Egon volcano news:

Egon volcano (Flores Island, Indonesia): seismic unrest decreases, alert level lowered

Volcanic unrest has decreased at the volcano, making the likelihood of an impending eruption smaller. The volcano's alert level was lowered from 3 to 2 (on a scale of 1-4).

from the Smithsonian / USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report 27 January-2 February 2016:
"During 20 January-1 February seismicity at Egon was dominated by signals indicating emissions; shallow volcanic events had decreased.
RSAM values increased on 25 January but did not exceed values detected during the previous peak on 12 January; overall seismicity had declined. The Alert Level was lowered to 2 (on a scale of 1-4) and residents were advised to stay at least 1.5 km away from the crater."

Background

1703-m-high Gunung Egon volcano is one of the active volcanoes of Flores. After about a century of being dormant, the volcano came suddenly back to  live in 2004, triggering the evacuation of about 7000 people.

The barren, sparsely vegetated summit region has a 350-m-wide, 200-m-deep crater that sometimes contains a lake.  Other small crater lakes occur on the flanks of the cone. A lava dome forms the southern summit. Solfataric activity occurs on the crater wall and rim and on the upper southern flank.   Reports of historical eruptive activity prior to explosive eruptions in 2004 are inconclusive.  A column of "smoke" (ash?)was often observed above the summit during 1888-1891 and in 1892.  Strong "smoke" emission in 1907 reported in 1917 was considered by the Catalog of Active Volcanoes of the World (Neumann van Padang, 1951) to be an historical eruption, but it is likely that it had been confused with an eruption on the same date and time from Lewotobi Lakilaki volcano.

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Adapted from GVP, Smithsonian Institution

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