As of April 2nd, 2023, there are currently 47 volcanoes which are actively erupting around
the planet.
One of these erupting volcanoes is the famous Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic
of Congo, which in 1977 produced super fast foidite composition lava flows.
This lava due to its incredibly low silica content can move at speeds of up to 100 kilometers
or 62 miles per hour.
Nyiragongo last produced a flank eruption in 2021 and today represents one of 8 volcanoes
which currently have an active lava lake.
With this being said, here are this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Ecuador, the Sierra Negra volcano is showing signs of ground deformation via uplift, suggesting
that magma is continuing to intrude underneath this shield volcano.
Meanwhile, a new volcanic eruption began at a tall red colored volcano in Papua New Guinea.
And, in Wyoming, a series of more than 100 earthquakes within Yellowstone National Park
occurred, leading some to speculate that it was volcanic in origin.
This earthquake swarm began at approximately 6 am local time on March 29th, and was centered
in the north central section of Yellowstone Lake.
Mostly occurring at between 2.0 and 4.5 kilometers depth, slightly more than 100 earthquakes
of primarily small magnitude would go on to occur in the next 24 hours.
For context, this is about the same number of earthquakes Yellowstone National Park produces
on an average 18 day long timespan.
Luckily, these quakes were not magmatic in origin and there are two reasons that we know
this.
First, the region where they were centered underneath is within the depths of Yellowstone
Lake and is highly hydrothermally active, where it vents large amounts of heated water.
Thus, we can assume that heated groundwater intruding into a fault line most likely generated
the earthquake swarm.
And second, although ground deformation is occurring within Yellowstone National Park,
it is actually going the wrong way to indicate magma.
Instead, at the present segments of the Yellowstone volcano are subsiding, and the opposite would
be expected if a magmatic intrusion was occurring.
This earthquake swarm does not indicate that Yellowstone will erupt anytime soon, especially
because given the current understanding of this magnificent volcano, it is currently
incapable of erupting in the first place.
Regardless of a magma chamber's size underneath a volcano, it needs to be at least 35% to
50% melt aka active liquid by volume to be theoretically capable of producing a volcanic
eruption.
Yet, the Yellowstone supervolcano only has between 5% to 15% by weight melt.
In other words, it is incapable of producing a volcanic eruption at the present, and this
status of not being able to erupt will likely remain for the next 1,000 years if not longer.
If you compare this to other supervolcanoes, you will see that of the shown group, only
Campi Flegrei in Italy is theoretically capable of producing a form of volcanic eruption given
its melt percentage.
And no, there is no imminent indication of Campi Flegrei erupting anytime soon.
Meanwhile in Papua New Guinea, one of the nation's tallest and potentially most destructive
volcanoes produced a new eruption; the red scoria covered peak of the Ulawun volcano.
Ulawun is considered to be so dangerous as it has a history of producing long reaching
pyroclastic flows, can produce flank lava flows which reach populated areas, but most
importantly is capable of producing large flank collapses.
This is evidenced by a 200 meter high northwestern facing collapse scar.
Volcanoes which collapse once, even in a partial manner are far more likely than comparible
volcanoes to collapse again.
However, the eruption which Ulawun produced on March 28th was quite small, ejecting a
minor amount of ash in what was probably a small phreatic eruption.
Since this eruption was short lived, as a result there in my opinion appears to be no
short term flank collapse danger at Ulawun.
In the Galapagos Islands, Sierra Negra is the only volcano in the specific island chain
to be at a raised alert level of yellow.
Although it has not erupted since 2018, weak ground deformation which in my opinion indicates
an intrusion of magma at depth has been ongoing since at least November of 2021.
However, this ground uplift appears to have accelerated in the last 50 days as the center
of the volcano has been uplifted by 10 centimeters during that time.
If ground deformation continues at this rate, an eruption will in my opinion eventually
occur.
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 April 1st of 2023.
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