Volcano Discovery Tuesday Mar 19, 2013 16:32 PM |
Etna with the fresh black lava flows below the New SE crater this morning seen from Valle del Bove
Steaming Popocatépetl seen from the south today
Etna (Sicily, Italy): Beautiful snow-clad Etna remains restless. While the wait is on for a new SE crater paroxysm (which is likely to occur anywhere between days or few weeks from now), a few pronounced tremor spikes show up on the tremor graph. These probably correspond to strombolian activity from one of the summit craters, likely the Voragine.
El Hierro (Canary Islands, Spain): So far, there have been more than 80 quakes >M2 and 4 quakes above >M3 today. A clear trend of westward migration is visible, possibly corresponding to magma moving horizontally into new areas.
At the moment, the seismic swarm has considerably decreased in energy. Whether this is a pause or already a sign of an end is impossible to say. IF a magmatic intrusion is the cause (there is no proof for this, after all), a plausible scenario could be the build-up of energy while pathways are temporarily blocked. Then, some larger quakes should be expected along with re-appearance of tremor when magma starts moving again.
...19 Mar:
The seismic crisis continues with little changes. A westward lateral migration of epicenters is visible, assumed to correspond to magma movements underground. Depths remain mostly at 15-18 km, with perhaps a slight upwards trend towards shallower areas, but this is not very significant if any.
- Volcanic tremor waxes and wanes but remains continuous.
El Hierro (Canary Islands, Spain): So far, there have been more than 80 quakes >M2 and 4 quakes above >M3 today. A clear trend of westward migration is visible, possibly corresponding to magma moving horizontally into new areas.
At the moment, the seismic swarm has considerably decreased in energy. Whether this is a pause or already a sign of an end is impossible to say. IF a magmatic intrusion is the cause (there is no proof for this, after all), a plausible scenario could be the build-up of energy while pathways are temporarily blocked. Then, some larger quakes should be expected along with re-appearance of tremor when magma starts moving again.
...19 Mar:
The seismic crisis continues with little changes. A westward lateral migration of epicenters is visible, assumed to correspond to magma movements underground. Depths remain mostly at 15-18 km, with perhaps a slight upwards trend towards shallower areas, but this is not very significant if any.
- Volcanic tremor waxes and wanes but remains continuous.
Kliuchevskoi (Kamchatka): After some time with no new indications of continuing activity, KVERT lowered the alert status to green. The volcano has been showing low seismicity during the past weeks, after a phase of strombolian activity late 2012-earlier this year had ended.
Batu Tara (Sunda Islands, Indonesia): Explosions that send ash plumes large enough to be detected on satellite are increasingly frequent. Another eruption today was spotted on Meteosat with an estimated ash plume height of 8,000 ft (2.4 km).
Tangkubanparahu (West Java): The alert level was back to normal (1 out of 4) yesterday. VSI reports that the recent monitoring have shown a significant decrease in seismicity since 9 March and no significant variations in ground deformation.
Various other measurements undertaken by volcanologists (gas analysis, temperature measurements) also showed trends towards normal behavior. (Source: activolcans.info / VSI)
White Island (New Zealand): Internal unrest in the form of continuous volcanic tremor has further risen and numerous earthquakes have appeared as well during the past hours. A possibility is that some phreatic activity is taking place near the surface, but we cannot verify this at the moment.
So far no eruption reports or new statements from GNS about this activity have become available.
Popocatépetl (Central Mexico): Compared to yesterday, when some explosions were large enough to eject incandescent bombs to 200 m above the crater, accompanied by eruption tremor of moderate intensity, activity has been lower today.
Steaming has decreased although the numbers of small volcanic quakes remains high.
Batu Tara (Sunda Islands, Indonesia): Explosions that send ash plumes large enough to be detected on satellite are increasingly frequent. Another eruption today was spotted on Meteosat with an estimated ash plume height of 8,000 ft (2.4 km).
Tangkubanparahu (West Java): The alert level was back to normal (1 out of 4) yesterday. VSI reports that the recent monitoring have shown a significant decrease in seismicity since 9 March and no significant variations in ground deformation.
Various other measurements undertaken by volcanologists (gas analysis, temperature measurements) also showed trends towards normal behavior. (Source: activolcans.info / VSI)
White Island (New Zealand): Internal unrest in the form of continuous volcanic tremor has further risen and numerous earthquakes have appeared as well during the past hours. A possibility is that some phreatic activity is taking place near the surface, but we cannot verify this at the moment.
So far no eruption reports or new statements from GNS about this activity have become available.
Popocatépetl (Central Mexico): Compared to yesterday, when some explosions were large enough to eject incandescent bombs to 200 m above the crater, accompanied by eruption tremor of moderate intensity, activity has been lower today.
Steaming has decreased although the numbers of small volcanic quakes remains high.
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