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SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 8/12-18/2009

The weekly update on volcanic activity presented by the Smithsonian and the USGS.
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Busy today with scouting out some field location for the class I’ll be teaching this fall. Here’s this week’s USGS/SI Weekly Volcano Report. The report is a little more eventful than last week’s, so enjoy!


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nKliuchevskoi Volcano in Kamchatka, taken summer of 2009 by Theresa Kayzar.

nnHighlights include:n

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  • Three volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula are currently producing ash plumes: Kliuchevskoi, Koryaksky and Shiveluch. Shiveluch has been having the most intense eruptions, but the former two are both producing ash-and-steam plumes that reach over 3 km / 10,000 feet.
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  • Talang in Indonesia saws its warning level raised from 2 to 3, with a 3-km exclusion zone set to prevent tourists from getting too close.
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  • Minor amounts of ash were produced by Popocatépetl, near Mexico City.
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  • It seems that Pagan in the Mariana Islands had a brief eruption, as satellite observations detected a 2-hour-long “thermal anomaly” last week.
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  • Reventador in Ecuador produced a new lava flow that was accompanied by seismic tremors, volcanic bombs and ash plumes.
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