49: Second volcano rumbles to life in Guatemala

49: Second volcano rumbles to life in Guatemala

Posted on March 18, 2015 by The Extinction Protocol

March 2015 – GUATEMALA CITY – Two of Guatemala’s three active volcanoes have now rumbled to life, officials said Wednesday, one day after the Santiaguito volcano began belching smoke and showering nearby towns with ash. Guatemala’s Fuego volcano, in the southwest, over the past several weeks has spewed adjacent towns with soot, forcing the temporary closure last month of a neighboring airport. Now the Santiaguito volcano in the west has awakened as well, emitting columns of ash 400 meters (1,300 feet) tall above its crater.
Santiaguito, whose peak soars to 2,500 meters above sea level, is located in western Quetzaltenango province. The sleeping giant began to stir on Tuesday, but officials said that thus far, they have not had to evacuate populated areas nearby. The 3,700-meter tall Fuego — whose name means fire in English — last month spewed out large columns of ash, prompting an orange alert and forcing nearby residents to wear protective masks. In 2012, several thousand people were evacuated from Fuego’s slopes after an eruption. Officials said they are keeping an eye on Guatemala’s third active volcano, Pacaya, in the south. So far, there is no indication that it has been roused from its slumber. –Japan Times


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48: Underwater Volcano forms new South Pacific Island

Posted on March 18, 2015 by The Extinction Protocol

March 2015 – TONGA - Constant eruptions from an underwater volcano in the South Pacific Ocean starting in December created a new island over the last few months. Twenty five miles from Tonga, a nearby island nation, the freshly-made island won’t last for too long, scientists say. As the BBC reports, the 1,640-foot-long island formed from ash spewed by Hunga Tonga, an underwater volcano that last erupted five years ago.
Matt Watson, a professor at the University of Bristol, says the new land is unstable and vulnerable to waves and ocean currents. “It’s formed by fragmentation of magma, so it’s basically small pieces of rock on top of each other that have formed an island,” Watson told the BBC. Despite the land’s instability, Tonga resident GP Orbassano took a trip to the new island to capture the photos below. Orbassano walked around the island and saw its crater, and told NBC News that the earth was still hot weeks after solidifying. –Weather

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47: Chilean volcano erupts and coats town with ash

Posted on March 18, 2015 by The Extinction Protocol

March 2015 – CHILE - New images of the recent eruption of one of Chile’s most active volcanoes reveal how powerful blasts of lava and ash blanketed the mountain’s side with volcanic material. The Villarrica volcano erupted in the early morning hours of March 3, 2015, forcing thousands of people to evacuate the region, according to reports from Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service. Two NASA satellites snapped photos of the volcano, one before and one after the eruption. The advanced Land Imager (ALI) on the EO-1 satellite took one image of the volcano, on Feb. 22, and the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 took a second photo, on March 5, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. 
In the first image, snow surrounds the volcano, but in the second, a large amount of volcanic material, called tephra, coats the volcano’s eastern side. More than 2,000 people living within the 6-mile-radius (10 kilometers) of Villarrica evacuated as the volcano spewed ash and lava into the sky, according to the Center for Satellite Based Crisis Information. There were concerns that heat from the eruption might melt snow on the volcano and cause mudslides, but no injuries were reported, the center said. Still, the volcanic ash could pose a health hazard. Meteorologists predict that winds could still blow the ash cloud south and across remote parts of Argentina, the center reported.
Geologists have followed Villarrica’s rumblings for more than a month. Researchers recorded increased seismic activity, crater incandescence and explosions throughout February, according to Chile’s National Geology and Mining Service. Just before Villarrica’s eruption, Jeffrey Johnson, a geophysicist for Boise State University in Idaho living in Chile, planned to evacuate the city of Pucón with his family. But within 30 minutes, the eruption slowed, and Johnson decided to stay. As the blasts subsided, he resumed his work examining low-frequency sounds recorded by dozens of microphones placed around the mountain, according to a statement from NASA’s Earth Observatory. Johnson and his students at Boise State are still analyzing the sounds, and they will continue to monitor the volcano, they said. –Yahoo News

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