Current Volcanic Eruptions: 2011

Credit: NASA satellite images of Puyehue Volcano Eruption

Puyehue Volcano (pronounced "Pu-YAY-way") in central Chile started erupting June 4, 2011, prompting local evacuations and sending up an enormous ash cloud that quickly reached Argentina to the east and shut down the city of Bariloche (first two videos below). Changing winds around Jun 6 shifted the ash cloud north (see photo above) to Santiago and Buenos Aires. June 9 the winds shifted again and sent the ash to New Zealand. Now it's sloshing around the whole hemisphere, even throwing a ribbon across south Africa.

Pyroclastic flows down the volcano slopes are extremely dangerous right next to the volcano. Farther away, the hazard is volcanic ash, which piles up like snow but is heavier; it's actually pulverized rock. Air traffic has at times been suspended in parts of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and New Zealand. The air traffic situation keeps changing, so if you're trying to travel, check with your airline and the airport and/or see links below.

Puyehue Volcano is part of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Compex, a mass of several volcanic peaks fused together in about 25 square km (see map). It's not 100% clear which peak is actually erupting, although initial reports assumed it was Puyehue.

Links for 2011 Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Eruption
Eruption status/latest news: Earthquake Report | Bigthink's Volcano News Blog | VolcanoLive | Volcanism Blog | Global Volcanism Program | Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería
Local news and air traffic updates (on some of these you need to scroll down and skim the whole page): Santiago Times | Buenos Aires Herald | NZ Herald | Bariloche News (in Span.)
Volcano profile and in-depth information: Puyehue-Cordón Caulle
Amazing news photos and videos: Atlantic Photos | BBC Video | BBC Photos | pumice on lake
LIVE Webcams of Puyehue-Cordon Caulle: one | two from Chile's OVDAS

Puyehue Volcano VIdeos
Videos #1-3 are eyewitness reports in the city of Bariloche (100km from the volcano): two right after the eruption, the third from June 10. Then news reports / eruption vids.

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Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawai'i is the Cats of the volcano world: it's almost always putting on a show.

There is almost never a dull moment on Kilauea's current eruption images and movies updates page from the Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory (HVO).

Kilaeua's current eruption has lasted for nearly 30 years. From 1983-1986, it built a new cinder cone, Pu'u O'o ("hill of the O'o bird"), to a height of 800 feet. It had been erupting every 28 days, probably due to tidal forces -- although there were jokes a-plenty about Pele the local volcano goddess. Then, in July 1986, Pele got bored and decided to open a 3 mile wide fissure beside Pu'u O'o which became a lava lake. I saw it happen! Lava fountains covered the horizon like a curtain, shooting 500 feet into the air! Downslope, a huge lava flow slowly crept towards the sea, turning the night sky red.

Pu'u O'o has been erupting almost continually ever since, sending lava flows down to the ocean and adding on many acres of coastline, or, more recently, confining most of its activity to its lava lake. In 2008, Halema'uma'u, the huge summit crater of Kilauea, woke up with a bang and started a second lava lake. In March 2011, a new fissure has opened next to Pu'u O'o and started erupting too! That eruption stopped after a few days, but Pu'u O'o and Halema'uma'u's lava lakes continue to seethe and churn, filling and draining and filling again.


[Photo Credit: HVO]

Kilauea Volcano Links:
Hawaii Volcanoes Observatory
News, videos, and updates on all Hawai'i's volcanoes, including the underwater Lo'ihi volcano.
Kilauea Volcano Webcams
What's erupting? Check the webcams and take a look.
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
What's open, what's closed, and where you can go to view Kilauea erupting.

Kilauea Volcano Videos:

Mt. Etna by Dario Dado

Sicily's Mount Etna gives Kilauea hefty competition for the title of "world's most active volcano." As of March, the most recent lava-spewing eruptions occurred in mid-January 2011.

Etna's main eruption style, with large gas bubbles causing lava to spurt up in regular intervals like a giant piston, is known as Strombolian, after Etna's neighbor Stromboli. (Stromboli, the "Lighthouse of the Mediterranean," erupts even more constantly than Etna.)

Mount Etna's eruptions over the last decade have attracted a horde of amateur filmmakers, notably Thomas Reichart, whose amazing videos are half volcano documentary, half music video. Sadly, he lost his life at Etna several years later. (See beautiful tribute video by fellow volcano buffs).

Volcano Live maintains a good summary of Mount Etna's ongoing eruptions.

Indonesia has hundreds of volcanoes and earthquake faults.The only man-made one is the Lusi Mud Volcano. Since it burst out of a gas exploration well in May 2006, Lusi has covered 3 square miles with a wall of toxic, boiling mud 65 feet thick, killed 14 people, left thousands homeless, buried four villages and dozens of factories, and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. In fact, scientists estimate it will be decades before it stops gushing. (NOTE: The gas company responsible for the well has hired a PR firm which may be "updating" Lusi's Wikipedia entry.)

Indonesian Mud Volcano (Lusi) Links:
Drowning in Mud
Amazing National Geographic article with vivid photos (2008).
Link Between Exploration Well and Lusi Mud Volcano
Science Daily reports on the disaster and probable cause.
Indonesia's Mud Volcano Flows On
Good, in-depth article in the Los Angeles Times.
Mud Volcano Was Man-Made
Geologists easily refute oil company's attempt to shift blame.

Poor Montserrat. This idyllic 11-by-7 mile island in the Caribbean lost more than half of its inhabited area to the Soufrière Hills volcanic eruption that started in 1995. The original capital, Plymouth, has been abandoned, and now lies under 40 feet of volcanic mud and ash from successive pyroclastic flows. Much of the southern half of the island is relatively unscathed, but under constant threat from ashfall.

The sheltered, northern half of the island is still inhabited, and remains a beautiful, friendly tourist destination. However, a fresh flurry of volcanic activity from Soufrière Hills in January-February 2010 suggest that it will be a long time before the island's hardy inhabitants can return to the evacuation zone and rebuild.

City of Plymouth, Montserrat, below Soufrière Hills Volcano.

Photo Credit: Mike Schinkel on Flickr

Soufrière Hills Links:
Montserrat Volcano Observatory
Website by geologists posting weekly updates, photos and videos of ongoing eruption.
Montserrat from Space
Wow. This NASA photo really gives you a sense of scale, showing the ongoing eruption and the island in perspective.

Soufrière Hills Videos:

NASA/JPL Satellite Photo

Just in case earthquakes, typhoons and tsunamis weren't enough, Japan's position along the Ring of Fire gives it a bumper crop of volcanoes. Sakurajima Volcano and Shinmoedake Volcano are two active volcanoes on Kyushu, Japan's southern island.

Shinmoedake Volcano erupted in 2008 and 2009, and started erupting again in January 2011, throwing up ash and lava and prompting local evacuations. A notable eruption of Shinmoedake on Feb 1st (see first video below) shattered windows in buildings several miles away. It has been erupting off and on.Some news media drew a false connection between Shinmoedake's eruption on March 13 with the Tokai/Sendai earthquake of March 11. In fact, this volcano has been quite active anyway, and is about 900 miles from the quake epicenter in northern Japan: that's much too far to feel any stress even from a quake that size.

Sakurajima Volcano: The current series of eruptions (mostly ash explosions) began in 1955. There hasn't been much damage. According to a Sakurajima Village travel guide, "People can be seen walking around the town, or sometimes even in Kagoshima City, with umbrellas to protect their clothes and skin from falling ash."

The interesting thing about Sakurajima is that it's a baby! As you can see from the satellite photo, it's a smaller peak coming up in the middle of a larger, ancient volcanic caldera that erupted 22,000 years ago. In fact, Sakurajima was an island until a major eruption in 1914 hooked it to the mainland.

Sakurajima Links:
Sakurajima Volcano on Photovolcania.com
Detailed history of eruptions, in-depth scientific info, and many excellent photos.
Sakurajima on VolcanoLive
Simple list of eruptions for the last 40 years.
Tourist Info for Sakurajima
Not much detailed info, but enough to get you there.

Shinmoedake Links:
Eruptions of Shinmoe-dake
History of Shinmoedake eruptions, with photos and geological information, through Feb '11
Global Volcanism Program Updates on Kirishima
Shinmoedake Volcano is part of the Kirishima complex of volcanoes. This scientific website has up-to-date reports, photos and news on all of them.

Japanese Volcano Videos:

Indonesia, a long volcanic island chain strung along the western edge of the Ring of Fire, has more active volcanoes than anywhere. It is, after all, the home of Krakatoa and the less-well-known but even more devastating 1815 eruption of Tambora Volcano. At least four different Indonesian volcanoes have made international headlines in the last year, often grounding airline traffic and causing evacuations and deaths on the ground. Here are just a few of the headline-makers:

Discover Indonesia: Indonesian Volcanoes
Excellent site with good photos and recent news on several of Indonesia's currently active volcanoes.
Beautifully Eerie Mount Bromo
Gorgeous photos of Mt. Bromo in a vivid account by a traveller visiting the mountain in Feb 2011.
The Big Picture: Mt. Merapi
HD, incredible photos of the Mt. Merapi eruptions and evacuations of Oct/Nov 2010. Pyroclastic flows and glowing clouds from this monster killed hundreds, but the volcano has subsided (for the moment, as of Mar 2011) and is just intermittently smoking.

Indonesian Volcanoes Videos

Photo Credit: twiga on Flickr

"Mama" Tungurahua Volcano in Ecuador exploded violently in May 2010, sending a 10KM plume of ash into the sky and dropping lava bombs, blocks and pyroclastic flows into nearby villages. 2500 people and their herds (phew) were evacuated, and Guayaquil Airport shut down (Photo of Guayaquil under ash). People all over Ecuador could hear Tungurahua rumbling, and cities in four provinces received ashfall. The explosions died down a bit, but Tunguruhua erupted again on Dec 4, 2010 triggering fresh evacuations.

Tungurahua's latest round of eruptions has been going on since 1999. The worst was in August 2006, when 6 people were killed and several mountain villages destroyed/evacuated. The city of Baños at Tungurahua's foot had to be temporarily evacuated in 1999. (The city's name means "baths" or "hot springs", reminding us of one of the benefits of volcanoes.)

Tungurahua Volcano Links
Volcano Live on Tungurahua
Summary of the formation and eruption history of Tungurahua Volcano.
Volcano Discovery Tungurahua Updates
Good volcano blog giving updates on ongoing eruption.
Tungurahua Eruption on Global Voices
Good article with eyewitness reports and photos from locals affected by this eruption.
Ecuador Geophysical Instutute
Google translator on the official site tracking this and other local volcanic eruptions.

Tungurahua Volcano Videos
(I couldn't find any in English, but these are fairly self-explanatory)

Two volcanoes erupting simultaneously,
Kamchatka, NASA Photo

In Russia's remote Kamchatka Peninsula, just opposite Alaska, are 100+ active volcanoes that delight explorers and geologists. The area is sparsely populated by indigenous peoples who revere the volcanoes as sacred. Many Kamchatka volcanoes have beautiful, steep-sided silhouettes like Mt. Fuji in Japan.

Ash from these volcanoes occasionally threatens intercontinental flights from Australia and Asia to Europe.

Kamchatka Links
Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team
KVERT advises airplanes about ash clouds from the Kamchatka volcanoes. See the "Volcano Activity" tab on KVERT's website for up-to-date Kamchatka eruption news. Their front page also gives details about several close encounters between passenger planes and volcanic ash which shut down jet engines.
Volcanoes of Kamchatka
Good travel guide with overviews and photos of several of the most scenic peaks.
Global Volcanism Program's Kamchatka Page
List of all Kamchatka volcanoes with photos, summaries, and geological information.

Kamchatka Videos:

by Marco Fulle, 16 April 2010
Stromboli Online

The dramatic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland started on March 21st, 2010, disrupted Europe's air traffic in April, and sputtered to a close in June.

At first, the main threat was flash flooding from Eyjafjallajökull's melting glacier. Locals evacuated, while sightseers flocked to watch the lava fountains.

On April 14, Eyjafjallajökull began belching huge quantities of ash that grounded air travel across Europe. Millions of passengers were stranded, running out of money due to unexpected travel expenses.

Ash levels diminished, and European airspace was opened on the 21st of April. Authorities remained concerned about the eruption might trigger Eyjafjallajökull's neighbor, Katla volcano, but by June, the eruptions were over -- there, at least.

In March 2011, Bardarbunga Volcano put people on edge, but that was a false alarm. On May 21, Grimsvötn Volcano began erupting, shutting down Iceland's airport, blanketing farms and fields in glassy ash which kills livestock, and temporarily shutting down air traffic in Scandinavia, northern Britain and Germany. The eruption died down on May 25, but don't be surprised to see another tongue-twister eruption from Iceland at any time.

Grimsvotr Volcano Links
Overview of Grimsvotn Volcano Eruption
John Seach, volcano photographer and explorer, gives excellent recap and summarizes past eruptions.
Q&A: EU Response to Iceland Volcano Ash
BBC sums up the impact on Europe; see "Under the ash cloud" and other links in the sidebar for how it's impacting Iceland.
Grimsvotn Volcano Eruption Historically Short
Iceland Review, online news site, calls eruption over. Are they right?

Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Links:
Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Photo Gallery
A few AMAZING photos you don't want to miss. (I love the volcano with northern lights above.)
BBC News Special Report on Iceland Volcano
News, pictures, and explanatory graphics covering the eruption and its impact on Europe.
Nordic Volcano Observatory: ERUPTION in Eyjafjallajökull
Daily updates, photos, and scientific information on the eruption.
NASA Satellites Catch Eyjafjallajökull's Ash Plume - Space News
Satellite photos and good information about the ash plume from April 17-19.
Stromboli Online - Iceland Photo Gallery
Stunning photos of Iceland volcanoes, geysers, and the current eruption.
How to Pronounce Eyjafjallajökull
Native Icelander says the name slowly to help us foreigners!
Iceland Volcano Eruption: It's Over
The University of Iceland declares the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano eruption over in October 2010. Article reviews the event.

For info on the Iceland Eruption of 1783 which caused widespread deaths and famine:
Scroll down to the "History" section on this Iceland Natn'l Parks page on the Laki Eruption.

Iceland Volcano Videos: (Watch for visible shock waves in first video)