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| Lava fountains at Fuego |
February 10, 2016 - EARTH - The following constitutes the new activity, unrest and ongoing reports of volcanoes across the globe.
Fuego (Guatemala): A new paroxysm (the 3rd this year) is occurring at the volcano. Over the past days, strombolian and effusive activity had gradually increased into now pulsating lava fountains and well-alimented lava flows.
The latter are mostly traveling down the southeastern flank into the large Las Lajas canyon where they have reached approx. 2 km length. Another flow seems to be active on the southern slope towards the Trinidad drainage.
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| MODIS thermal signal from Fuego (MIROVA) |
Most likely this activity will result in pyroclastic flows, as parts of the lava flows on the steep slope tend to collapse.
Sakurajima (Japan): It seems that the volcano is back to its typical activity of intermittent explosions at irregular intervals mostly ranging between few hours or even days. Following the explosion on 5 Feb, several others, mostly weaker ones, have occurred during the past days. Ash plumes recorded rose to 5-10,000 ft (1.5-3 km) altitude.
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| Small explosion at Sakurajima. |
JMA published a report (in Japanese) which shows that the decrease of activity which started to be noticeable last summer and led to the apparent pause in explosions Oct - Jan seems to correlate with a change in deformation. Around August, the year-long steady inflation stopped and changed to rapid deflation over a few weeks' period. This trend stopped and inflation began again around October.
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| Thermal images of Sakurajima's craters (Kita-dake, l, and Showa crater,
r) between December 2, 2015 (bottom) and February 6, 2016 (top) showing the presence of elevated temperatures in the Showa crater Feb (JMA) |
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| Deformation plots of several GPS stations (JMA) |
A comparison of thermal images of the crater between 2 December 2015 and 6 February show elevated temperatures in the Showa crater, likely because of the presence of magma in the conduit closer to the surface.
Zhupanovsky (Kamchatka): Activity of the volcano has picked up again recently. Several explosions occurred during the past days at the volcano, generating ash plumes that rose to approx. 22,000 ft (7 km) altitude and drifted ESE.
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| Ash plume (its deposit on snow) from Zhupanovsky. |
On a satellite image from this morning, the darker trace of ash from Zhupanovsky (and from nearby Karymsky volcano) is clearly visible on white snow covering Kamchatka at the moment.
Karymsky (Kamchatka): Explosions at the volcano have been relatively frequent recently and often intense enough to be detected on satellite imagery, monitored by Tokyo's VAAC (Volcanic Ash Advisory Center).
Karymsky, the most active volcano of Kamchatka's eastern volcanic zone, is a symmetrical stratovolcano constructed within a 5-km-wide caldera that formed during the early Holocene. The caldera cuts the south side of the Pleistocene Dvor volcano and is located outside the north margin of the large mid-Pleistocene Polovinka caldera, which contains the smaller Akademia Nauk and Odnoboky calderas.
Most seismicity preceding Karymsky eruptions originated beneath Akademia Nauk caldera, which is located immediately south of Karymsky volcano. The caldera enclosing Karymsky volcano formed about 7600-7700 radiocarbon years ago; construction of the Karymsky stratovolcano began about 2000 years later. The latest eruptive period began about 500 years ago, following a 2300-year quiescence. Much of the cone is mantled by lava flows less than 200 years old. Historical eruptions have been vulcanian or vulcanian-strombolian with moderate explosive activity and occasional lava flows from the summit crater.
- Volcano Discovery .
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