Popocatepetl volcano news & eruption update
Popocatépetl volcano (Mexico): elevated activity, 5 explosions during 29-30 June 2019
CENAPRED reported that the strongest explosions, vulcanian-style, ejected incandescent fragments to up to 1000 m height and more than 1000 m distance, often covering the upper slopes of the volcano with glowing material. Ash plumes rose up to 8000 m above sea level.
The monitoring network also recorded a small volcano-tectonic earthquake with a magnitude of 2.0 as well as 89 minutes of volcanic tremor.
There are no reports of dome growth at the moment, suggesting that magma rising to the summit is ejected rather quickly by those explosions instead of piling up in a dome.
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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
