SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 7/29-8/4/2009

We've made it to Ohio! Tomorrow I'll hopefully be returning to regularly scheduled updates, but until then, enjoy this week's SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Report.

Highlights include:

  • KVERT mentions that seismicity has increased recently at both Kizimen and Kliuchevskoi on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
  • ~4 km / ~13,500 foot steam-and-ash plumes spotted at Colima in Mexico.
  • Rumbling noises, incandescent ejecta and ~4.3 km / 14,000 foot ash plumes at Fuego in Guatemala. Explosions were increasing as the August began.
  • It was a busy week in Guatemala, as ash/gas plumes were spotted at Santiaguito and Pacaya as well.
  • Ashfall and tremors continue at Nevado del Huila in Colombia as a new wave of eruptions seems to have started.

More like this

Maybe I should just apologize right here and now for that title, but dang, I liked it. Anyway, I've seen a lot of plume images cross my browser/inbox over the last day, so I thought I'd post a few of them.
Your weekly dose of volcanic activity from the USGS/SI. (a little late thanks to an exciting day of column chemistry). Some highlights include:
Quick hit post from beautiful Walnut, Iowa, but this was too interesting to pass up... Bright plume spotted on Venus, image taken by the ESA Venus Express.
All the volcano news that is fit to print, all thanks to the USGS/Smithsonian GVP!

Regarding Nevado del Huila, after reading this tonight I checked the webcam there, at http://intranet.ingeominas.gov.co/webcam/popayan/webcam_Huila.html , even though it's dark now, and discovered that it has a bit of infrared pick-up to it -- during the day the view is often clouded, but right now it appears that there is a cloud covering the summit and flowing tightly part way down the slope -- I doubt it's an eruption, more like a mild plume being shaped by atmospheric flow. It's pretty neat, though, considering how hard it is to see the volcano -- which is spectacular -- during the day. Click "Volver a la página de inicio" to visit Ingeominas's page on this and nearby volcanoes; it's in Spanish, so some might want to run the URL through one of the free online translators or use the appropriate translator plug-in on their browsers.

Most interesting bit of the GVP report for me was the seismic activity at Kizimen, a serial dome-builder, last active 82 years ago. OK it's had its 'St Helens moment' but that doesn't necessarily mean an eruption would be a mild event