As of February 27th, 2022, there are 51 volcanoes which are actively erupting.
This list of volcanoes includes Volcan Wolf in Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, whose voluminous
lava flows have covered several square miles of land in fresh molten rock.
Its ongoing eruption is the longest since 1926, as typically eruptions from this volcano
only last a week yet it has been erupting for 53 days straight.
It also includes the highly active Langila volcano in Papua New Guinea which has been
near continuously erupting since 1954.
With this being said, here are a few of this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Italy, Mount Etna produced its second highly explosive eruption of the year, sending fountains
of lava to more than a kilometer or 3,280 feet in height.
Meanwhile, in the Solomon Islands, the submarine volcano known as Kavachi is showing signs
of unrest as large patches of discolored water were detected around its edifice, suggesting
that a small volcanic eruption may have occurred.
And, in Washington State, Mount Saint Helens is continuing to show signs of unrest through
a series of ongoing earthquake swarms.
In the lower 48 US states, it has been 14 years since the last volcanic eruption occurred.
This last eruption happened to end at the Mount Saint Helens volcano in 2008, and since
then the overall volcano has been relatively quiet.
However, since then the volcano has been occasionally struck with a number of earthquake swarms
which were caused by a combination of the movement of magma and hydrothermal processes
caused by heating of groundwater by the molten rock.
These earthquake swarms were relatively rare, occurring about twice every 3 years.
Then, beginning on January 16th, earthquake activity underneath Mount Saint Helens increased
by 500% in a week.
As the weeks progressed, these shallow earthquakes, which were largely at a depth of between 0.5
and 3 miles continued to increase.
On February 11th, a definitively magmatic earthquake hit, registering in as a magnitude
2.0 right below where the most recent eruption built a lava dome.
This specific earthquake was caused by magma refilling the underlying magma chamber which
was drained by the 2004 to 2008 eruption.
Then, on the 17th of February the number of daily earthquakes dropped dramatically.
Since then, the rate of earthquakes has remained low although still are occurring at higher
rates than typical.
This could technically signal that whatever triggered the initial earthquake swarm has
stopped, but then again it is still technically ongoing.
There is no need to raise the alert level at Mount Saint Helens, as although carbon
dioxide levels did increase during the period of increased activity, they have since returned
back to normal levels.
Thus, the odds of Mount Saint Helens erupting in the near future are close to zero unless
something major changes in its system.
In Italy, the Mount Etna volcano produced a short yet violent burst of activity on February
21st.
This burst is referred to as a "paroxysm" and in this case was characterized by lava
fountains more than a kilometer in height.
Chunks of lava the size of cars were propelled high into the air by escaping volcanic gasses,
and were subsequently thrown thousands of feet downslope, as shown in this video courtesy
of Boris Behncke.
This paroxysm originated from the new southeast crater of Etna, and caused a few small landslides
of material to the southwest.
It marks the volcano's second paroxysm of 2022, as a prior one occurred on February
10th.
Since two paroxysms have occurred in such close proximity to one another, more similar
bursts of activity can be expected in the upcoming days to weeks.
In the Solomon Islands exists a shallow submarine volcano which peaks at a mere 20 meters or
66 feet beneath the ocean surface.
It has erupted 36 times since 1939, and it may have just erupted again.
On February 16th, satellites detected a large area of discolored water originating from
its edifice.
This nutrient rich plume of seawater then drifted to the east which had a distinguishable
greenish blue hue.
While this very well could have been caused by a new eruption, it is equally as likely
to have instead been caused by increased fumarole related activity.
Regardless, I would advise ships to stay at least 5 kilometers away from its edifice while
its elevated activity continues.
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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