Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity:

Etna (Sicily, Italy): Another eruption has just occurred from Etna, indicated by the typical steep spike in the tremor signal. However, bad visibility due to clouds has not allowed visual observations.

Sakurajima (Kyushu, Japan): The volcano continues to have relatively many explosions, but at very irregular intervals: during 4 Feb, there were 5 explosions, none yesterday, and 3 so far today. The small to moderate eruptions produced ash plumes rising 5-8,000 ft (1.5-2.4 km).

Taal (Luzon, Philippines): Seismic activity remains at unalarming, although slightly elevated levels. During the past 2 days, PHILVOLCS detected 11 quakes.

Batu Tara (Sunda Islands, Indonesia): It seems that Batu Tara is becoming more active (such as during Sep-Oct last year). Ash plumes rising more than 1 km above the summit are starting to be detected on satellite images almost every day again.

Tinakula (Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Islands): The massive magnitude 8.0 earthquake, along with dozens of strong (M4-6) aftershocks, as well as the many M5-6 earthquakes during the past preceding days occurred relatively close to the volcano, at a distance of about 80 km. It is possible that the influence of the shaking will cause some changes in the behavior of the volcano, but it is very unlikely that there will be people there able to observe and report about any activity of this volcano in the near future in detail.

Kamchatka: No changes occurred in Kamchatka: Fluid lava erupts steadily from Tolbachik volcano, although tremor levels decrease softly. Moderate seismicity accompanies lava extrusion and dome building at Sheveluch and Kizimen. Seismicity remained low at Karymski and Klyuchevskoi volcano, although small explosions probably continue at both volcanoes. The strong seismicity from Tolbachik still obscures the signals from Bezymianny, which also has been active and building a lava dome for years. Gorely has medium levels of tremor that relate to fluid movements and strong degassing.

Popocatépetl (Central Mexico): Not much is changing at the volcano except that the rate of emissions and the amount of degassing rises and falls on rhythms of few days or so. The last CENAPRED report from yesterday indicated an average of about 2 weak steam explosions recorded during 4-5 Feb.

Reventador (Ecuador): In the morning and afternoon yesterday, IG could observe a moderately ash-charged emission column rising about 2 km above the crater. Tremor has become more discontinuous and overall seismic activity decreased, although it is still strong.

Tungurahua (Ecuador): No significant surface activity has been noted. Seismic activity has decreased overall during the past days, although IGPEN still records some long period earthquakes, that relate to internal fluid movements.