Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity:

Stromboli (Eolian Islands, Italy): Stromboli has returned to more normal levels of activity during the past days and not produced any new lava flows. Our colleague Marc Szlegat (www.vulkane.net) reports from his recent visit that the NE vent still was the site of powerful explosions that were accompanied by shock waves.

El Hierro (Canary Islands, Spain): Slightly elevated earthquake activity continues.

Tolbachik (Kamchatka, Russia): The eruption continues with little changes. Lava continues to be erupted from the southern fissure vent and feeds large lava flows. KVERT reports strong tremor that obscures seismic recordings from nearby Bezymianny volcano.

Sakurajima (Kyushu): Small to moderately sized explosions continue at relatively high frequency (up to 5-6 per day), with ash plumes rising 5-10,000 ft (1.5-3 km).

Taal (Luzon, Philippines): Earthquake activity remains elevated (20 during the past 3 days), but no other parameters suggest an eruption could be imminent. Alert status remains yellow.

Manam (Papua New Guinea): An eruption produced an ash cloud rising to 10,000 ft (3 km) earlier today, VAAC Darwin reported.

White Island (New Zealand): Earthquakes continue to occur in pulses, and tremor remains elevated, but less stable. It just seems to have dropped sharply. A recent webcam image shows pulsating steam ejections from the crater vent.

Katmai (Alaska Peninsula, USA): The earthquake swarm which began early on 26 Jan has ended.

Colima (Western Mexico): Infrequent small ash explosions and rockfalls have continued during the past days.

Popocatépetl (Central Mexico): Emission numbers dropped drastically during yesterday and are down to 1 per hour, but degassing remains intense and glow can be seen at the summit. During one of the stronger steam/gas explosions yesterday at 09:18 h local time, the plume reached 2 km height above the crater.

Santa María / Santiaguito (Guatemala): Activity has remained the same: 1-2 explosions per hour with ash plumes rising up to 800 m and weak avalanches from the active flows descending the flanks of the lava dome.

Fuego (Guatemala): Yesterday seems to have been a more "explosive" day at the volcano. INSIVUMEH reports 9 with ash columns up to 500 m height and drifting 6 km west and SW. As a response to the more explosive nature, it seems that the rate of effusion feeding the flow has dropped. The flow decreased to only 200 m length this morning.

Reventador (Ecuador): Seismic activity remains high with continuous, fluctuating tremor and explosion signals. Bad weather mostly prevents direct observations.

Cotopaxi (Ecuador): What seems to be a strong seismic swarm has been visible on recent seismograms, but IGPEN has not issued any notes about this otherwise interesting activity, it is suspected that the VC1 station at the NE base of the volcano is either malfunctioning, showing something else or simply having a very strong magnification of normal backgroud seismicity.

Tungurahua (Ecuador): Internal unrest continues in the form of moderate seismic activity including numerous long period events (72 during 26-28 Jan) and tremor pulses (3). Probable gas and steam emissions could not be observed due to cloud cover.

Copahue (Chile/Argentina border): Seismic and surface activity remained low. However, SERNAGEOMIN also recorded 2 deep seated tremor pulses yesterday morning at 08:36 and 11:43 local time, wich could reflect magma movements at depth.

Nyiragongo (DRCongo): A strong SO2 plume appears on today's NOAA satellite data image. The lava lake is still active, but the safety situation in the area is still critical and visits are currently not recommended.

Etna (Sicily, Italy): (28 Jan) Activity has dropped again abruptly (and so the tremor signal). A new eruptive phase has started at Bocca Nuova. Since this morning (28 Jan), small ash emissions have been observed and now at night, glow can be seen. The tremor signal has been rising as well.

Karkar (Northeast of New Guinea): An explosion occurred this morning. An ash plume rising to 14,000 ft (4.3 km) and extending 20 nautical miles NE was spotted on satellite data by VAAC Darwin.

White Island (New Zealand): Seismic activity has changed from continuous volcanic tremor to a pattern of intermittent tremor. When occurring, the volcanic tremor remains strong. GNS does not think that an eruption is imminent, but reports that the vigorous hydrothermal activity is throwing out rocks and mud and might be followed by ash emissions:

Mammoth Mountain (California, USA): Another small earthquake swarm occurred under the (dormant) volcano during 28-29 Jan. Numerous tiny quakes were registered at shallow depths (mostly 1-5 km).