Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity:

Stromboli (Eolian Islands, Italy): Explosive activity at Stromboli is currently at normal to moderately high levels, but the magma column has obviously dropped considerably compared to previous weeks, as there are no longer lava overflows. We observed the volcano during the past days and found a total of 8 active vents in the crater terrace, out of which 4 were showing their typical different strombolian activity: In the NW crater area, two adjacient vents often erupted simultaneously. One was ejecting dense jets of incandescent gas, almost no ash and only few incandescent tephra that formed candle-like fountains reaching 100-200 m height, and accompanied by loud jet-engine like noises. The other one erupted silent, dense low ash plumes and glowing material to 50-100 m. Eruptions occurred every 20-30 minutes on average.

Etna (Sicily, Italy): Etna has been almost completely quiet since a brief episode of strombolian activity at the New SE crater in early May. Apart from a few occasional deep-seated explosions in Bocca Nuova detected only on seismic signals (INGV personal communication), the volcano has not shown other surface activity than degassing.

Pavlov (Alaska Peninsula, USA): The eruption at Pavlov continues but seismic and eplosive-effusive eruptive activity have dropped compared to the day before yesterday when an ash plume reached 7,000 m altitude and was visible from space.

Popocatépetl (Central Mexico): Activity has been showing an increase today. Yesterday, CENPRED reported near-continuous emissions of steam and gas and sometimes ash. Some larger explosions occurred at 12:13 h and at 12:34 h local time yesterday. Both produced an eruption column about 1.3 km high and drifting west. Bright glow and strong steaming are currently visible from the webcam images. A total of 3 hours of spasmodic tremor of low to medium amplitude were recorded yesterday. In addition there were two volcanotectonic earthquakes, one at 13:09 h of magnitude 2.1 and another at 15:55 h of magnitude 1.8 (local times).

Santa María / Santiaguito (Guatemala): Activity has remained weak and dominantly explosive. Occasional explosions from the Caliente dome produce ash plumes rising up to about 700 m.

Pacaya (Guatemala): Strombolian activity persists in the Mackenney crater, which is slowly filling with new lava. The activity can be heard from San Francisco de Sales and ejects incandescent bombs to about 40 m height. As the crater continues to fill up, INSIVUMEH thinks that during the coming days or weeks, new lava flows are likely to appear.

Fuego (Guatemala): Activity has remained stable during the past week. During yesterday, INSIVUMEH recorded 10 weak strombolian-type explosions that generated small ash plumes of up to 600 m height and drifting for 8-10 km before dissipating.

Nevado del Ruiz (Colombia): Small ash emissions were reported yesterday from the volcano. Seismic activity remains elevated, but reduced compared to the recent earthquake swarms in April and early May.