Volcanos

Roundup of Global Volcanic Activity

Fogo (Cape Verde): The new lava flow, more fluid than the earlier one, continues to advance rapidly. It has reached and started to engulf Bangaeira village, downslope of the already destroyed Portela village. If the eruption continues long enough, the lava flow, following the downwards slope, would eventually reach the eastern coast.

Sinabung (Sumatra, Indonesia): The volcano remains active and dangerous although it has been generally quieter during the past weeks as compared to the surge in activity in Oct. However, sudden collapses of the still growing lava flow and/or explosions occur from time to time: a moderately sized, 2 km long pyroclastic flow traveled down the southern flank Saturday noon (local time).

Pavlof (Alaska Peninsula, USA): Weak activity continues at the volcano. The volcano observatory showed photographs showing the volcano emitting a steam plume and reports seismic activity is still elevated. Increased temperatures at the summit, detectable on satellite data, are coming from the recent lava flow.

Cerro Negro de Mayasquer (Colombia): Seismic activity continues to be important. In the last week, almost 20,000 earthquakes with a daily average of 2845 were detected. 5 of them were felt by the local population, the largest one was a 3.8 event on 2 Dec at 17:58 local time. Compared to October and November this year, when daily averages were 3740 and 4579, respectively, seismic activity has declined a lot, but remains high.

Erebus (Antarctica): The Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory (MEVO) reported yesterday that "it has been an active time for the last 24 hours. There were 6 significant eruptions which show up nicely on the MACZ (short period single vertical component) seismometer. ... There is no knowing if this will continue or was just a one off. It does show that gas is accumulating somewhere at depth and migrates to the lava lake as a big bubble where it bursts explosively sending volcanic bombs shooting above the lava lake and sometimes out onto the crater rim where people may be working."