Manda Hararo
eklemetti | December 31, 20092009 is over! If you missed the Volcanic Year in Review, check out my summary of the volcanic events that captivated many of us over the past year. However, only one event will get the coveted 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year. A lot of you wrote in with votes and comments - I thank you - and a number of events stood out in your mind. Here we go:
Honorable mention
A few volcanic events got multiple votes:
- Soufriere Hills on Montserrat.
- Mando Hararo in Ethiopia.
- Chaiten, Chile and the new research on the eruption.
- The earthquakes in western Saudi Arabia under the Harrat…
eklemetti | December 31, 2009Here it is, my attempt to recap a year's worth of volcanic events. By no means is this supposed to capture every event, but rather the highlight/lowlights and what most captivated me during 2009. I'll be announcing the winner of the 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year tomorrow.
Waimangu Geothermal Valley in New Zealand, taken in January 2009 by Erik Klemetti.
January
The year started out with a trip to New Zealand (well, for me at least) and vistas of the Waimangu Valley, formed in the 1886 eruption of Tarawera on the North Island. We were also still thinking about the late 2008…
eklemetti | November 5, 2009Lava flows from the 2005 Mando Hararo eruption in Ethiopia.
Alright, I had been attempting to ignore this story because it was, well, a little uninteresting at first, but it apparently has legs so I will tackle it.
Slashdot has a post proclaiming:'Volcanic activity may split the African continent in two, creating a new ocean, say experts. This is due to a recent geological crack which has appeared in northeastern Ethiopia.'
OK. Where do I start?
This is based on a recent study published in Geophysical Research Lettersthat found that the recent volcanism in Ethiopia is related to the active…
eklemetti | July 20, 2009Starting today and going until early August, you might see fewer posts on Eruptions than you're accustomed. This is because I'm in the process of moving to Ohio to get set up to start my new job as an assistant professor at Denison University. I'm excited about the move, but as you can imagine, trying to pull up stakes in California and trek two-thirds of the way across the continent will take up a lot of my time. I will miss the easy access to volcanoes here on the Left Coast, but I am excited to get (mostly) permanent employment, set up my own lab and to be able to teach geology again!…
eklemetti | July 15, 2009Your weekly dose of volcanism from the USGS/Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program.
Highlights (not counting Mayon), include:
The activity at Mando Hararo in Ethiopia appears to be a fissure eruption. Ground observations saw a 4-5 kilometers / ~2.5-3 mile fissure with new predominantly 'a'a lava flows that were 2-3 m thick ... the fissure was lined with scoria ramparts 30-50 m high. They did not see any active lava, though.
As some Eruptions readers have pointed out from the OMI SO2 maps, Sarychev Peak (Russia) is still producing gas-and-steam (with some ash) plumes, mostly drifting off to the…
eklemetti | July 8, 2009All the volcano news that is fit to print, all thanks to the USGS/Smithsonian GVP!
Highlights (not include Manda Hararo, Kilauea and Mayon) include
San Miguel in El Salvador has been experiencing increased seismicity. The last time the volcano erupted was in 2002.
A pilot spotted a ~10,000 foot / 3 km ash plume emanating from Anak Krakatau in Indonesia.
Another ash plume, this time at Ubinas, Peru, was spotted by pilots rising to ~6.7-9.1 km / 20-30,000 feet.
Explosions were heard from Suwanose-jima in Japan, but no associated ash plumes were spotted.
It sounds like a lava dome has been…
eklemetti | July 2, 2009Three days ago, I received an email from Eruptions reader Gijs de Reijke who was curious about something he noticed in the daily OMI SO2 images:
OMI sulfur dioxide map over Ethiopia for June 30, 2009.
Now, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it other than the fact that there was an awful lot of sulfur dioxide in the vicinity of Addis Ababa, which seemed odd. If we look at a map of the active volcanoes in Ethiopia (below), a majority of the ones we might suspect if the SO2 was volcano are to the north (Erte Ale, Dallafilla), but this patch is smack-dab in the middle of the country, looking…