Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity:

Etna (Sicily, Italy): Activity remains unchanged. The Northeast crater produces a weak ash plume currently drifting east. Tremor levels are fluctuating, but generally low. Interestingly, a few shallow (6-7 km) earthquakes of magnitudes around 1.7-1.8 occurred along a W-E line over the past days.

Shiveluch (Kamchatka): The volcano continues to extrude viscous lava, generating explosions and hot avalanches. An ash plume to estimated 23,000 ft (7 km) altitude and drifting east was detected on satellite imagery yesterday. Cloud cover prevents more detailed observations.

Sinabung (Sumatra, Indonesia): The volcano continues to be very active with viscous lava extruded at the new dome, which frequently collapses to form hot avalanches (pyroclastic flows) that generate ash plumes rising up to a few km. The direction of the path of the latest pyroclastic flows has shifted a bit to the east (right) of the previous flow path, possibly due to the obstacle formed by the accumulated latest deposits themselves. These are the gray areas visible on the flank and at the base of the volcano, where a broad delta of hot deposits has formed (that has destroyed everything that used to be there - farmland, scattered houses etc).

Cleveland (Aleutian Islands, Alaska): No new volcanic activity has been observed at the volcano since the 3 brief explosions on December 28 and 30 and January 2. Satellite views since January 2 suggest that no new lava has effused at the summit crater. AVO lowered the Level of Concern Colour Code to YELLOW and the Alert Level to ADVISORY. (AVO / USGS)

Pacaya (Guatemala): A strong increase in activity began last night at the volcano. Accompanied by steeply rising tremor, the so-far mild strombolian activity picked up to become intense enough to produce pulsating lava fountains that eject glowing material to several hundred meters height and is visible from tens of kilometres distance (e.g. the Pacific coast at 50 km to the west). The new surge of lava (or paroxysm) has also generated a new lava flow, which for the time being is confined to the inside of the Mackenney crater, but might soon be able to pour outside of the cone. As a response, CONRED has closed access to the park and civil aviation authority has limited the number of flights in and out of Guatemala airport because of the presence of ash plumes.