GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for November 11-16, 2010: Etna, Chaiten, Kizimen and more

Now, there is a lot of articles on the new Nature paper on the Eyjafjallajökull and the signs leading up to it – but considering I’m not privy to such Nature articles before they are published (unlike a lot of other media sources), I have yet to read and digest the paper. So, I am going to hold off posting about the article until tomorrow. This week has just been such a mess of activity that I really can’t focus too much right now anyhow (just like all the students here who head off the Thanksgiving Break on Friday).

So, today I’ll just post to the latest Smithsonian/USGS GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report – lots of news in it, including a summary of all the Merapi actvity, whose deathtoll is now up to 275 people, and at Bulusan in the Philippines.

Some other highlights from the report include:

Activity at Etnais definitely on the upswing and I feel bad I haven’t been able to focus on Etna as much as I should. Luckily, Dr. Boris Behncke does a great job of telling us every noise the volcano makes, but I will try to post something on the recent activity at Etna – which include ash emissions – sometime soon.

Over in Kamchatka, there are reports of ash plumes from the usual suspects like Shiveluch, Karymsky and Kliuchevskoi, but staff at a tourist location near Kizimen reported at 4 km / 13,000 foot steam-and-ash plume from one of the less prominent Russian volcanoes.

We’re seeing more detailed (and interesting) reports from Chile’sChaitén lately, all suggesting that the activity at the caldera is slightly more vigorous lately (but still nothing compared to 2008). These reports have lead to some new alerts of potential new eruptions from the dome complex at Chaitén. Moderate steam-and-ash plumes were produced reaching as high ~2 km / 7,000 feet. Eruptions reader Guillermo sent me some snippets from the newspaper El Llanquihue in Porto Montt, Chile that has some great images (top left) of Chaitén – and by the way, did anyone realize that the volcano has a Facebook page?

Finally, recent observations at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat suggest that a new dome at the summit might be more prone to collapse, as the overhanging portion of the dome has increased due to undercutting by rockfalls and pyroclastic flows.

Top left: A recent image of the steam plume from Chaiten in Chile (from El Llanquihue).