As of September 4th, 2022, there are 48 volcanoes actively erupting on the planet.
One of these erupting volcanoes is in a country that might surprise some people, the United
Kingdom.
What I am referring to is the Saunders volcano, which is located in the southern hemisphere
as part of the south sandwich island chain and is classified as part of a British overseas
territory.
Despite its remoteness, this volcano which has been erupting continuously since 2014
contains something few other volcanoes currently have; an active lava lake.
Occasionally, a heat signature from this lava lake can be seen from satellite, indicating
that it is still quite active.
With this being said, here are this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Indonesia, although the highly dangerous Mount Merapi volcano is actively erupting,
it now has a secondary intrusion of magma underneath its edifice.
Meanwhile, in Russia, a 15,500 foot volcano had its alert level temporarily raised to
orange due to apparent ash emission.
And, in American Samoa, the Ta'u volcano is still at a raised yellow alert level as in
intense swarm of magmatic earthquakes continue to strike it and shake two additional adjacent
islands.
These earthquakes have been ongoing since July 26th somewhere in the vicinity of Ta'u
island.
During most hours, between 20 to 30 earthquakes have occurred although most are too small
to be felt by the island's residents.
These quakes are almost certainly occurring due to the movement of magma, and as a result
the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has been posting daily updates on this volcano.
For context, before the latest period of volcanic unrest began, the islands were not sufficiently
monitored to locate where exactly nearby earthquakes originated.
Thus, it took several weeks to realize that the ongoing quakes did not originate from
Ofu-Olosega volcano to the northwest.
After 2 more seismic stations were put in place and some more time passed, the location
of where the earthquakes are originating became more clear.
Although there is still a level of uncertainty, deeper earthquakes appear to be originating
underneath the summit and northern flank of Ta'u with some shallower earthquakes occurring
approximately 6 miles to the north of the island.
Luckily, although the rate of earthquakes has remained at about the same highly elevated
rate, they do not appear to be getting shallower.
Rather, the magma which is causing the latest unrest appears to be stuck undernearth Ta'u
island at some depth.
In far eastern Russia is located the vast majority of the nation's volcanoes.
These are largely located on the Kuril islands and Kamchatka, and at the present are the
site of 5 actively erupting volcanoes.
Among the volcanoes which was not erupting is the towering Klyuchevskoy volcano.
However, unexpectedly on August 25th and August 26th, ash was detected originating from this
volcano, so its alert level was raised to orange.
This was later lowered back to green, as it was confirmed that this ash was mearly resuspended
material from a prior eruption due to strong winds.
In Indonesia, the Mount Merapi volcano has been continuously erupting since December
31st of 2020.
This latest eruptive episode has largely consisted of lava dome growth and collapse, resulting
in vulcanian explosions and pyroclastic flows.
While Merapi's ongoing eruption is relatively minor compared to prior years, there is a
potential sign that this could change.
In recent days, seismic data indicated that a new more viscous magma than what is currently
erupting at Merapi has intruded to shallow depths underneath the volcano.
Luckily, this more viscous magma with a presumably high silica content has seemingly stopped
at 3 kilometers in depth.
One possible interpretation is that the magma is now branching out in a horizontal direction
as a sill.
The concern is that this new magma could potentially mix with the less viscous magma, or act as
an unusually viscous plug, and lead to a powerful explosive eruption.
Luckily, there are no signs that it has affected eruptive activity so far.
Here is a quick list of every volcano which is currently erupting.
Also, here are some volcanoes showing signs of unrest which are not erupting but could
erupt in the near future.
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