Volcano Discovery Sunday Mar 17, 2013 18:27 PM
Thermal webcam image of the crater area of Stromboli (INGV)
Thermal webcam image at 04:51 showing an ash plume from Etna's Voragine
Stromboli (Eolian Islands, Italy): No lasting new larger lava flows have occurred over the past days, but it is obvious that the craters, in particular the NE vents, are literally "filled to the rim", and often produce small overflows from the crater. A strong tremor signal accompanies this process.
Strombolian explosions in turn occur as well, but are comparably weak (in contrast to the elevated phase of activity in early Jan).
Etna (Sicily, Italy): A pronounced tremor spike showed up this morning, leading perhaps to the suspicion of a follow-up paroxysm (as Etna has sometimes done in the past). However, looking at webcam images from that time, it seems that an explosion and/or a collapse event (more likely) occurred from Voragine crater and produced a marked tremor spike. An ash plume and minor amounts of hot material can be seen rising a few 100 meters at around 04:51 local time.
...16 Mar:
Typical for Etna's paroxysms, activity has ended quickly after reaching an impressive climax with lava fountains around and perhaps even above 1 km in height.
Marapi (Western Sumatra, Indonesia): A small explosive eruption occurred this morning at around 08:05 local time, generating a small ash plume rising a few hundred meters above the crater. Marapi volcano, one of Sumatra's most active, has been producing intermittent explosions with ash plumes up to 1 km high frequently since August 2011.
For Indonesian standards, this is no big activity, and Indonesia's Volcanological Survey maintains alert level II only.
Popocatépetl (Central Mexico): Snow-covered Popo is taking a probably short rest with only 5 weak emissions of gas and steam and probably no ash having been observed during 24 hours since yesterday.
Santa María / Santiaguito (Guatemala): The rate of explosions seems to have increased,- INSIVUMEH mentions "abundant" small and moderate explosions with ash plumes rising up to about 1 km above the dome and drifting 13 km to the west. Effusive activity continues as well, with moderate near constant block avalanches from the several active flows on the dome's flanks.
Pacaya (Guatemala): The volcano continues to wake up. Small gas and ash emissions were observed from the crater yesterday. The seismic signal shows volcanic tremor and volcanic quakes related to internal fluid movements and the degassing/ash venting at the surface.
Fuego (Guatemala): Compared to the previous days, activity has a bit decreased. INSIVUMEH reports few weak to moderate explosions, and small glowing avalanches from the crater towards the Ceniza drainage visible at night. A new lava flow is predicted to re-appear in the coming days.
The seismic signal showed relatively strong degassing tremor yesterday that decreased again. There are now discrete explosion signals mixed with some periods of weak volcanic tremor.
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