Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity

Chikurachki (Paramushir Island): The new eruptive phase, detected through satellite images since yesterday, continues. Ash emissions have increased today and form a plume stretching about 50 km to the NE and reaching the southern tip of Kamchatka. Tokyo VAAC estimates the altitude of the plume which is moving at 35 knots to be at 10,000 ft (3 km).

Santiaguito (Guatemala): The volcano's activity remains very high. Another strong explosion occurred at the Caliente dome yesterday morning at 08:08 local time. Similar in size as the previous one two days earlier, it was accompanied by heavy ballistic bombardment of the cone and its surroundings and generated pyroclastic flows. The resulting ash plume rose to es, approx. 18,000 ft (6 km) altitude and drifted NW into the border region with Mexico before dissipating.

Shiveluch volcano (Kamchatka): The activity of the volcano remains essentially unchanged at currently low to moderate levels. The slow growth of the lava dome continues as viscous (sticky) lava accumulates in the dome. A (small) part of the inherently unstable dome collapsed yesterday morning and generated a pyroclastic flow that traveled down the SW valley between the dome and the remnants of the 1964 collapse scar, which forms a horse-show shaped wall around the dome. The flow reached approx. 1500 m length and was 300-400 m wide. A second flow of similar size occurred immediately after. The resulting ash plume rose approx. 1 km.

Fuego volcano (Guatemala): The paroxysm at Fuego, which had reached its peak phase during the night of Thu-Fri (28-29 July) has ended. Starting from the early afternoon yesterday (local time), activity gradually decreased and the volcano's activity has by now returned to intermittent smaller strombolian explosions. The lava effusion dropped as well. As of yesterday evening, the two lava flows on the SE side were still active and 1500 m long while explosions at the vent were still reaching 400 meters height; by this morning, the lava flows continued to be active, but had decreased to a few hundred of meters length and are probably going to stop soon.