As of July 17th, 2022, there are 47 volcanoes actively erupting on the planet.
One of these erupting volcanoes is Nyamuragira in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which
has been erupting since April 18th of 2018.
Nyamuragira is a shield volcano with a low prominence 2.2 kilometer wide caldera which
formed due to large volume flank eruptions which drained the underlying magma chamber.
This volcano is often overshadowed by the far more dangerous Nyiragongo volcano with
its 100 kilometer per hour lava flows, but also has the potential to produce unusually
fast lavas which could overrun a number of local settlements.
With this being said, here are this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Indonesia, there has been an increase in seismic activity at the Raung stratovolcano.
This volcano is most famous due to its amphitheater like caldera which amplifies the volcano's
unusually loud eruptions, and is the reason for Raung's name.
Meanwhile in Japan, satellites have this month twice detected unusual bursts of sulfur dioxide
emissions from the Tokachidake volcano which has not erupted since 2004.
And, also in Japan, the alert level was raised from green to yellow at a potentially highly
dangerous volcano which is located within 10 kilometers of more than 100,000 residents.
The volcano I am referring to is called Yufu-Tsurumi or Tsurumidake, and is located 6 kilometers
west of the city of Beppu on the northern section of the island of Kyushu.
This volcanic complex consists of three large lava domes and at least one notable landslide
scar which was triggered by a lava dome collapsing in 200 BCE which took with it part of the
mountain.
Although unconfirmed, what looks like "hummocky terrain" overlies several densely populated
cities to the east, potentially associated with 2 other geologically recent collapses
of the lava dome complex.
Although not every eruption at this complex is highly explosive, another such large scale
collapse represents an unlikely worst case scenario.
The alert level was raised at this volcano due to a swarm of earthquakes which began
underneath the east flank of the Garandake lava dome.
Compared to previous earthquake swarms at this volcano, the ongoing series is occurring
at an unusual location away from where other swarms have occurred and is shallower than
usual, occurring at between 1 and 4 kilometers in depth.
By noon on July 8th, 92 volcano tectonic earthquakes had occurred which were most likely related
to the movement of heated hydrothermal fluids underneath the volcano.
Luckily, after this earthquake activity largely ceased on July 11th.
Although the earthquake swarm may be over, it was still highly unusual.
As a result a 1 kilometer exclusion zone was placed around the summits of both Garandake
and Tsurumidake.
In Indonesia, the towering Raung stratovolcano stands at 3,260 meters or 10,696 feet above
sea level.
It contains a steep walled summit caldera with a young volcanic cone which has been
the site of 46 eruptions in the last 100 years.
The last such eruption ended on April 14th of 2021.
Although Raung is currently at an alert level of 1 which translates to green, it is displaying
an increase in seismic activity which could eventually result in its alert level being
raised to yellow or 2.
While Raung produced only 2 earthquakes on July 4th, by July 6th this figure spiked to
9 earthquakes.
Earthquakes then spiked to 73 on July 10th before returning to still heightened but lesser
values.
This occurred alongside increasing emissions of sulfur dioxide gas from the volcano which
is indicative that active magma is somewhere at depth.
However, ground uplift indicating the vertical movement of magma has not been detected.
In Japan, satellite sensors also detected several bursts of sulfur dioxide emissions
from the Tomachidake volcano.
Measurements were made of 530 tons on July 7th and 490 tons of July 14th.
This volcano is currently at an alert level equivalent to green, as its apparent increase
in emissions occurred without a detectable magmatic uplift signal visible from satellite.
This either indicates that the sulfur dioxide signals are a false positive or that small
batches of volcanic gasses made it to the surface due to a negligible increase in overall
activity.
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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