Volcanic activity world-wide 27-28 August 2012: Soputan, El Hierro, Popocatépetl, Nevado del Ruiz, Batu Tara, Sakurajima, Ambrym

A new strong eruption occurred at Soputan volcano in North Sulawesi Sunday night. The eruption lasted about 4 hours and produced an ash column of 5 km height. No reports of damage of the eruption are known. People are advised not to approach or climb the volcano within 6 km radius, and to wear face masks in case of ash fall.

The number of of earthquakes at El Hierro seems to continue to increase slowly. Yesterday, there were 17 earthquakes, mostly at 10 km depth clustered in a N-S zone beneath the western El Golfo coast. Currently, there is no tremor associated with this activity.

Not much has changed at Popocatépetl volcano. A slight increase in the frequency of small explosions to about 1 or 2 per hour can be noted. Some of the explosions produce not only steam, but some ash, and the more powerful ones eject glowing material falling back into the crater.

Weak tremor pulses lasting about 4 hours, and a series of small earthquakes between 19:00 and 19:30 were recorded on 26 Aug. SO2 emission remains high.

Nevado del Ruiz volcano: Steam and ash emissions accompanied by a near-constant weak tremor signal continue. At 16:22 p.m. on 27 Aug, a 2.0 earthquake occurred at 3 km depth beneath Arenas crater.

Tungurahua volcano's activity is moderate judged from seismicity, but due to near-constant cloud cover difficult to assess. No larger explosions have occurred over the past 2 days and no ash fall was recorded. At las 20h27 local time on 26 Aug, a small volcanic quake was felt in the Cusúa and Juive Grande sectors.
At the time of writing, a strongly rising tremor signal is visible, possibly associated with new explosions and ash emissions.

Satellite observations:

Batu Tara (Sunda Islands, Indonesia) erupted more ash clouds rising to 1.8 km altitude yesterday (6,000 ft).

Sakurajima volcano on Kyushu (Japan) remains at relatively low levels, and only produced 2 weaker explosions during the past 2 days.

A strong SO2 plume from Ambrym volcano on Vanuatu on today's NOAA satellite image, suggesting lots of lava lake activity there.