volcanoes and the economy

Finally, a chance to catch up a bit ... ! Yasur erupting in May of 2010. Some news from the world of volcanoes: The BBC has a series of videos one the fallout from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption - including a look at the area around the volcano and how the economy has been affected by the eruption. However, things seem pretty quiet at the summit of the Eyjafjallajökull summit where snow can begun to settle without melting - and the Icelandic Met Office appears to think that the eruption is more or less (but not officially) over. And take this press release as you will, but a recent study…

August has been rather quiet for real volcano news, but I did find some more, well, odd news to mention. It is all volcano-related - to an extent - so here we go: The new volcano-inspired Chivas stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico. Last year we had the volcano mall in Italy, this year we have the volcano football (that is soccer for us Americans) stadium in Mexico (see above). The stadium in Guadalajara has green, sloping sides that that open to the "crater" that is filled with the pitch and the stands - seems fitting for a city in the middle of the Trans-Mexico Volcanic Belt. No word on what…

Eyjafjallajökull erupting in the spring of 2010. I have a request for all of you Eruptions readers! In a few weeks I will be giving a talk here at Denison on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption and especially the aspects of how the eruption unfolded on the web. I think the shared experience of the seismicity, fissure vent eruption and explosive eruption - along with all the ramifications of the air traffic stoppage over Europe - was a fascinating phenomenon. So, I ask you readers: How would you describe your experience on Eruptions during the Eyjafjallajökull events? By that I mean in terms of…

Lots of little pieces of news I've run across ... time to play a little catch up. Stromboli: A volcano after Don Ho's heart. Every once in a while, my RSS feeds will dredge up some articles from years gone by ... and this week there were two New York Times pieces that are a few years old, but interesting nevertheless. The first is about research conducted by Dr. Robert Sohn at WHOI on explosive undersea eruptions. The second is work by Corr and Vaughan about finding subglacial volcanism in Antarctica. Both are interesting reads if you missed them (like I did) the first time around.…

Tourists hiking next to an active lava flow on Pacaya in Guatemala in 2006. I'm flying back to Ohio today after a successful few weeks of fieldwork/paper writing. Apparently I have a pile of tomatoes waiting in our garden in Granville ... ! On to news: To go with the news that lava flows from Kilauea creep ever closer to structures in Kalapana, the NASA Earth Observatory posts its first volcano image in a bit. The shot shows the steam-and-gas plume from the Halema`uma`u Crater in Kilauea's summit caldera. You can also see some video of the lava flows near Kalapana as they move along the…

One of the commemorate Eyjafjallajökull ash stamps being issued by the Icelandic Post - made with ash from the eruption itself. Many Eruptions readers would consider themselves volcanophiles (or volcanificiandos?) and I would venture to guess there is a subset of volcano enthusiasts who are also philatelists as well. A philatelist (for those of you out of that select circle) is a stamp enthusiast - a stamp collector. Now, in our modern interwebbed world, I wonder if stamp collecting as a hobby has diminished, but that doesn't stop countries from still trying to make some money from stamp…

Quick hits to wrap up the week: Looking into a skylight at Kilauea. Image taken July 8, 2010, courtesy of HVO/USGS. Following up some news about Changbaishan/Changbai caldera in North Korea, Yang Qingfu, director of earthquake and volcano analysis and forecast center with the seismology bureau of northeast China's Jilin Province, says that the volcano appears to be quiet and that there are no signs of an impending eruption - at least not in the next dozen years. The bigger news (in my mind) is that China will be installing full monitoring (gravity, deformation, electromagnetics, fluid…

News! The summit crater lake at Gorely in Russia, taken on June 21, 2010. Image courtesy of KVERT. Eruptions readers have been abuzz about how KVERT will be closing shop (yet again) at the end of June. This would, of course, leave no local monitoring and expertise in the very active Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands in Russia. Right now Shiveluch and Gorely are both showing signs of increased eruption (along with other volcanoes in the arc). In fact, Gorely, which hasn't erupted since 1986, looks primed to have an eruption, with increased tremors, steam-and-gas emissions and a new…

News for Monday! Ngauruhoe in New Zealand, showing the dark lava flows of basaltic andesite on the slopes of the young volcanic cone. Image by Erik Klemetti, taken January 2009. A couple pieces of news from two Russian volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula: (1) last week's report of activity at Gorely appears to be semi-substantiated with new photos on the KVERT website (Russian). The images from June 6 and 12 (2010) shows steam plumes coming from the volcano - one as tall as 500 meters. Now, this doesn't imply that an eruption occurred, but it might suggest activity on on the upswing. KVERT…

The crater lake at Eyjafjallajökull as seen on June 11, 2010. Image from the Icelandic Met Office by Sveinn Brynjólfsson. After keeping us transfixed for almost two months this spring, Eyjafjallajökull has slowly drifted from the headlines. However, this doesn't mean that interesting things - volcanologically-speaking - have stopped happening at the Icelandic volcano. For one, a crater lake has now been spotted at the summit vent of the volcano. This lake is steaming vigorous, but at the end of last week, the Icelandic Meteorological Office and the Institute of Earth Sciences declared…

Volcano Island in the caldera lake at Taal. The Philippine government is upping its concern about an eruption at Taal - and cracking down on tourists and resorts trying to get near Volcano Island in the volcano's caldera lake. Tourists are only allowed to take boat tours in the lake that go halfway to the island - which doubles as the most recently active vent at Taal - and if resorts on the lake bring tourists any closer, they may face repercussions from the government. Of course, this still isn't stopping tourists and natives from going to the island anyway. Now, one thing interesting to…

Looking for some volcano news - you've found it. A shot of volcano "tourists" near the erupting Pacaya. Photo by the Associated Press. Eruptions reader Dr. Boris Behncke dropped a note that Kilauea has not one but two active lava lakes right now. The lava lakes can be seen on the webcams for the Halema`uma`u Crater and the Pu`u O`o flank vent. The latest status update from June 6th by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory talks about both the summit and rift activity (video) on Kilauea as well. Meanwhile, Hawaii 24/7 has a piece in the Volcano Watch series about whether residents of Maui…

This week has been destroyed by workshops and my last death throes with a paper I am submitting on my research in New Zealand. And to think, I thought it might settle down a little after the students left. To news! Ash fall on a taxi cab near Guatemala's Pacaya. Pacaya in Guatemala erupted yesterday causing evacuations of people near the volcano and the closure of Guatemala City's main airport. Pacaya is a mere ~25 km from the capitol of this Central American nation. Tragically, a news reporter from one of the capitol's TV stations died when they were struck by volcanic debris, again…

For all of you going into withdrawal now that Eyjafjallajökull seems to have quieted down, there are two eruptions of note that aren't in the North Atlantic: Undated image of the Barujari cone at Mt. Rinjani in Indonesia. Arenal in Costa Rica - which is almost always sputtering away - had a more significant explosive and effusive event today. The volcano produced enough ash, bombs and gas emissions - along with 8 lava flows (or avalanches, depending on the source) - to prompt the evacuation of the National Park around the volcano. Arenal has had numerous strombolian eruptions over the last…

The small steam plume from Eyjafjallajökull on May 23, 2010, where explosive eruptive activity has ceased for now. The big news over the weekend, at least volcanically, was that Eyjafjallajökull seems to have entered a period of relative quiet. The eruption has died down dramatically, with the last ash explosion occurring two days ago. Since then, the vent has still be producing a significant steam plume that reaches 3 km / 10,000 feet, but none of the ash-laden explosions that marked the earlier parts of the eruption have occurred (meaning the airspace over the North Atlantic and Europe…

News, news, news! Ash from Eyjafjallajökull piling up on a roof at Seljavellir. Image courtesy of the IMO, by Ari Tryggvason. The latest from Eyjafjallajökull has the volcano continuing to puff away - producing intermittent airspace closures over Europe. The Icelandic Met Office reports a ~7 km (21,000 foot) ash plume, but they note that the explosivity of the eruption seems to have waned some since a maximum on May 13. Right now, the IMO estimates the eruption rate at ~200 tonnes/second. Lets put that in a little perspective - a Ford F-150 pickup weighs about 2 tonnes, so the volcano is…

Some news for a sleepy Monday: Mt. Hood in Oregon. The ash from Eyjafjallajökull is, once again, causing significant airspace closure over northern Europe - close of 1,000 flights today. However, much of the closures are fairly short-lived, but that isn't keeping people happy. The eruption hasn't actually changed much, just that the winds are bringing ash towards Europe. The ash for the next few days will likely effect the England, Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands, France and possibly other parts of northern Europe (along with airspace over Greenland and the north Atlantic). The ash plume is…

An aerial view of Eyjafjallajökull erupting on May 11, 2010, with the extent of the black ash from the eruption on GÃgjökull clearly evident, along with the cracks in the glacier near the lava flow. Photo from the Icelandic Met Office, by Sigurlaug Hjaltadóttir. Since this past weekend's disruptions due to Eyjafjallajökull, the air over Europe has cleared and most of the airports in Spain, Portugal and Germany (along with those in Morocco) have reopened. The current ash advisory by the London VAAC looks like it will only effect transatlantic flights and Iceland itself, with the ash cloud…

I an in the home stretch for grading exams, so just a quick update for today: The evidence of floods from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, taken on May 1, 2010 by Dr. Joe Licciardi. Airports now as far south as Spain, Morocco and the Canary Islands are facing closures due to the Eyjafjallajökull ash. The latest London VAAC ash advisory has the ash wrapping around western and southern Europe, which I am sure is making life interesting for routing transatlantic flights into Europe. The flights within Europe don't seem to be that effected according to Eurocontrol - and they have even dropped…

A shot of the summit area of Eyjafjallajökull, showing the twin steam-and-ash plumes from the lava flow and active vent. Picture taken by Dr. Joseph Licciardi (UNH). Over the weekend, the newly reinvigorated ash eruptions from Eyjafjallajökull combined with favorable winds meant that ash from the eruption closed airspace over swaths of Europe, including Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria and Germany. These disruptions are continuing into the new week, although most of the disruption is for transatlantic flights. However, the threat of ash is more present than ever, as Ryanair…