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Guest Thinkers —

Soufriere Hills and Kliuchevskoi Updates for 10/5/2009

Eruptions today at two of the world’s more active volcanoes.
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Two volcanoes that have been rumbling and rocking for a while now made some noise today:


Kliuchevskoi Volcano in Russia.

  • Soufriere Hills on Montserrat had a relatively impressive explosive event, producing a ~3 km / ~11,000 foot ash plume – its first eruption in 10 months. This was after a sharp increase in seismicity at the West Indies volcanoes since Sunday. This is a bit of a surprise as the eruptive period at Soufriere Hills was seen to be coming to an end – however, this eruption isn’t really anything out of the ordinary according to James White Jr., the acting director of the Disaster Management Coordination Agency.
  • On the other side of the world, Kliuchevskoi on the Kamchatka Peninsula is showing signs that it could be headed towards a larger eruption. The volcano is experiencing Strombolian-style eruptions every 1-6 minutes that produce ~300 meter / ~1000 foot ash plumes with ballistic bombs. The volcano is a restless system, erupting quite often, so this is well within the range of normal activity at Kliuchevskoi. Seismic stations are recording ~100 earthquakes a day at the volcano. (However, feel free to ignore the photos for both linked articles – neither are Kliuchevskoi (above).
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