Posts for 'Volcano' Category

The unique views of the active lava within the Halema`uma`u crater on the Kilauea volcano summit keep on coming, thanks to the efforts of scientists at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory.

Another "nightshot" image, captured on June 29th, has been released by the United States Geological Survey's HVO team.

According to the USGS website, the movie shows the lava surface within the cavity at Halema`uma`u. Keeping an eye on the lower left portion of the screen, one can see a large rock impacting the lava surface. This impact appears to trigger degassing and overturning that migrates across a large portion of the lava surface.

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A team of scientists have conducted sophisticated mapping of the soil landscape on an extinct American volcano.The volcano that featured in the research was the Capulin volcano, which formed approximately 62,000 years ago, and is the youngest volcano in the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field in New Mexico, US.

The cone rises 396 m from the plain, reaching an altitude of 2,495 m above sea level. The base of the volcano is 6.4 km in circumference, and the crater is 126 m deep and 442 m across. Four different flows of lava can be observed across the monument, indicative of different eruptive events.

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Indonesia has raised the alert level for a volcano on Sulawesi island after it began spewing hot clouds and lava, a vulcanology official said on Tuesday.

Lava from Soputan volcano flowed up to 1 km (over half a mile) from the crater while white clouds and fiery sparks shot up about 150 meters from the peak, said Surono, the head of the vulcanology center.The official said the status was raised to the second highest level on Monday and campers had been told to stay away from the volcano, but people living on the slopes are not being evacuated as the lava will not reach that far.

Indonesia has the highest number of active volcanoes of any country, sitting on a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity known as the "Pacific Ring of Fire."People often live and farm on the slopes of volcanoes because of the rich volcanic soil.In the past two years, at least three major volcanoes, including Anak Krakatau, have showed signs of increased activity, but there has been no serious eruption.

It is exactly two months since Cyclone Nargis hit Burma, causing widespread death and devastation.

In a country that has been under military rule since 1962 and controls almost all aspects of the media, it was a huge challenge to report on the aftermath of this disaster.

BBC journalists who managed to get into Burma either had to enter secretly, or pretend to be tourists and report undercover.

They shared their experiences of reporting in such difficult conditions for the BBC World Service's Assignment programme.

PAUL DANAHAR
The BBC's Paul Danahar was one of the first journalists to enter the country, arriving three days after the cyclone hit.

"We had our visas because there was supposed to be a referendum on the Saturday after the cyclone, so we had applied for tourist visas," he said.

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Study Discovers Lava Spewing Activity

North Pole- In a series of different expeditions on the Arctic Seafloor, there have been a number of volcano spots located that are actively spewing red-hot lava out of the seafloor.

It has revealed itself as an explosive geographical location, with fountains of molten lava and gas that are springing out of different volcanoes under the sea near the North Pole.

The researchers that went in search of ocean floor conditions near the North Pole were surprised to discover the intensity and variety of volatile activity beneath the Arctic Ice.

The returned from their exploration and journey to the North Pole with data and images showing off red hot locations where Magma and rocks rise from deep in the Earth’s Core.

Jets and fountains of material are sometimes blasted up to two kilometres up into the water, beneath the ice.

The study and research expedition was conducted by Geophysicist Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

They journeyed to the North Pole and their entire expedition is described in the journal “Nature Today,” including the estimate that some of the underwater volcanoes have activity that expel rocks and lave at more than 500 metres a second.

The Chaiten volcano in southern Chile has erupted with renewed strength, belching thick clouds of ash and hurling molten rocks into the air, regional authorities said Friday.

The 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) tall Chaiten volcano, located some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) south of Santiago, first began to erupt in May after lying dormant for centuries.

"There has been an increase in the volcano's activity," Sergio Galilea, the governor Los Lagos region, told reporters Friday.

Galilea said that witnesses reported seeing two new craters, and of seeing "significant gas emanations and volcanic material" coming from the volcano.

The National Service of Geology and Mining said it registered 15 low-level earthquakes early Thursday in the volcano area.

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The Chilean government is reducing the security area around the Chaiten volcano from 50 to 24 kilometers in order to facilitate the rescue of approximately 600,000 salmon located throughout various farming centres in the area.

The volcano erupted on 2 May, and between the night of 23 May and the following Saturday, there have been a succession of tremors in the Comau fjord, which is located 20 kilometres south of Hornopiren in the interior of Pumalin Park.

Authorities have decided to transfer salmon to Futaleufu, however, as the column of Chaiten's volcanic gas and ash exceeded the 7,000-metre mark, with recurring eruptions of up to 20,000 metres high, which then later diminished considerably to the 4,000-metre high mark.

Reducing the safety area will facilitate the salmon rescue, and constitutes an "urgent" measure in that surrounding predators may break into the pens and release hundreds of fish to the wild, stated the Los Lagos Mayor, Sergio Galilea, EFE reports.

“If that were to happen, 'relevant environmental damage' would transpire in the area," explained Galilea.

Carabineros - Chile’s uniformed national police - were deployed as far as the northernmost point of the bridge on Amarillo River as transfer operations must be coordinated and authorised by the relevant authorities, underlined the official.

The Chaitén volcano in southern Chile blasted ash and what appeared to be lava a dozen miles into the air on Tuesday, leading the government to order the immediate and complete evacuation of everyone living within a 30-mile radius of it.

Preceded by dozens of tremors, the volcano until now considered inactive began erupting last Friday. It covered about 60 square miles with more than 15 inches of ash, rendering the air unbreathable, contaminating water sources, killing livestock and destroying all small- and medium-scale agriculture in this rural and mostly impoverished area 800 miles south of the capital, Santiago.

An enormous gray mushroom cloud of ash that could be seen from 100 miles away has since loomed over this sliver of land next to Argentina, where continental Chile breaks up into archipelagos. East winds have spread ash toward Argentina. The thick layer of volcanic ash, coupled with rain, has made access to the sparsely populated border zone difficult.

President Michelle Bachelet visited the area on Monday, announcing subsidies and other aid for affected families. On Tuesday, she convened an emergency committee of government ministers, emergency agency representatives, the director of the police force and regional officials.

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 Indonesia has raised the alert level for two volcanoes in the Sunda Strait and Mollucas island chain to the second highest following increased volcanic activities, a volcanology official said on Tuesday.

The alert status for Anak Krakatau, a volcano formed in the Sunda Strait after the legendary explosion of Mount Krakatau in 1883, and Ibu volcano on Halmahera island in the Mollucas was raised on Monday after rumbling to life about a week ago.

"Anak Krakatau's explosions are strong, so we urge people not to get close to it as it is throwing out flaming rocks," Surono, head of the volcanology centre in Bandung city, said.

People have been told to stay at least 2 kms (1.2 miles) from both volcanoes. Anak Krakatau, which means "Child of Krakatau", is a magnet for tourists while many inhabitants farm on the slopes of Ibu (Mother) volcano.

Scientists monitoring Anak Krakatau said the volcano was not especially dangerous and was likely to continue to rumble for some time.

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A street preacher shouts through a loudspeaker in this eastern Congo town, the scene of so much devastation in recent years that some wonder whether the place is cursed.

"Be proud, you are alive!" the preacher says, a cheerful exhortation in a town with a seemingly endless succession of travails volcano eruptions, wars and rebellions, floods of refugees and, just this week, a deadly plane crash.

Goma, the capital of Congo's North Kivu province, is a beleaguered place in an impoverished and war-ravaged country. But this city of 500,000 always seems to carry on through the destruction, displaying the sheer grit that sustains so many people across the world's poorest continent.

"There are all these catastrophes, but maybe God wants to teach us how to live together when there's hardship," Dido Senga, 36, told The Associated Press on a bustling, unpaved main street where hawkers, money changers and motorbikes vied for space. "Life is very good here."

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