Worldwide Volcano News and Updates
As the Geophysical Institute of Quito reports, strombolian activity at Tungurahua volcano and its seismicity have been increasing over the past days. On 28 June, 86 explosions were counted by the seismic network. In nearby villages, strong pressure waves could be felt from some of the explosions. A weak steam and ash plume is present over the summit and during the night, incandescent blocks are seen to be thrown out of the crater to heights of approximately 100 meters.
Karymski volcano remains the most active volcano on Kamchatka with frequent strong strombolian to vulcanian-type explosions producing ash plumes up to 3-4 km altitude.
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During the past weeks and months, Stromboli has continued to show extraordinarily high activity as several groups of VolcanoDiscovery have observed.
During a visit on 24 June, 9 active vents were counted: two active vents in the NW crater (towards Ginostra), one of which exploded with tremendous noise every 20-30 minutes, throwing powerful jets of burning gas followed by large amounts of spatter to heights of up to 3-400 m, showering the OUTER rims of the crater terrace. A neighboring vent, a few meters away from it, is normally not visible, but when it erupted, it had the appearance of the ground opening and emitting glowing ash that slowy rose, blackened and created small ash plumes.
In the central crater, 4 visible glowing vents and one hidden behind the wall were active, the most prominent being the tall cone in the NE corner of the complex. The NE cone was spattering constantly, throwing spatter to considerable 50-100 m height. This activity was interupted every 5-10 minutes by strong, hissing fountains lasting up to 20 seconds, and thowing incandescent material to up to about 250 height. At times, the force of the fountain activated a second vent next to it, on the SE side of the cone, apparently serving as an additional valve whenever the output rate during the fountains from the cone itself becomes too large. Two other vents in the central crater complex were large, constantly glowing holes, but showed only occasional weak spattering and erupted only rarely strombolian bursts of spatter to 100-150 m height. A fith vent is not visible from Pizzo, but on a visit on 15 June, it was observed to erupt spatter occasionally to about 100 m height (about once per hour).On 25 of June, it was not erupting.
Last, there were two active vents in the NE crater (towards the village of Stromboli), one of which erupts spectacularly about every 20-30 minutes, throwing lots of incandescent bombs towards the E, showering the outer crater slope with bombs. These eruptions also produced dense ash clouds.
Etna continues its worrying slumber. After an isolated phreatic explosive event in January, the diafragma separating Bocca Nuova crater and the Voragine (the former Central crater) as well as the wall separating the two craters inside Bocca Nuova have mostly collapsed, leaving what is now best described as one single central crater with several pits and vents at considerable depth.
Several VolcanoDiscovery groups visited Etna on various occasions over the past weeks, and found strong degassing taking place from fractures in the walls and the bottoms of the various vents inside the central crater, as well as audible but deep-seated explosive activity inside North-East crater.
The eruption of Merapi is increasing in intensity and has claimed the first deaths: Two people were killed on Wednesday 14 June, 2006, by a particularly strong pyroclastic flow that reached the area, travelling almost 7 km from the summit. The two men managed to run into a shelter at the village of Kaliadem, east of Kinahrejo near Bebeng, on the SE flank of the volcano, but were trapped inside because flow covered the shelter with about 2 meters of hot deposits. Although they survived for a while, the heat of the deposits effectively baked them to death. Recue workers tried for over 24 hours to free them, interrupted only when new pyroclastic flows were theatening to reach the area again. When the shelter was dug out free, they could only find the dead bodies. The flow also damaged some buildings, which is the first time, the eruption affected structures and villages as well.
Read allAfter less than 24 hours, the alert level of Merapi volcano has been raised back again to the highest status of 4 on June 14, 2006. The decision followed a marked increase in activity with more frequent and longer pyroclastic flows travelling up to 3 km down the SW and SE flanks of the volcano.
Karymsky volcano remains the most active volcano on Kamchatka, with strong strombolian to vulcanian activity, often producing ash-loaden plumes reaching 4-5 km altitude.
Weak activity continues at Kanlaon volcano: Between 3 and 12 June, 4 small phreatic explosions occurred at the summit crater of Kanlaon volcano (3 June, 10 June, 2 times on 12 June). The explosions produced mainly steam and gas as well as small quantities of ash to heights up to 1000 m. Light ash-fall occurred on the upper slopes of the volcano. An exclusion zone of 4 km around the crater is being maintained. --->more on Kanlaon volcano
Read allMerapi has quieted down a bit after part of the lava dome collapsed on Friday evening. Less numbers and smaller pyroclastic flows have been recorded since the event that removed approximately 1/3 of the lava dome. As a result, VSI has downgraded the alert status from 4 to 3 on 13 June 2006 at 11.00 WIB.
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Volcanic activity at Merapi continues to increase gradually since the earthquake of 27 May 2006, with the growing lava dome shedding glowing lava avalanches and pyroclastic flows that increase in number.
Read allMerapi continues to be in an elevated state of activity; the dome continues to grow and shed pyroclastic flows of small to moderate size (up to 3-4 km) down its SW and SE flanks. It now over 100 m high and an estimated 150-200,000 cubic meters are added per day, reduced by the volume of the pyroclastic flows. The risk of a major dome collapse increases. Authorities are warning residents to enter the 7 km exclusion zones, and try to forcefully evacuate some of the most exposed areas.
Read allLocal newspapers report that the eruption at Karthala volcano already has ended, with the lava lake being crusted over and seismicity having decreased to background levels on the afternoon of June, 1st, 2006.
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Piton de la Fournaise volcano might have an eruption in the near future.
As the volcano observatory (OVPF) reports, seismicity continues to be extraordinarily high, after it had started to increase dramatically from around 12 of April, 2006, reaching a peak around 15 of May and decreasing slightly after that date. Both extensionmeters and GPS measurements show an marked inflation of the volcano: monitored fissures near the summit cone have opened by 0.12-0.15 mm and the summit crater has extended about 5 cm and risen between 1-3 cm.
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Source: OVPF (Observatoire Volcanologique du Piton de la Fournaise)
After a period of heightened activity during and following the 27 May, 2006, earthquake that took more than 6000 lifes in the Yogyakarta area, Merapi continues to emit glowing avalanches and pyroclastic flows travelling up to 2-3 km from the summit.
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The lava lake at the crater bottom is still active, alimented by one or two fountains. No lateral fissures have opened and the amount of gas and ash released is small.
As our correspondant Donald Tapehe from Manado reports, Soputan is getting restless: "Also Mt. Soputan has been showing activity. The local government has determined to raise alert status for all people who live near Mt. Soputan. One week ago my friend (a climber) told me that he saw yellow/brown smoke on the peak of Mt. Soputan from the caldera. Now, it's difficult to take breathe at the campsite, because of the poisonous gasses which blow up from the old crater."
As our correspondant Donald Tapehe reports on 1st of June, 2006, Lokon volcano near Manado is showing signs of unrest: "Four days ago I saw unaccustomed thing on it. Burned grass around the crater can be seen from Tomohon town."
Bulusan volcano had a small eruption this morning at 08h17 local time, producing an ash plume at 3 km altitude drifting SW (Source : VAAC Tokyo)
On 29 May at 09h08 local time, an ash and gas plume rose to 5-6 km altitude above the new lava dome of Mt. St. Helens. As CVO reports, the event was not caused by explosive activity, but rather intense degassing and a partial collapse of the new lava dome, accompanied by a quake of magnitude 3.1.
A new eruption at Karthala volcano started on the evening of Sunday 28 May 2006 at 18h05 local time. Fresh magma has formed a lava lake inside Chungu Chahalé crater in the caldera. Different from the last eruptions in 2005, no explosive activity was reported at the beginning of the eruption, only a thick plume of gas and steam above the crater, extending 60 km to the northwest. The absence of explosive activity can be explained because the crater contained no water.
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Activity at Merapi has been declining over the past days, although the lava dome is still active and probably growing. The summit of the new dome is higher than the previous summit of Merapi, whose total height now must have reached 3000 m. During the last nights, we observed no true pyroclastic flows, but frequent small to medium avalanches of glowing rock, travelling up to about 500-700m down two narrow channels on the S and SE sides.
At about 11 am local time of May 20, 2006, a large dome collapse accompanied by a large explosion occurred at Soufrière Hills volcano, producing an ash column of more than 50,000 ft height (about 18 km). The plume is drifting SW and caused planes to divert their route. Pyroclastic flows down the tar river valley reaching the sea. Flows have also broken out of the former crater to the east and have been seen down to Spanish point and Truants. Ash has been falling in Salem, Olde Town and Olveston.
Read allThe strong strombolian-vulcanian activity at Tungurahua volcano that has been going on over the past weeks reached a peak during a strong explosion on 10h45 local time on 19 May, 2006, that produced an ash plume rising to 12 km as the VAAC Washington reports.
Tungurahua remains in a very active phase. On Wed. 17th of May, 2006, several moderately strong explosions took place producing ash plumes of 3 km height.
After a peak in activity on Monday 15th, when pyroclastic flows were produced that reached 4 km from the summit, the volcano has quieted down a bit, but still produces pyroclastic flows travelling 2-2.5 km length.
Read allAccording to reports from local correspondants, activity at Stromboli's craters is very strong these days, with frequent and tall explosions from several of the active vents. Marco and a small group of VolcanoDiscovery are on their way to Stromboli to get a picture.
Piton de La Fournaise volcano is showing signs of a possible eruption in the near future.Since beginning of April, the vólcano observatory has been measuring an increasing number of earthquakes, reaching 20 events per day now, but of weak intensity. The permanent GPS stations show a widening of the crater of Dolomieu of 2.5 cm has taken place. La Fournaise´s last eruption was frmo 26 Dec.2006 - 19 Jan. 2006.
Read allThe alert level for Merapi has been raised to the highest level 4 ("RED") at 8h30 local time, meaning that volcanologissts expect a major eruption imminent and advise to authorities to immediately evacuate a number of areas most likely to be affected by pyroclastic flows. Some small pyroclastic flows have already been reported on the south flank.
Read allFrom the Jakarta Post: "Vice President Jusuf Kalla called on local administrations to immediately evacuate residents living near the slopes of Mt. Merapi. "I am calling for the immediate evacuation of at least 50 percent of residents from danger areas," Kalla said after a closed-door meeting with officials from local administrations around Mt. Merapi. The meeting was held in the Central Java town of Magelang. Some 30,000 residents would have to be evacuated from Mt. Merapi if the volcano erupts" (Comment: or, alert is raised to 4, the highest level).
An eruption is considered imminent.
The two active lava flows have become weaker and shorter over the past days. The flow down Río Ceniza only reaches about 100 m length and the other one descending Taniluyá seems to be no longer or only weakly alimentated, although a new pulse might have started in the afternoon of 9 May.
Occasional small strombolian explosions form ash and steam plumes of ~400 a 700 m height and throw incandescent material onto the SW and SE flanks of the volcano.
The Santiaguito lava dome remains moderately active, producing near-constant, small glowing avalanches at the SW side of the dome, and occasional small explosions producing ash and steam plumes of 0.4-1.2 km height.
Read allPacaya volcano remains active producing a lava flow that travels, partly in a 0.5-1.5 m wide tube, about 500 m down the NNE flank of the summit cone. White steam and gas plumes are rising about 300 m ober the summit.
Read allThe large explosive eruption at Bezymianny lasted only shortly as typical for large explosions. Seismic activity returned to background levels from 12:00 UTC on May 09, few hours after its beginning. Small fumarolic plumes were observing in the early morning of May 10. Probably a lava flow began to effuse at the lava dome.
Read allA large explosive eruption occurred this morning at Bezymianny volcano, beginning at 08h21 local time. An ash plume reaching 15km altitude was formed, drifting south and southeast.
The lava dome inside Mt. St. Helens'crater continues to grow. It has been forming a giant, spectacular spine, about 300 ft high and growing at about 4-5 in (ca. 12-15cm) per day.
The park has reopened the Johnston Ridge Observatory viewing point.
Lopevi volcano is in a more active state as pilot overservations suggest. Ash is visible at about 3 km altitude and small lava flows have been observed on the volcano's eastern flank.
Bezymianny's alert level was raised to RED, meaning that there is important ongoing eruptive activity and that there is a considerable risk of larger explosions and pyroclastic flows in the near future. KVERT registered a marked increase in shallow seismic activity, an increased number of glowing rockfalls from the lava dome, strong fumarolic activity and a strong thermal anomaly is seen from satellite.
The phreatic activity at Ubinas volcano that started in April 2006 seems to be ceasing.
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The lava dome continues to grow at the southern sector of the crater and the danger of proclastic flows by dome collapse increases. A plume of gas, sometimes accompanied by ash emissions rises 500-800m above the crater. The most endangered areas are thought to be Klaten and Magelang.
A lava flow emerging from the new growing lava dome at Merapi volcano has been reported. The dome has an estimated volume of 2.4 million m3, comparable to the situation in 1992. VSI warns that collapse of the dome could produce pyroclastic flows travelling up to 8 km into the valley of Gendol, Boyong and Woro, comprising an area with over 25000 inhabitants in more than 80 villages.
Evacuation of people and lifestock (with markings applied to animals showing their owners) continues at elevated speed.
