As of April 3rd, 2022, there are 52 volcanoes actively erupting on the planet.
One of these erupting volcanoes is the primarily submarine volcano Kavachi in the Solomon Islands,
which has frequently formed temporary volcanic islands that washed away in a matter of months.
Since this volcano's summit is a mere 20 meters or 66 feet below sea level, its eruptions
typically produce surtseyan style activity where seawater is thrown high into the air.
During lesser periods of activity, Kavachi simply produces seawater disturbances.
With this being said, here are this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Japan, the Azuma volcano which has not produced an eruption since 1977 is showing
signs of unrest as volcanic tremor was detected underneath its edifice alongside a small amount
of uplift.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the Taal volcano began a new eruptive sequence marked by a
nearly two hour long continuous explosive eruption.
And on the dwarf planet of Pluto, an unusual type of volcano was confirmed to not only
exist, but also might very well still be active.
Pluto is a dwarf planet which can be found an average of 5.9 billion kilometers from
the sun.
It exists in an icy object rich area known as the Kuiper belt, where it represents one
of the largest known objects.
At this distance from the sun, Pluto is incredibly cold, with a surface temperature of -232 Celsius.
Due to the vast distance Pluto formed from the sun, it does not have many heavy elements
and is largely composed of ice.
As a result, instead of its mantle containing molten magma, it instead holds large volumes
of liquid water.
This liquid water in many ways still acts like magma, and instead of creating volcanic
eruptions abundant in silica, what are known as ice volcanoes instead erupt liquid water
which then freezes on the surface.
Due to the low gravity of Pluto, this has constructed massive shield volcanoes such
as Wright Mons which is shown on screen.
It measures 5,000 meters in height and 150 kilometers wide.
Along with a series of nearby ice volcanoes, these received a preliminary age estimate
of 150 million years old due to the lack of impact craters on their edifice.
Their mere existence and implied young age suggests that just like Mars, Pluto's volcanoes
could still very well be active.
On March 26th, the Taal volcano produced its most energetic eruption since January of 2020.
Over the span of 114 minutes near continuous phreatomagmatic explosions occurred due to
the interaction of magma with the acidic crater lake.
This caused Taal's alert level to be raised to 3 and triggering some small scale evacuations.
However, after the eruption stopped something strange occurred.
The amount of sulfur dioxide the volcano produced dropped by more than 80%.
For context, sulfur dioxide is released by underlying magma, therefor measuring how much
of it a volcano can produce is a could indication of just how much molten rock is present.
Although the eruption on the 26th was notable, it didn't eject much magma.
The Taal volcano produces thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide each day, likely corresponding
with at least a cubic kilometer of magma underneath its edifice.
The recent eruption didn't even eject 1% of this volume, which is causing some confusion
among geologists.
Normally, if a sudden drop in sulfur dioxide was measured alongside an increase in earthquakes,
it would indicate that a volcanic plug was building which would eventually violently
explode.
However the number of earthquakes remained unusually low.
Sulfur dioxide emissions later resumed back to normal levels, but only after 10 smaller
phreatomagmatic bursts occurred.
In Japan, the Azuma volcano is showing signs of unrest, representing its highest level
of activity since a series of earthquakes occurred in 2001.
This volcano consists of a series of more than a dozens vents which are primarily maar
explosion craters and stratovolcanoes.
The vent which produced Azuma's last erupted in 1977 is called Oana.
On March 28th, a series of short duration large amplitude volcanic tremors were detected
underneath this crater which occurred alongside a small volume of uplift.
Although this uplift has since stopped, these two events suggest that heated water or magma
is on the move at depth.
Thus, there is now an increased chance of a small phreatic eruption occurring, meaning
that people should not travel within 500 meters of the crater in question.
An eruption is still quite unlikely, but this activity is unusual.
Here is a quick list of every volcano which is currently erupting.
Also, here are some volcanoes showing signs of unrest which could erupt in the near future.
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