows from Mayon, taken December 23, 2009.
Volcano news over the holidays this year is still focused on Mayon in the Philippines. We're reaching almost a month since the volcano starting showing signs of a major eruption, but no "big one" yet. Lava flows, ash and block-and-ash flows are continuing to be issued from the new dome at the summit, but earthquakes are down some - which is leading to the problem that people are thinking the volcano is "safe". Many evacuees are returning home already, even with the threat-level at Mayon is unchanged.
This danger of people losing faith/not…
eklemetti | December 18, 2009Finals day for me, so I'll be grading grading grading ... but first, a little news:
The May 2009 eruption of West Mata. Image courtesy of NSF and NOAA.
I covered it in May, but the popular press is now all over the West Mata undersea eruption - mostly thanks to the media boost that AGU can give you. It is worth checking out the new articles on the eruption in the Lau Basin near the Marianas, mostly because of the nifty video of the eruption. In the video, you can clearly see both an explosive component of the eruption as gas "burps" out through a cooled carapace and a more effusive pillow…
eklemetti | December 17, 2009Before 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…
eklemetti | December 17, 2009Looks like last night was busy, volcanically speaking. Eruptions readers noted that VAAC warning of ash from both Mayon (to 10,000 feet / 3.0 km) and Bezymianny (to 32,000 feet / 10 km) were issued {hat tip to Chance Metz for the updates}. Here is some more news on these ongoing events:
Mayon erupting in December 2009.
Mayon, Philippines
Evacuations are continuing near Mayon in the Philippines, some of them forcibly by the local authorities. PHIVOLCS is reporting that SO2 output from Mayon has jumped from ~750 tonnes/day to almost 2,800 tonnes/day over the last 24 hours and seimicity…
eklemetti | December 16, 2009
Lava on Mayon, December 2009, with Legazpi City in the foreground.
The mainstream media has picked up on the activity at Mayon - I've seen it splashed across CNN, FoxNews, ABC, BBC and others. Most of the coverage has been decent, however, I do worry when I see that people have found Eruptions using search terms like "Mayon supervolcano". I think that is when we worry that the made-for-TV word like "supervolcano" has gotten a little overused, when people worry every volcanic eruption might be a "supervolcano."
On to the update!
Explosions have continued unabated at Mayon, with the explosive…
eklemetti | December 15, 2009
The new dome erupting at Mayon in the Philippines on December 14-15, 2009.
It appears that the eruption that PHIVOLCS had been waiting for at Mayon has arrived, with new magma reaching the surface and spilling down the slopes of the volcano. Or, as CNN International put it:
The island nation's most active volcano after it oozed fiery lava and belched clouds of ash.
People do love the idea of fiery, oozing lava, don't they?
Anyway, PHIVOLCS has raised the alert status at Mayon to Level 3 (eruption in days to weeks). This new activity has prompted the evacuation of at least 47,000 people in…
eklemetti | December 15, 2009
Piton de la Fournaise erupting on December 14, 2009. Image courtesy of the Observatoire Volcanologique du Piton de la Fournaise.
A while back I reported on a brief eruption at Piton de la Fournaise on Reunion Island and now a number of Eruptions readers have pointed out to me that it has erupted again (french). Seems like a similar event to the previous, with fissure vent effusive flows on the southern and eastern slopes of the shield volcano.
Here is the report from Guillaume Levieux of the Observatoire Volcanologique du Piton de la Fournaise:
Piton de la Fournaise volcano erupted Monday,…
eklemetti | December 14, 2009It's the last week of classes and it's also AGU (which I will be missing for the first time in 5 years). If you happen to be at the big meeting in SF and hear something you think we'd like to hear, feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment so we can live vicariously through you.
Pyroclastic flows at Sourfriere Hills, December 2009. Image courtesy of MVO.
Some news:
UPDATE 12:40PM 12/14/2009: Just to update the Mayon news from earlier today, PHIVOLC is reporting that lava has been spotting flowing from the main crater on Mayon. Sounds like the eruption we've been waiting for is…
eklemetti | December 11, 2009Busy times at the end of the semester right now ...
Concepcion seem from the ISS in 2007. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory.
One brief bit of news:
Concepcion in Nicaragua erupted, covering three nearby villages with ash. The brief report only mentions 150 meter / 400 foot explosion columns from the eruption, which makes me thing this is merely for the ballastic clasts. No other details - on the eruption or any evacuations - are available.
Concepcion is in the middle of Lake Nicaragua on the island of Ometepe (and the original Mystery Volcano Photo). The volcano last erupted in…
eklemetti | December 10, 2009A new Weekly Volcano Report from the Smithsonian GVP/USGS ... enjoy!
Highlights include:
There has been a number of reports of new activity at Llaima in Chile (hat tip to Eruptions reader Manuel Humeres for bringing them to us). Most of the current activity is steam-and-gas plumes along with long-period seismicity, suggesting we could be headed towards a new eruption.
Lava flows continue to erupt from Kliuchevskoi in Kamchatka, along with strombolian activity throwing ejecta up to 300 m / ~1000 feet above the crater.
Rabaul is busy shaking windows 20 km / 12 miles from the Tavurvur crater,…
eklemetti | December 9, 2009Some news for today:
Yellowstone National Park, USA.
Another fine example of media headline versus actual research, an article in the Jackson Hole Daily about a new study by Dr. Robert Smith and others on the Yellowstone plume was titled "Park's giant magma plume eating up mountains". Yikes! Well, the actual study published recently in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research is more about the geophysical parameters of the Yellowstone plume - a plume that might reach as far as 500 km below the caldera itself. As for the mountain eating part, I think they were trying to get at the…
eklemetti | December 8, 2009
Undated image of Cerro MachÃn in Colombia.
I just picked up on this story over on the Volcanism Blog, but I want to post it here too. MachÃn, in Colombia, has experienced a sharp increase in seismicity at the volcano - maintaining the Yellow status for the volcano. 54 earthquakes were recorded at the volcano over the weekend, prompting the INGEOMINAS to raise the alert status. The volcano had a swarm in 2008 that did not lead to any eruption - but remember, better to be safe than sorry. If MachÃn were to erupt, it would join Galeras and Huila as erupting volcanoes in Colombia.
Not much is…
eklemetti | December 4, 2009Its already Friday!
News!
Print of the Temple of Jupiter at Pompeii with a steaming Vesuvius in the background.
You can now wander down the streets of ancient Pompeii from the comfort of your own home or office. Google Streetview now cover the streets of the city wiped out by the 79 A.D. eruption of Vesuvius in Italy. Now, some of the articles on the Pompeii streetview give lipservice to the current threat of Vesuvius to the modern city of Naples, my favorite being:
The authorities continually monitor Vesuvius these days, and estimate they'll be able to give adequate warning if it's ever in…
eklemetti | December 2, 2009
An ash plume from Soufriere Hills on Montserrat, taken from the ISS on October 11, 2009.
If you ever wonder what might happen to the U.S. if a large volcanic eruption, lets say from Rainier or Long Valley or Shasta, occurred, you can look at the island of Montserrat for some of the potentials problems. The renewed activity at Soufriere Hills (video link) that started in October is causing problems with the power infrastructure of the island - specifically the ash from the eruption is falling on power lines and damaging them. Ash has a minor electrical charge, so it will coat anything with a…
eklemetti | November 30, 2009Back to work after Thanksgiving Break ... lets clean up a few news items I missed trying to figure out the non-eruption of Karkar.
Undated photo of the summit area of Gaua, Vanuatu.
There was an actual eruption - or, more correctly, a continued eruption - of Gaua in Vanuatu. The current activity has prompted the evacuation of 300 villagers from the island and they will not be able to return until activity wanes. Tourists were also told to stay away from the volcano, but the airport on the island has not been affected by the eruption, which might suggest the activity is relatively localized…
eklemetti | November 29, 2009Last week, I reported that Karkar in Papua New Guinea had erupted. This was based on reports from Volcano Live and from the Darwin VAAC that said the volcano had produced at least 1, maybe 2, ~13 km / 45,000 foot ash columns. That is not a trivial ash column - you would think a large eruption was needed to produce such an ash column (and you'd be right).
Then, no news. Nothing. I (and other Eruptions readers) scoured the web for more information on this phantom eruption at Karkar. Not a peep on noise about any eruption, let alone an eruption to send ash above 40,000 feet.
Recent reports from…
eklemetti | November 24, 2009First off, I want to thank Dr. Behncke for taking the time to answer your questions - and also, thank you to all who sent him some thought-provoking questions. In fact, the questions and answers take up about 12 pages of text, so the Q&A will be divided into two parts.
If you want to see one of the previous in the Q&A series, check out:
Dr. Jonathan Castro.
Question and Answer with Dr. Boris Behncke of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Catania.
Dr. Boris Behncke.
Questions for Dr. Boris Behncke
(Bernard Duyck) Qu'en est-il de l'évolution du mécanisme…
eklemetti | November 23, 2009Back from Iowa, time for some volcano news. Look for the answers to your questions for Dr. Boris Behncke to get posted later this week.
(And thanks for all the comments and kind words in the Open Thread. I'll start thinking about how to implement a lot of these in the next few weeks).
Undated photo of Volcan Galeras in Colombia.
Galeras stopped traffic near Pasto, Colombia and prompted the evacuation of 1,000 people over the weekend when it erupted. The volcano apparently produced ash that covered towns near the volcano, including Pashto, and the highway connected that town with Pasto was…