Volcano Research
eklemetti | October 13, 2008
The eruption of Kasatochi was a bit of a surprise to volcanologists who study the Aleutians, to say the least. The volcano itself has been quiet for likely over 100 years, but with relatively little warning, the volcano erupted over the summer, blasting ash (and a large amount of sulfur dioxide) into the atmosphere. We finally have some images of the destruction wreaked upon the island, and from the looks of it, the island is blanketed in grey ash from the eruption(s). Biologist who have worked on the island prior to the eruption think a significant number of auklets may be buried in the ash…
eklemetti | October 9, 2008
If you ever want your research to be picked up by the popular press, you pretty much need to publish in the journal Science. It (along with Nature) are seen as the Premier League of scientific publication, and even though there isn't a lot of agreement on whether what gets published in these journals is the best science has to offer (or whether it is just the most flashy), it definitely gets the press' attention.
Right now, there has been a lot of noise in the science press about a recent article that discusses predicting volcanic eruption. This research on Montserrat in the West Indies,…
eklemetti | September 25, 2008
This might not be directly related to a volcanic eruption, but it has been picked up by a lot of news sources, so I thought I'd give it a mention. A report from researchers at University of Texas hypothesize that some very large coral boulders (up to 10 meters tall) that can be found on the shores of Tongatapu are, in fact, tsunami deposits. That is news enough, but they go on to say that the tsunami could have been volcanically triggered (i.e., started by an eruption or volcanic landslide). The corals are ~122,000 years old and a soil has formed on the corals, so the event was likely…
eklemetti | September 16, 2008
It is always fun to me when we discover that a volcano long considered dormant or extinct has seen activity in the recent past. I bring this up because Mount Nantai in Japan, a volcano that was considered to have last erupted over 10,000 to 20,000 years ago (if not longer) looks to have actually erupted as recently as 7,000 years ago. This might not seem like a big different to some folks, but this definitely puts the volcano in the "active" category if this date turns out to be accurate. The volcano looks to have had a number of explosive ash and pumice eruptions along with some dacite lava…
eklemetti | September 16, 2008
For those of us who track volcanoes and the hazards they present, the general consensus is that Mount Vesuvius in Italy is probably the most dangerous volcano in the world today. This is not because it is the biggest or most powerful, but because it is located on the outskirts of Naples, Italy, a city with over 2 million inhabitants (including the surrounding area). Evacuating such an area quickly and efficiently during a time of crisis might be, well, impossible. We know that Vesuvius can be destructive - just look at the fact that much of the Naples area is built on the deposits of the…
eklemetti | September 6, 2008
Not sure how it was kept quiet for most of the week (well, at least to me), but geologists at the HVO have noticed a new lava lake in Halemaumau Caldera on Kilauea (Hawai'i). The lava lake is around 330 feet (~100 meters) below the crater rim and ~160 feet (50 meters) across with sections of reddish, glowing lava and black crust on the surface. It seems that an explosion on Tuesday helped reveal the lava lake from the surface. The USGS has posted some video of the lava lake for your enjoyment. There are only a few active lava lakes worldwide (such as those at Villarrica in Chile and Erebus…
eklemetti | August 30, 2008
I am back from my trek through the Oregon and California Cascades - including stops at Lassen Peak/Chaos Crags, Hood, Three Sisters and Crater Lake (an added bonus). I'll try to catch up on the volcano news I've missed and post on anything exciting that happened soon, but otherwise I'll be posting new news as it occurs.
In the meantime, here's a picture I took of Rock Mesa (foreground) and South Sister (background) taken from the Pacific Crest Trail. Rock Mesa is a ~2,700 year old rhyolite flow that appears to have erupted multiple pumices and has some impressive flow banding of the rhyolite…
eklemetti | August 19, 2008
I will be away from Eruptions for the next 2 weeks or so. I won't be on vacation, I will actually be out on volcanoes themselves doing some much-needed fieldwork. It is a three volcano tour, starting with a trip to Lassen Peak to get a guided view with Michael Clynne of the USGS (the world expert on the volcano, the last Cascade volcano to erupt other than Saint Helens).
Then follows a trip to Mt. Hood with Adam Kent from Oregon State (my doctoral alma mater) in Oregon to sample some of the youngest flows that are only a few hundred years old. Geologists from Oregon DOGAMI (Department of…
eklemetti | August 18, 2008
Sorry about the lack of update. Having no internet while moving will do that! I did see an email this morning that had some interesting information about the amount of sulfur dioxide emitted by Kasatochi (Alaska) during the current eruption (thanks to Simon Carn, UMBC):
"The August 7-8 eruption of Kasatochi volcano (Aleutian Islands)produced a very large stratospheric SO2 cloud - possibly the largest since the August 1991 eruption of Hudson (Chile). Preliminary SO2 mass calculations using Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) data suggest a total SO2 burden of ~1.5 Tg. This figure will be…
eklemetti | August 14, 2008
This article sums up a lot of the events that led up to the Kasatochi (Alaska) eruption last week from the point of view of the biologists on the island itself right before it erupted. There are some great descriptions of the whole island shaking for 10 minutes, and they also offer some exciting new details such as this:
"Jeff Williams, a biologist for the maritime refuge, sailed by the island on the refuge boat the Tiglax and said the island has a new shape; what were steep cliffs rising from the ocean on the island's east and west sides now appear to be long, gradual slopes."
That would…
eklemetti | August 7, 2008
The Okmok Caldera eruption is still going on, almost a month after it started. The latest USGS/SI Weekly Report states:Â
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Strong volcanic tremor on 2 August prompted AVO  to raise the Volcano Alert Level to Warning and the Aviation Color Code to Red. Cloudy conditions prevented satellite observations. Later that day, AVO geologists in the area reported that ash-and-steam plumes rose to minimum altitude of 6.1 km (20,000 ft) a.s.l. The seismicity decreased and the Volcano Alert Level was lowered to Watch and the Aviation Color Code was lowered to Orange. Observers in Ft. Glenn on Umnak…
eklemetti | August 5, 2008Â
Not much news in the world of volcanoes this week so far. Must be the mid-summer lull in activity as the northern hemisphere heats up (just kidding!) Anyway, I thought I would post a picture of a recently erupting volcano that a friend of mine shared with me. This shot (above, picture by Arkadiy Groshev) was taken on July 25 of this year as Karymsky volcano in Kamchatka was erupting. The volcano emitted ash for ~1 hour that day and it almost seems like a volcano-as-tourist-attraction type of eruption! The group in the picture is the PIRE (Partnership for Volcanological Research and…