Tambora volcano in Indonesia is beginning to show signs of life. Since April this year, there have been intermittent swarms of small earthquakes, which repeated themselves towards the end of August. Activity have slowly increased, steam clouds have been observed rising up to the rim of the caldera and the earthquake activity has picked up a bit, too. The alarm level have been raised to 2. [read all]
Another powerful eruption with an intense peak activity of tall lava fountains - a so-called paroxysm - occurred at Etna volcano's New SE crater earlier today. This marks the 12th event of the series in 2011 so far. The main phase of the eruption lasted between around 5 and 7 am local time. ...more
A video on YouTube shows the eruption at dawn quite well: The eruption is from a fissure inside the New SE cone and produces a curtain of fire with at least 3 major lava fountains, the tallest one reaching more than 500 m is coming from the upper (left in image) vent. [less]
Stromboli volcano continues to be at an elevated level of activity, with frequent long-lasting spattering episodes from the NE crater, and occasional lava flows on the crater terrace. This indicates that the magma level inside its conduits is still unusually high. [read all]
The 11st paroxysm of Etna's New SE crater is taking place. Strombolian activity and increased degassing started late during the night and early morning. The activity increased into lava fountains producing a tall ash column probably between 8 and 9 am. A lava flow is emitted that descends into the Valle del Bove. [read all]
The active lava dome ("dry lava lake"?) inside the crater of Anak Krakatau on 8 August (photo: Andi / VolcanoDiscovery)
View of the small lava dome in the crater at night (8 August, photo: Andi / VolcanoDiscovery)
An active lava lake can be seen inside the crater of Krakatau. As our Indonesian correspondant and team member Andi reports: ...more
"Since 3 weeks ago, the instrument for monitoring anak krakatau was damaged probably caused by the big eruption 3 weeks ago, as I have seen so many quite big new bombs around the old crater. So we can not know now the seismic activity at all for the moment. Visually the current activity is lower at level 2, but likely ready to explode again in the future days ! The chronology: [less]
We have teamed up with the people from Eartquake Report. Created by Armand Vervaeck (Belgium), Earthquake Report has quickyl grown to be the best independent earthquake reporting site in the world. It provides timely information and background about ongoing seismic crises, volcanic eruptions and more. ...more
Earthquake Report bridges the gap in between science and basic understanding. News in this site will not only appear very quickly, but we will always try to bring “Added Value” and “Scientific/Social Insight” news that you will not find anywhere else. [less]
The National Park yesterday reopened the Napau trail for day hikes, which allows for views of the eruption site from about 1mi/2km away (See link below for a few pictures from last night, click back through the set). It's a minimum 10mi/16km round-trip hike crossing frozen lava, native rainforest, and bits of old road, only for the most adventurous! Our expert guides can lead you there for these epic sunset views, weather permitting, just let us know if you're interested! [read all]
Beginning lava fountains at Etna (RadioStudio7 webcam)
View of Etna from distance (RadioStudio7 webcam)
The 10th paroxysm of the New SE crater at Etna volcano is in progress. Strombolian activity as well as tremor amplitude increased sharply at around 9am local time and are now (ca. 10 am local time) becoming lava fountains. [read all]
Strombolian activity has restarted at the "New SE crater" of Etna volcano, which means that, most likely, the 10th paroxysm is under way - IF the volcano behaves as during the past 9 episodes, where strombolian activity increased to violent lava fountain eruptions within 12-72 hours after the onset of such strombolian activity. ...more
The unusually strong summit activity at Stromboli volcano continues. Limited access to the summit area has been reopened for groups accompanied by certified guides only. This access permission is subject to daily review by the local Civil Protection. [read all]
Seismic recording showing the paroxysm (INGV Catania; for local time add 2 hours)
A new paroxysm (nr 9 in 2011) from the "New SE crater" of Etna is occurring at the time of writing. Following a brief period of intermittent weak explosions starting mid-day today, strombolian activity started to increase sharply the evening of 5 August; activity has now reached near continuous low lava fountaining and is likely to increase in the next hour(s). A lava flow has started to descend into the Valle del Bove. Our team member Marco Fulle is on location documenting this spectacular event. ...more
The eruption was somewhat smaller in size than the previous paroxysms. Its main phase lasted from 22h00 to ca. 1 am on 7 August when activity dropped sharply again. The big question is what will come next! Possibly, more paroxsysms (in 2000, a similar series of 66(!) paroxysms occurred from the SE crater), the next one perhaps again in ca. 6 days... Or, a new flank eruption hat finally allows the huge magma storage inside Etna to drain effectively. Or, simply nothing for a while. Volcanoes are unpredictable. [less]
Tavur is erupting again! As Ulla reports from a message from the Rabaul Volcano Observatory: "Since August 3rd 8:30 local time Tavurvur (Rabaul/PNG) is active again, ejecting ash clouds up to 700m high. The clouds are so dense that they need 2 hours to clear out." [read all]
In recent weeks, small activity has resumed at the summit crater of Anak Krakatau, as satellite data show. The volcano has been producing occasional ash explosions, reaching few 100 meters height. [read all]
The new lava flow west of Pu'u 'O'o seen from the Napau crater.
At 2pm local time, the western base of Pu`u `O`o cone began to erupt a new lava flow, which has advanced at least 3km/1.8mi downslope in the first 2 hours. Meanwhile, Pu`u `O`o's crater floor and perched lava lake have collapsed, sending up clouds of brown ash. There is no earthquake swarm associated with this new breakout, suggesting a collapse of the old edifice as opposed to a new gas-fed fissure, as the Kamoamoa Eruption earlier in March. Other supporting evidence is a smaller magnitude change in tilit and no sustained high-amplitude tremor at the eruption site. ...more
As the sun sets in Hawai`i, there should be spectacular views in at least 3 different webcams on Kīlauea volcano, where lava is visible! Check the links below, including one to our picture from Napau crater of overflows last week! [less]
The lava flow from yesterday is no longer active at the moment. As initially suspected, it was an overflow from the NE crater, not from a new flank vent. The explosive strombolian summit activity is continuing. The Civil Protection has temporarily closed access to the summit. [read all]
A new lava flow eruption at Stromboli volcano has started today. The webcam of INGV suggests that the vent is the NE crater which seems to have overflowed and is feeding a flow down over the 2003 lava plateau and the Sciara del Fuoco and has reached the sea already. ...more
This new eruption is not entirely surprising given the unusally high level of activity in the recent time, when lava seemed to be high up inside the conduit. The last lava flow on the Sciara del Fuoco was in March 2007. [less]
NASA Earth Obseervatory image of Puyehue volcano on 31 July 2011. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image on July 31, 2011. A pale ash plume rises above erupting fissures, then fans out toward the north and east. The plume casts a shadow over the lava flow along the western (left) edge of the image. To the south of the plume, areas that have not been coated with lava sport instead a dendritic pattern of white snow and brown ash. (Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=51541)
Nearly 2 months after its start, the explosive and effusive eruption from Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex is still continuing, but on a much lower level than during the first month of the eruption. In recent days, the eruption column has been reaching up to 2 km and producing ash plumes drifting east into Argentinia where the ash is causing problems to infrastructure, as well as disruption to air traffic. ...more
The lava emission from the eruptive fissure seems to have ended. [less]
The 8th paroxysm in 2011 from the new SE crater of Etna occurred in the evening of 30 July 2011. Spectacular continuous lava fountains rose to more than 500 m between 9.30pm and 11pm. The paroxysm followed a gradual build-up of strombolian activity during the previous days. Large lava flows forming a broad sheet descended into the Valle del Bove and reached more than 2 km length.. [read all]
Kīlauea volcano continues to pressurize with new magma, uplifting the floor of Pu`u `O`o crater on the order of 1 meter / 3 feet PER DAY over the last month! This uplift has allowed lava flows to emit from the base of the inner crater walls, filling the neighboring craters (MLK & Puka Nui) to overflowing to the southwest starting last night! The inner crater lava flows show up via webcam (check our link below), with visible cracking occuring as the whole crater floor is pistoned upwards! ...more
At the same time, an unusually large number of earthquakes are being located in the upper east rift zone (between Halema`uma`u and Mauna Ulu, site of the bend in the rift zone) which indicates pressurization there, too! A similar earthquake pattern occurred in the last two weeks of February this year in the build-up to the eruption of the new Kamoamoa fissure. [less]
Another powerful paroxysm occurred early today at Etna volcano from the new SE crater, making this episode Nr 7 of this kind in 2011, almost exactly 6 days after the last eruption on 19 July. It seems that the intervals between single paroxysms are becoming shorter. [read all]
A new powerful paroxysm occurred on Etna volcano from the SE crater during the second half of the night 18-19 July. Tom who was guiding a group of VolcanoDiscovery were able to witness the eruption: during the afternoon of 18 July, we visited the area around the new cone at the SE flank of the SE crater (now often called the "New SE crater", or the former "pit") and noticed many radial fractures in the ground SE of the cone, but only weak ash emissions suggesting that magma had dropped deep within the conduit. Around midnight, we noticed that strombolian activity had resumed around midnight and tremor was rapidly rising, and decided to walk to a viewpoint on the rim of the Valle del Bove, where we arrived at around 2:30am. At that time, strombolian activity had apparently just turned into fountaining (other observers who had been on the spot half an hour earlier did only report strombolian activity and thought it was decreasing...). The fountains quickly increased to ca. 500 m height, and a lava flow had started to advance a few 100 meters. At the peak of the eruption at around 3am, the fountains pulsated between an estimated 500-800 m height, with large incandescent bombs visible more than 1 km above the vent and landing behind SE crater. The lava flow advanced with 3 main branches onto the steeper parts of the wall of the Valle del Bove. The fountain-fed ash plume drifted east towards Giarre. ...more
The fountains gradually decreased by around 4am and the activity turned into exploding giant lava bubbles, detonating with loud noise, and throwing large bombs up to 1 km in spherical directions above the crater. This activity slowly waned until dawn. While the fountains lasted, the crater wall was completely covered by incandescent lava, but later on, when this cover became less dense, an interesting feature became visible: A lava-dome-like incandescent 10-20 m wide and ca. 5 m high rectangular area half way up on the S side of the crater cone, which was feeding a small lava flow of cascading lava rocks could be seen; it remained active until dawn. [less]
Am 15 November hält Tobias Schorr in der VHS Remagen um 19:00 einen Lichtbildervortrag über die Vulkaninsel Milos in Griechenland. ...more
Tobias Schorr stellt in seinen Fotos die Natur & Kultur der Insel, sowie die Bodenschätze der Vulkaninsel Milos vor. Seit etwa 11000 Jahren wird auf Milos Obsidian (vulkanisches Glas) abgebaut und im östlichen Mittelmeerraum vermarktet. In der prähistorischen Stadt Phylakopi wurden zum ersten Mal Messer und andere Geräte aus diesem Material geschaffen. [less]
An eruption warning has been issued for Lokon volcano on North Sulawesi near Manado town. Increased seismic activity, and increasing emission of steam and ash have been observed from Tompaluan crater. Authorities are evacuating the nearby populated areas. ...more
A small Small jokulhlaup (glacial flood) has occurred at Katla volcano early on 9 July, possibly due to a (minor phreatic?) eruption under the large icecap covering the volcano. [read all]
A powerful paroxysm occurred at the vent SE of the SE crater of Etna volcano during the afternoon of July 9, 2011, and was observed close-up by Tom Pfeiffer. The eruption started with approximately 8 hours of slowly increasing strombolian activity, accompanied by increasing tremor since the morning of 9 July. Towards 14h30 h local time, the intensity rapidly increased into high lava fountaining lasting for ca. 1.5-2 hrs, generating a tall tephra column and producing heavy ash fall S-SE of the summit area. The eruption waned at around 17h00 and stopped around 18h00. A large lava flow with several branches went down into the Valle del Bove. ...more
At 1 km distance, near Belvedere, approximately 1 meter of scoria lapilli and bombs were deposited, the upper parts of the dirt road towards Torre del Filosofo were completely buried and only recognizeable by the deliminating marker sticks at the sides of it. Although not in the main direction of the ash fall, the airport of Catania was temporarily closed due to ash fall. Tom, together with Marco Fulle (VolcanoDiscovery Team), Giovanni Tomarchio (Rai 1), Etna mountain guides and other people watched the eruption from as close as safely possible from locations west of the bomb rain. [less]
You can watch the developing activity on Etna volcano over the last two hours. Increasing seismic activity and ash eruptions to Strombolian eruptions... Tom Pfeiffer is still near the eruption. [read all]
Tom Pfeiffer reports an increasing seismic activity and the possibility of a new paroxysm on Etna volcano. The activity is increasing in the last two hours. More reports later... [read all]
Our partners on Stromboli told us, that today morning ca. 3:00 there was an strong eruption that covered the summit with lapilli and also set on fire plants around the volcano. The crater summit ist closed for public due to safety reasons. [read all]
A strong eruption is occurring at Soputan volcano on North Sulawesi. Local news report that the volcano erupted a column of ash ("ash and smoke") of 5 km height earlier today (Sunday, 3 July). The Darwin VAAC even reports an ash plume at FL 460 (46,000 ft, ca. 14 km), which would be in fact indicating a major eruption. The ash plume is extending ca. 300 km to the west. [read all]
Seismic activity on Santorini during the past weeks
There are signs of a possible awakening of the Santorini volcano: During the past weeks, an increased number of small earthquakes has been occurring beneath and near Santorini. The quakes (most of them below magnitude 3) are concentrated beneath the center of the caldera and in a broad SW-NE zone crossing Santorini corresponding to the active volcanic trend of the island group. ...more
The Institute of Geodynamics (National Observatory, Athens) has added 4 automatic seismometers in various locations on Santorini to increase the monitoring of the volcano. It is far too early to conclude that new activity on Santorini is likely take place any time soon, but Santorini is a highly active volcano. Its last eruptions were in 1866-70, 1925-28, 1939-41, and 1950. [less]
