The year of 2023 was definitely one to remember in terms of volcanoes.
Not only did we get to all witness the birth of a brand new volcanic island, but also the
Reykjanes peninsula fires continued with two more eruptions, and the world's fastest growing
volcano gained and then lost about 150 feet in height in dramatic fashion.
I now present this year's volcano statistics and notable eruptions.
During the entirety of 2023, 77 separate volcanoes produced eruptions.
The 3 nations with the most distinct volcanoes which erupted were Indonesia with 13, Japan
with 8, and the United States with 7.
Across all of these eruptions, an area of 245.38 square kilometers or 94.74 square miles
were incinerated for differing reasons.
As a quick context, this destroyed area is about the same size as the city of Palm Springs
in California.
225.04 square kilometers or 86.89 square miles of land were incinerated via superheated gas
currents known as pyroclastic flows, with the eruptions of Shiveluch in Russia, Klyuchevskoy
in Russia, and Ulawun in Papua New Guinea destroying the largest 3 swaths of ground.
Onto lava flows, these flows of molten rock covered 20.34 square kilometers or 7.85 square
miles of land during the entirety of 2023.
The 3 volcanoes which covered the largest areas of this total in 2023 were Reykjanes
in Iceland, Piton de la Fournaise on Reunion Island, and Etna in Italy.
While those 3 volcanoes produced the largest effusive eruptions, the largest explosive
eruptions originated from Shiveluch, Ulawun, and Klyuchevskoy respectively.
These three volcanoes also produced the tallest eruption columns of 2023, with the tallest
one reaching a height of 66,000 feet into the atmosphere.
The eruption of Shiveluch on April 11th 2023 was unusually powerful, as not only did it
carve out a 900 meter wide crater, but its eruption plume and pyroclastic flows ejected
230 million cubic meters of material, with the pyroclastic flows covering 154 square
kilometers.
This event even produced the longest pyroclastic flow of the year, which stretched out over
a length of 23.3 kilometers or 14.5 miles before coming to a halt.
Representing Shiveluch's largest eruption in 59 years, the 0.23 cubic kilometers of
ejected material led to heavy ashfall, with the overall eruption intensity being consistent
with a volcanic explosivity index of a 4 on the 0 to 9 scale.
Yet, while Shiveluch's eruption was far more voluminous, another Russian volcano held the
title for the longest lahar of the year.
As, on October 31st, a powerful eruption of the Klyuchevskoy volcano led to a lahar washing
across a road and causing damage to it a whopping 67.3 kilometers or 41.8 miles from the volcano's
summit.
Two highly unusual volcanic tsunamis occurred in 2023, originating from a yet to be named
submarine volcano southwest of Japan's Izu-Torishima island.
This occurred on October 3rd and October 9th, and was caused by an only recently discovered
phenomenon known as caldera trapdoor faulting.
Although lesser known, 18 acres of new land was added through lava flows entering the
ocean, with this primarily occurring through the expansion of the Home Reef island that
only formed in 2022, and a brand new island that formed of the Iwo Jima volcano in 2023.
I was lucky enough to receive footage of what still is the world's newest volcanic island
several times during and after this eruption occurred.
Looking back on 2023, we were able to see the initial moments of the eruptions of Hawaii's
Kilauea volcano 3 times.
However, while many people viewed footage from these eruptions, by far the story which
brought the most interest of the year was the sequence of volcanic unrest that occurred
near the Icelandic town of Grindavik.
Tens of thousands of earthquakes during a 3 week period between late October and early
November led to a body of magma unexpectedly shooting towards the east and then northeast
and southwest, forming large cracks right through some buildings, leading to the town
being completely evacuated.
Then, when a volcanic eruption really was as little as 15 minutes from occurring, the
magma stopped its movement at what may have only been a depth of 50 to 100 meters on November
11th.
Part of this same fissure would subsequently end up erupting between December 18th and
20th with an impressive initial rate of 400 cubic meters per second.
In other words, enough to fill an olympic sized swimming pool every 6 and a quarter
seconds.
Luckily, this eruption was rather brief, only lasting for 49 hours in length.
However, it currently appears that the same volcano is likely to erupt again at some point
in 2024.
Thanks for watching my GeologyHub YouTube channel during 2023, and I would like to thank
this channel's patrons on Patreon and channel members on YouTube!