Volcano news & eruption updates: Barren Island
Barren Island (India): steam/ash plume and thermal anomaly
Wednesday Feb 03, 2016 10:10 AM | BY: T
Steam / ash plume and thermal hot spot at Barren Island on 1 Feb 2016 (MODIS / VIIRS Nasa imagery)
Minor eruptive activity (possibly strombolian) seems to continue on the remote island, at least intermittently.
Yesterday and the day before, a weak steam and possibly ash plume was visible on satellite imagery as well as a thermal hot spot.
- All news about: Barren Island volcano
- Information about: Barren Island volcano
Previous news
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Monday, Nov 23, 2015
With all likelihood, the volcano continues to be in eruption. It is very remote and rarely directly observed, but satellite imagery regularly show albeit weak thermal signals - again present more or less continuously since August and more frequent since October this year. ...
[more]
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Wednesday, Aug 19, 2015
An ash plume was reported this morning, at estimated 5,000 ft (1.5 km) altitude, extending 50 km to the east from the island (VAAC Darwin). This suggests that a new phase of activity is occurring at the volcano. ... [more]
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Saturday, Jun 06, 2015
A steam and ash plume at estimated 10,000 ft (3 km) altitude and extending 35 km to the east from the volcano was detected yesterday on MTSAT satellite imagery (VAAC Darwin). ... [more]
Monday, Apr 27, 2015
A pilot reported an ash plume rising to 10,000 ft from the volcano. Likely, eruptive activity which had produced a new lava flow in March is still going on or has resumed. [more]
Sunday, Apr 05, 2015
An eruption occurred in mid to late March with strombolian explosions and the effusion of a lava flow from the central cone. [more]
Background:
Barren Island, a possession of India in the Andaman Sea about 135 km NE of Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, is the only historically active volcano along the N-S-trending volcanic arc extending between Sumatra and Burma (Myanmar). The 354-m-high island is the emergent summit of a volcano that rises from a depth of about 2250 m. The small, uninhabited 3-km-wide island contains a roughly 2-km-wide caldera with walls 250-350 m high. The caldera, which is open to the sea on the west, was created during a major explosive eruption in the late Pleistocene that produced pyroclastic-flow and -surge deposits. The morphology of a fresh pyroclastic cone that was constructed in the center of the caldera has varied during the course of historical eruptions. Lava flows fill much of the caldera floor and have reached the sea along the western coast during eruptions in the 19th century and more recently in 1991 and 1995.---
Source: GVP, Smithsonian Institution
