Volcanos

Global Volcanic Activity:

Lokon volcano in North Sulawesi has had another explosion yesterday (27th) at 16:50 local time. The ash plume appears to be of considerable height, although Darwin VAAC has not (yet) published a warning.

The eruption of Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador continues at fluctuating, but generally reduced intensity compared to the previous week, but there are still occasional weak to moderate explosions and near constant steam and ash emissions that produce a column rising up to about 2 km above the crater. The current seismic signal shows a moderately strong tremor present.

Ash emissions continue at Nicaragua's San Cristobal volcano. So far, the size of explosions has been small with ash columns of 500-800 m and only light ash fall has occurred in areas mainly to the west and southwest. However, evacuations of people within a 3 km radius around the volcano have started as a precaution. About 1500 farmers living on the slopes of the San Cristobal volcano have refused to leave, despite being ordered to evacuate.

The number of emissions from Popocatépetl volcano in Mexico has dropped again to only about 1-2 per hour, but the type activity, small puffs of steam, gas and sometimes ash, remains essentially unchanged.

Copahue volcano in Chile produced new ash emissions on 27 Dec. Ash clouds at 10,000 ft (3 km) altitude extending about 50 km NE along with strong SO2 emissions were visible on satellite data.

Another small earthquake swarm (smaller than the one end of Oct) has started last night at Mammoth Mountain west in California, west of the Long Valley caldera. Many small quakes have been occurring in an area5 km SW of the mountain at depths around 20 km.