Volcanoes
S


Hardhat

Hekla volcano in Iceland shaken by earthquake swarm

Image
Small earthquake swarms occurred at shallow depths during the past days near the volcano. The quakes were located approx. 6-10 km south of Hekla volcano and at shallow depths around 5 km.
The largest quakes were two magnitude 2.6 events at 4 km depth on Thursday (9 April). It is impossible to say whether the earthquakes are linked to volcanic activity and thus might be precursors of a new eruption, but Hekla is probably the most likely candidate volcano for the next eruption to occur on Iceland.
Image
One of the country's most active, and the most frequently erupting volcano, Hekla has been believed to be "due" and have its magma chamber filled for several years now. Known for not giving much precursory signals (and only few earthquakes), an eruption would not be a surprise at all.

Kliuchevskoi (Kamchatka): After less than two weeks pause, the volcano started to erupt again - mild strombolian explosions at the summit crater and small ash emissions.

Attention

Mount Zao volcano shaken by swarm of twelve earthquakes

Image
Mt Zao
Fears of fresh eruption of Mount Zao, a volcano that sits on the border of the Yamagata and Miyagi prefectures, rattled Japan after the country's meteorological agency recorded 12 volcanic earthquakes on Tuesday.

The seismic activity prompted warnings of a volcanic eruption, with the agency asking the public to stay safe from falling rocks in a 1.2 km radius of the volcano, The Japan Times reported.

The agency said that ash from the eruption can even reach beyond the radius, causing panic after last year's deadly volcanic eruption of Mount Ontake, which erupted without warning on 27 September and killed 60 people.

The meteorological agency has advised neighbouring towns to raise alert levels in the areas close to the volcano.

The warning will affect business at a popular ski resort, as well as mountain trails and restaurants.

Arrow Up

Peru's Ubinas volcano explodes, spreads ashes over nearby villages

Image
© Peru21/USIThe Ubinas volcano erupted this morning at 4:24 a.m.
The Ubinas volcano erupted early this morning, sprinkling ashes over villages only minutes later.

Nearly on the anniversary of the evacuation of 28 thousand camelids from its pastures, the Ubinas volcano erupts once again.

The Ubinas volcano of the Moquegua region erupted this morning at 4:24 a.m. causing a layer of ash to fall over nearby villages minutes later, according to Perú21.

On March 31, 2014, the volcano's eruption caused Querapi residents to be evacuated as it sits just five kilometers from the volcano. Days later on April 21, Peru ordered the evacuation of the camelid animals, as the volcano posed a threat following further activity.

Today the Ubinas volcano erupted after about four months of calm. The National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology of Peru (SENAMHI) calculated that the 2.5 km column of ash above the crater could reach more than 15 kilometers to the southeast.

Escacha and Ubinas Valley therefore will be receiving a layer of ash on their homes, cars, sidewalks, and buidlings today following the eruption.

Scientific institutions advise that the local populations protect themselves with masks and goggles and to protect water resources and food to prevent contamination.

Attention

Turrialba Volcano erupts again spewing hot rocks and ash 2 kilometers high

Turrialba Volcano is at it again.

The Volcanological and Seismological Observatory (OVSICORI) released video Tuesday of an eruption at 2:07 a.m., when a column of hot rocks and ash rocketed out of the colossus. The eruption sent ash 2 kilometers into the air.

The eruption's most dramatic moment comes 14 seconds into the video when a rush of heat from the crater flashes white on the screen.

Ash and sulphur smells from the eruption were reported as far away as Cuidad Quesada and across Alajuela, Escazú, Heredia and Curridabat, among other places. See the map from OVSICORI for more details:

A crowdsourced map of ash and sulphur smells from the April 7, 2015 eruption at Turrialba Volcano.
Image
Click here to participate in OVSICORI's ash/sulphur survey (in Spanish).

Comment: Turrialba Volcano spews more ash over Costa Rica's Central Valley


Blue Planet

Turrialba Volcano spews more ash over Costa Rica's Central Valley

Update 2:31 p.m., April 5: Police Chief Juan José Andrade confirms that police are evacuating tourists in areas surrounding Turrialba Volcano. Police were forced to evacuate a group of tourists that had attempted to approach the volcano to watch the explosion.
Image
© OVSICORITurrialba Volcano begins another ash eruption at approximately 11:25 a.m. on April 5, 2015.
Geologists with the National University's Volcanological and Seismological Observatory (OVSICORI) reported another ash eruption from Turrialba Volcano starting at 11:24 a.m. Sunday and lasting for an hour. The eruption is the latest in a string of blasts since October from the active volcano, located 50 kilometers northeast of the capital San José.

According to OVSICORI, the column of ash reached 500 meters into the sky over the volcano and rained large quantities of ash onto nearby farms. As of 1:30 p.m. the volcano was still emitting large quantities of gas and vapor though very little ash. Winds have carried the volcanic dust southwest where it has reached the outskirts of the capital. There are reports of large quantities of ash East of San José in Tres Ríos and San Pedro as well as in the western suburb of Escazú.

OVSICORI's equipment also registered a small, three-minute tremor at the time of the eruption.

Comment: See also:


Umbrella

Chile's Villarrica volcano explodes to life again

After a short period of rest, the Villarrica volcano in southern Chile recently exploded to life again, sending a plume of boiling ash high into the atmosphere.
Image
© NASA/USGS
The eruption triggered an increase in the alert level near the volcano to orange, the second highest rating.

The 2860-metre-high snow-capped stratovolcano, located 750 kilometres south of the capital Santiago, is one of the most active in Chile.

The latest series of eruptions began on 7 February with several minor explosions and ash plumes triggering a yellow alert.

A further pre-dawn eruption on 3 March sparked the evacuation of thousands of people from within a 10-kilometre radius of the volcano.

That eruption covered the mountain's eastern flank with a huge volume of volcanic material.

Villarrica is one of Chile's most active volcanoes with at least 66 recorded eruptions since the arrival of Europeans.

This image of Villarrica's latest eruption was taken from an altitude of about 700 kilometres by the Advanced Land Imager onboard NASA's EO-1 satellite on 18 March, 2015.

Bizarro Earth

Are we ready for the next volcanic catastrophe?

Eric Worrall writes: The Guardian has published an unusually interesting article about the danger to our civilisation, of a new Tambora scale volcanic eruption.
Mt. Tambora
© WattsUpWithThat
According to Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL;
"In April 1815, the biggest known eruption of the historical period blew apart the Tambora volcano, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, 12,000km from the UK. What happened next testifies to the enormous reach of the biggest volcanic blasts.

The Tambora volcano had shown no signs of life for 1,000 years; a single eruption in the previous five millennia provided the only indication that magma was still churning far beneath. It is very likely that the residents of the island considered the volcano extinct, and possible even that they did not know the impressive 4,300m (14,107ft) mountain - at the time, probably the highest in the East Indies - was a volcano at all. This all changed, however, with the rumblings and earthquakes of 1812, a full three years before the climactic blast. Over time, the seismic shocks were superseded by steam blasts and small ash explosions, engendering increasing trepidation on the island and signalling that something bigger might be imminent. It was. On 5 April 1815, a titanic explosion hurled a cloud of ash to a height of more than 30km."
...

The consequences for the developed societies of the northern hemisphere were dire. A dry, sulphurous, fog draped itself across the landscape of eastern North America, causing temperatures to plunge and bringing unprecedented summer cold. In New York State, snow fell in June, while the bitter cold and killing frosts wiped out crops and halved the length of the growing season across much of the region. On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe saw summer temperatures down by 2C compared to the average for the decade; the unseasonal cold accompanied by incessant rains and - into the following winter - by unusually powerful storms. Analysis of climate records reveals that 1816, the so-called "year without a summer", was the second coldest in the northern hemisphere of the past six centuries."

Read the rest of the article here.

Attention

Mexico's Colima volcano: strong explosion with pyroclastic flows

Strong explosions continue to occur. An eruption at 08:20 local time this morning produced several pyroclastic flows that traveled down the western flank of the volcano.


Arrow Up

Increased seismic activity reported at Aleutian Islands' Semisopochnoi volcano

Image
© Roger CliffordSemisopochnoi Island, in November 2012.
Citing increased seismic intensity, the U.S. Geological Survey is upgrading the volcano alert level status for Semisopochnoi, an Aleutian Island volcano, to "advisory," the agency said in a notice issued Wednesday morning.

Seismic activity at the Semisopochnoi volcano began in January, but "has increased in intensity over the past few days," USGS wrote in the notice. "In addition, we have detected brief periods of seismic tremor, which can indicate movement of magma or magmatic gases."

Semisopochnoi is remote even by Alaska standards. It lies on an island of the same name some 127 miles from Adak and 1,283 miles from Anchorage.

Umbrella

Orange alert issued by Chilean government as Villarrica volcano leaks steady plumes of ash, smoke

  • The volcano erupted earlier this month, triggering evacuations of thousands of people, including tourists
  • Residents in Pucon, a resort town near the volcano, were fearful that clouds of smoke could signal another eruption was on its way
  • The March eruption was Villarrica's first major eruption since 1984
Image
A steady stream of smoke and ash being released from the Villarrica volcano.
A steady stream of smoke and ash leaking from the Villarrica volcano has residents of a nearby town wondering if - or when - disaster might strike.

Chilean officials raised threat levels to orange on Wednesday due to increasing signs of activity in the 2840-meter tall volcano, leaving area residents fearful of an eruption.

'No one can sleep peacefully because the other day the eruption surprised us at 3 in the morning,' said Francisco Valenzuela, a tour guide in the nearby resort town of Pucon.

'The tourists are also a little uncertain,' Valenzuela said. 'Could something happen today? Could something happen tomorrow?'

The BBC reports that local authorities canceled classes for the more than 5,500 students in the area.

Many of the residents in towns and communities surrounding the volcano had to be evacuated earlier in the month, when lava and smoke erupted from the peak in the early hours of the morning.

'It was spewing lava and ash hundreds of meters into the air,' 29-year-old Australian tourist Travis Armstrong said. 'Lightning was striking down at the volcano from the ash cloud that formed from the eruption.'
Image