During the last week, several major volcano related news stories occurred.
For one, new volcanic eruptions began at three different volcanoes across the planet, with
one of these eruptions occurring at the Marapi volcano in Indonesia.
In India the nation's sole volcano with a historical eruption produced a brand new eruption
on a remote island.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the alert level was raised at a volcano famous for producing blue
lava via liquid sulfur, the Ijen volcano.
And in Hawaii, the Kilauea volcano erupted once again, quickly filling much of its recently
active crater within its larger summit caldera rim as shown in this video courtesy of the
Two Pineapples youtube channel.
At the beginning of this week in Hawaii, it was unusually quiet.
This is because the Kilauea volcano stopped erupting around the same time as the end of
Mauna Loa's eruption in 2022.
For the majority of the past 40 years, at least one volcano had been erupting in some
form on the Big Island of Hawaii.
However, the Kilauea volcano had been displaying signs of unrest before its eruption ended
in December.
This is because since November 28th of 2022, Kilauea's summit was slowly inflated due to
the movement of magma underneath the volcano.
After a subsequent swarm of earthquakes occurred on December 30th of 2022, there was not too
much activity until January 5th of 2023 when an increased rate of ground deformation and
earthquake activity occurred, causing Kilauea's alert level to be raised from yellow to orange.
Then, at 4:34 pm local time on January 5th on the Big Island of Hawaii, a singular vent
erupted from within Kilauea's summit crater, creating a fountain of lava.
A second vent subsequently erupted around an hour later, and together these two vents
quickly covered much of the crater floor.
By 4 hours later, lava had filled the active crater to a depth of approximately 10 meters
or 32 feet.
This eruption of Kilauea will likely continue for the next several weeks at a minimum, and
be completely confined to its summit caldera as there are currently no indications that
the eruption will migrate to either of Kilauea's two rift zones.
In Indonesia, a new volcano erupted in Sumatra, the Marapi volcano.
However, while that new eruption is ongoing, there is an increase in activity at a separate
volcano in the country.
The Ijen volcano is located in the southeastern section of a major caldera on the island of
Java.
Due to the unusually extreme abundances of sulfur the volcano produces and the heat of
its fumaroles, the sulfur often turns to liquid and then burns, producing a famed blue color.
While the mere abundance of sulfur should immediately indicate how potentially dangerous
this volcano is, this becomes all the more clear due to its voluminous highly acidic
crater lake.
During historical time this lake has been the site of several phreatic explosions which
have created large waves.
During larger events, these waves can theoretically overflow a section of Ijen's crater rim, creating
lahars downslope.
Since early December, the temperature of this crater lake has increased by a little less
than 30 degrees Celsius.
While this has not occurred alongside a dramatic jump in earthquake activity, this is still
a cause for concern.
A higher temperature means a higher probability of a phreatic eruption occurring.
As a result, on January 7th, Ijen's alert level was raised from green to yellow, and
an exclusion zone of 1500 meters was implemented around the volcano's crater rim.
People were also recommended to be cautious around Banyu Pait River as it could theoretically
be affected by a possible future eruption via lahars.
Meanwhile in India, the Barren Island volcano just produced a new eruption.
While you might initially think of a dry and lifeless desert island when you hear the name
of this volcano, it is instead a densely forested island with the exception of areas effected
by recent lava flows.
Barren Island is 3.61 kilometers wide and contains a small caldera which in the caldera
center has a single cinder cone.
This cinder cone has produced numerous moderately explosive eruptions which have widened its
edifice, produced plumes of ash, and also produced lava flows.
Here is a quick list of all 43 volcanoes which are currently erupting.
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