As of June 4th, 2023, there are currently 42 volcanoes which are actively erupting around
the planet.
One of these erupting volcanoes is the Erta Ale volcano in Ethiopia.
Erta Ale is a large shield volcano which has covered a vast stretch of an area that would
otherwise be below sea level in a vast amount of black basaltic lava.
Erta Ale has been continuously erupting for more than 50 years straight, often simply
involving one but sometimes two active lava lakes in its two main summit craters.
With this being said, here are this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Chile, a volcano which has apparently not erupted in 10,000 years produced an unexpected
swarm of 50 earthquakes, one of which was felt in several close by communities.
Meanwhile in El Salvador, the nation's most active volcano since 1950 erupted once again.
And, in what is this week's top story, a special alert was put out by Phivolcs regarding the
potentially dangerous Taal volcano.
For context, the Taal volcano produced a major explosive eruption in January of 2020 and
ever since then activity has been dominated by high sulfur dioxide emissions and occasional
phreatomgmatic explosions within its central crater lake.
Taal had last erupted in October of 2022 and in the 8 months since its caldera had been
largely subsiding.
That was until April 20th of 2023, when a new inflationary trend began on a section
of the Taal volcano island.
Since then, sulfur dioxide emissions have somewhat increased, rising from an average
of less than 3000 tons a day between April 1st and May 21st of 2023 to 5,360 tons a day
between May 22nd and June 1st of 2023.
This suggests that a new batch of magma might be intruding underneath the island in my opinion.
Somewhat supporting this hypothesis is the fact that increased thermal anomalies were
detected on the northern section of Taal Island's central crater lake, suggesting a raised temperature
there.
But, most importantly, since June 2nd of 2023 at 6:35 am local time, and continuing for
more than 24 hours and is sill ongoing as of the writing of this video, a single continuous
volcanic tremor has been ongoing in an adjaent area to the area with increased thermal signatures.
This tremor occurred either within or beneath what is known as the Daang Kastila fissure,
a north to south trending line where a new volcanic eruption could theoretically occur.
Whether this tremor results in a new phreatomagmatic eruption is unknown, but if one was to occur,
it would likely in my opinion be brief and relatively small.
Nethertheless, Phivolcs recommends not boating on Taal lake at this time and to under no
circumstances land on Taal Island or fly close over it in an aircraft.
Meanwhile, in Chile, approximately 85 kilometers northeast of the city of Calama, something
unusual occurred at the San Pedro volcano, and no I am not referring to a volcano by
the same name 70 kilometers east of the city of Linares.
On May 30th of 2023 at 8:25 am local time, a series of volcano tectonic quakes caused
by the fracturing of rock, possibly due to magma but more likely in my opinion hydrothermal
fluids occurred.
In a brief timespan, 50 earthquakes occurred in a swarm, including a magnitude 4.9 earthquake
which was felt in a 60 kilometer radius.
This is quite unusual as despite reports of eruptions occurring in the 1800s and 1900s,
no direct evidence to prove this has ever been found.
Instead, San Pedro has not erupted in approximately 10,000 years.
Despite all of this, due to the presence of fumaroles on its summit, I think there is
still a batch of underlying magma, although in my opinion this is not going to cause a
volcanic eruption in the next month.
In El Salvador, only two volcanoes have erupted in the country since 1967; Santa Ana which
erupted once and San Miguel which erupted more than a dozen times.
San Miguel had produced an eruptive sequence which began in November of 2022, lasting until
early March of 2023 which involved several intermittent phreatomagmatic explosions at
its summit.
Some of these even caused minor amounts of ash to fall.
Well, after a barely 3 month absence of eruptions, the nation's most active volcano in the 21st
century erupted anew on May 27th of 2023, sending a plume of ash into the sky to a height
of more than 1 kilometer.
This was followed by a decreased amount of sulfur dioxide emissions in the short term,
so it is unclear whether or not San Miguel will erupt again in the next week.
Regardless, a 3 kilometer exclusion zone is currently in place around its summit.
Here is a quick list of all of the world's volcanoes which are currently erupting.
Additionally, here are some volcanoes showing signs of unrest which are not erupting as
of the recording of this video on June 3rd of 2023.
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