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Geology News
Volcanoes Current Events

An article on the San Francisco Chronicle explores the age of Mammoth Mountain, an area with a volcanic history in California, and considers its future activity.

Posted on The Volcanism Blog is a photo essay of “The Ecological Impact of the Chaiten Eruption” by Frederick J. Swanson (U.S. Forest Service), Charlie Crisafulli (U.S. Forest Service), Julia A. Jones (Oregon State University) and Nicolas La Penna (Chaitur Excursiones). There are ten interesting images that can be enlarged for detailed study.

Related: Article on Chaiten Volcano by Jessica Ball.

Earth Observatory has a new image of Chaiten Volcano showing a new lava dome about 2000 meters across that almost completely fills the caldera produced by the 2008 eruption.

Here’s your chance to participate in a professionally planned and guided trip sponsored by the Geological Society of America’s GeoVentures Program. The trip is for GSA student members on July 30 through August 8, 2010. Learn about plate tectonics, volcanoes and more.

NASA Image

“Flowing lava can carve or build paths very much like the riverbeds and canyons etched by water, and this probably explains at least one of the meandering channels on the surface of Mars.” Quoted from the NASA mission news.

“Although El Salvador’s Volcán San Vicente has not erupted in the past 1,700 years, the mountain is still a hazard. In November 2009, dozens of people living near the volcano, also known as Chichontepec, lost their lives after torrential rains saturated the steep hillsides and unleashed numerous landslides. The landslides triggered lahars—avalanches of mud, boulders, and uprooted trees—that poured down ravines and engulfed small agricultural towns located to the north and northwest of the volcano.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.

“U.S. Geological Survey and Southern Methodist University will use infrasound, seismometers, GPS and other methods to monitor lava and ash hazards in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. The archipelago’s active volcanoes threaten not only residents of the island chain and the U.S. military, but also passenger airlines and cargo ships.” Quoted from the SMU press release.

Beneath the Long Valley caldera in California, both basaltic and silicic magma can be found. When the volcano erupts next, the style of eruption will depend upon the magma’s composition.

The White River tephra is an ashfall produced by an eruption of Mount Churchill Volcano that blanketed much of east-central Alaska and adjacent parts of Canada about 1000 years ago. DNA evidence from frozen caribou remains links a large migration to the eruption.

“A massive eruption of Montserrat’s Soufrière Hills Volcano covered large portions of the island in debris. The eruption was triggered by a collapse of Soufrière Hills’ summit lava dome on February 11, 2010. Pyroclastic flows raced down the northern flank of the volcano, leveling trees and destroying buildings in the village of Harris, abandoned after Soufrière Hills became active in 1995. The Montserrat Volcano Observatory reported that some flows, about 15 meters (49 feet) thick, reached the sea at Trant’s Bay. These flows extended the island’s coastline up to 650 meters (2,100 feet).” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.

A plume towered above the summit of Klyuchevskaya Volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on February 13, 2010, when NASA’s Terra satellite captured this false-color image. Directly over the summit, the plume is bright white, suggesting more steam than ash. The scene in the image also shows a plume at Shiveluch, a second volcano in eruption.

Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan erupted more than 400 times during 2009, and activity is increasing in early 2010. Gray ash is visible in the plume that extends northeast (towards the lower-right) of the volcano. Ashfall is a regular occurence at the daikon and mandarin farms surrounding the volcano, as well as the nearby cities of Kagoshima and Kirishima. NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon. Caption by Robert Simmon. Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.

At 12:35 p.m. local time on February 11, 2010, Soufrière Hills Volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat experienced a partial dome collapse. Lasting nearly an hour, the event sent a plume 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) skyward, and sent pyroclastic flows—avalanches of hot gas and debris—some 300 to 400 meters (980 to 1,200 feet) out to sea.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on February 11, 2010, the same afternoon that the dome collapsed. more….

The person who fell into the Mount St. Helens crater was found dead this morning. He fell about 1500 feet and was without cover for over one day.

A visitor to Mount St. Helens volcano ventured onto a cornice of snow on the crater rim and the cornice gave way. The visitor plunged down the slope to a ledge far below the crater rim. Rescuers worked on Monday to retrieve him and will resume on Tuesday. His condition is unknown.

In 2006, the now-infamous “Lusi” mud volcano in Indonesia began erupting mud and causing big problems for locals. The eruption could have been facilitated by a gas prospecting operation there – or, the company argues, the Yogyakarta earthquake that occurred in the region. More signs point to drilling as the culprit.

An ash eruption at Soufriere Hills Volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat has disrupted commercial fights and closed airports.

The PhotoVolcanica website has an interesting page that presents photos, maps and images of Sakurajima Volcano and its potential impact on surrounding communities – over 400 eruptions were reported in 2009.

A recent Earth Science Picture of the Day is a volcanic bomb photographed and described by David Lynch.

Earthquakes often precede a volcanic eruption, and can serve as a warning system for forecasters. However, individual volcanoes differ in their “typical” seismic activity depending on the silica content of the magma; volcanoes with thick magma may rumble for extended periods of time, while others with fluid magma can erupt more suddenly. Can magma viscosity be used as a standard for predicting eruptions?

“Ash routinely clouds the Caribbean skies as Soufrière Hills volcano continued its activity. For the past several weeks the Joint Air Force & Army Weather Information Network has issued multiple ash advisories every day for the West Indies. The Montserrat Volcano Observatory attributes ash emissions to the growth of Soufrière Hills’s lava dome accompanied by pyroclastic flows, some of which are reaching the ocean.” Quoted from a satellite image release at NASA’s Earth Observatory.

The Mainichi Daily News has a photograph showing ash and steam emerging from the ocean’s surface above the vent of Fukutokuoka no Ba Volcano which erupted yesterday near Iwo Jima.

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a colored lunar fog bow over a crater on Haleakala Volcano, Hawaii. A fog bow is similar to a rainbow, but is created by the moon’s light shining through fog; they are usually white. The photo was taken on a night with Mars near opposition, so the planet shines bright orange in the sky.

Michael Heads, Ph.D., of the Buffalo Museum of Science, has a theory on primate evolution that differs from most others. He believes that primates did not evolve from one singular location, but were dispersed across Pangaea and evolved in independent groups due to geologic events, such as plate tectonics and volcanic activity.

In Stockton-on-Tees, England, plans are being discussed for a new power plant. The Teesside station, which would convert discarded palm kernel shells into electricity for over 100,000 homes, has been designed to resemble a volcano.