Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity

Reventador (Ecuador): The activity of the volcano had increased during the past two weeks, producing several lava flows and some relatively strong explosions. At the moment, it has decreased again, but remains moderately high. Explosions have become less frequent and the lava flows are only weakly alimented.

Ubinas (Peru): The current eruptive phase might be approaching an end. Since the second half of April, visual and seismic activity at the volcano have been decreasing. Explosions and ash emissions have almost ceased, although there are still some occasional bursts. IGP released a report showing the evolution of seismic activity over the past weeks. It shows that hybrid earthquakes (indicators of rising magma) increased until 5 April and then started to drop. Surface activity in turn increased until 13 April and remained elevated until 19 April. This suggests that the magma took approx 8 days to reach the surface from its deeper source. One of the strongest explosions occurred on 19 April, when large bombs were ejected to up to 2.7 km distance. After this explosion, which might have destroyed the lava dome in the crater, the volcano showed abundant degassing and ash venting, probably a result of the cleared conduit.

Zavodovski (South Sandwich Islands (UK)): A NASA satellite image from 19 April shows that some activity (strombolian explosions, small lava lake?) was present on the remote volcano in the South Sandwich islands. On the picture, a thin plume of white rises from the volcano on Zavodovski island, the northernmost of the South Sandwich Islands and streams to the northeast. Further south, a wider white plume can be seen blowing across the Atlantic Ocean. This plume rises from the Mount Michael volcano, which is a young and frequently active strato-volcano located on Saunders Island, near the centre of the South Sandwich Island chain.