Skip to content
Guest Thinkers —

Friday Flotsam

Bits of volcanic news, including a great image of the eruption at Shiveluch, evacuations related to the earthquakes in Saudi Arabia and the hazards of lake overturn (oh yes, and indie rock).
Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Volcano news ahoy, today brought to you by Islands.

Lake Kivu, located along the border the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda

  • A gorgeous satellite image (brought to us by the NASA EO) of a steam plume and ash from the ongoing eruption at Shiveluch in Kamchatka. The ash distribution stands out remarkably well on the white snow, with the central circle of ash near the vent/dome and then the wind-aided ash blanketing the terrain to the northeast of the volcano (and a little bit to the south).
  • Nature has a post reminding us that one of the big hazards at Nyiragongo/Nymuragira is not the lava flows themselves, but the potential overturn of Lake Kivu, releasing millions of tons of carbon dioxide. This overturn could be triggered by lava flows from the either volcano entering the lake. That might lead to a much larger disaster than the smaller volcanically-related lake overturn that occurred at Lake Nyos.
  • Following up the Saudi Arabian earthquake swarm news from yesterday, voluntary evacuations occurred at the village of Al-Qarrassah. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more information on this over the weekend.
  • If you haven’t been following the truly excellent Chaiten updates on the Volcanism Blog, you should. Years from now, it will be an invaluable resource for us to understand how the eruption changed during its year+ activity.

    • Enjoy the weekend (only 101 degrees F here in California!)

    Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
    A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people
    Related
    Guest Thinkers
    Monday Musings
    Shiveluch continues its noisy summer, we hope to avoid unnecessary noise at Crater Lake National Park and former noise spotted on Mars.
    Guest Thinkers
    Friday Flotsam
    Some volcanic news bits, including more eruptions from Barujari in Indonesia, how geothermal energy could save Iceland and the results of the next Volcano Profile poll.
    Guest Thinkers
    Monday Mulligans
    A wrap-up of the weekend’s volcano news, including undersea volcanoes in Greece, images of the June eruptions at Anak Krakatau, video of the Kilauea lava lake and news on the passing of the founder of the Global Volcanism Program, Tom Simkin.
    Up Next
    Guest Thinkers
    Friday Flotsam
    A veritable treasure trove of volcanic tidbits, including new undersea eruptions discovered, the end of the eruption in the Galapagos, more Aleutian noise, an excellent interactive of Indonesian volcanism and boarding down an active volcanism (a.k.a., thinning the gene pool).