Popocatepetl volcano news & eruption update

Popocatépetl volcano (Mexico) activity update: occasional moderate explosions

No significant changes have occurred during the past weeks at the volcano. Magma is slowly rising and growing a flat dome in the inner summit crater. Trapped, pressurized gasses cause small to moderate explosions with more or less intense ash emissions from time to time, typically a few per day:

Unfavorable wind conditions drifted ash plumes over Puebla's airport yesterday, prompting its temporary closure between yesterday afternoon and this morning.
During the past 24 hours, CENAPRED recorded 8 explosions, the strongest of which at 01:50 local time ejected many incandescent bombs to up to 900 m on the NE flank.
Two phases of combined 13 hours of weak, continuous volcanic tremor accompanied the activity. The alert status of the volcano remains unchanged at "yellow phase 2".

Background:

Volcán Popocatépetl, whose name is the Aztec word for smoking mountain, towers to 5426 m 70 km SE of Mexico City to form North America's 2nd-highest volcano.  The glacier-clad stratovolcano contains a steep-walled, 250-450 m deep crater.  The generally symmetrical volcano is modified by the sharp-peaked Ventorrillo on the NW, a remnant of an earlier volcano. 
At least three previous major cones were destroyed by gravitational failure during the Pleistocene, producing massive debris-avalanche deposits covering broad areas south of the volcano.  The modern volcano was constructed to the south of the late-Pleistocene to Holocene El Fraile cone.  Three major plinian eruptions, the most recent of which took place about 800 AD, have occurred from Popocatépetl since the mid Holocene, accompanied by pyroclastic flows and voluminous lahars that swept basins below the volcano.  Frequent historical eruptions, first recorded in Aztec codices, have occurred since precolumbian time.

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Source: GVP, Smithsonian Institution - Popocatepetl information

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