As of the week of March 11, 2023, this are the top volcano related news stories.
In El Salvador, the San Miguel stratovolcano erupted once again, ending a three month long
absense of explosive volcanic eruptions in the country.
Meanwhile, in Hawaii, on the opposite end of the spectrum the Kilauea volcano ceased
erupting, ending a 63 day long eruptive episode.
However, it might soon erupt once again.
In Indonesia, an explosive eruption occurred due to a partial dome collapse at the highly
active Merapi volcano, generating the volcano's longest pyroclastic flows in 12 months.
And, in what is this week's top story, a volcanic eruption in my opinion appears imminent in
Alaska at the Tanaga volcano, and in addition a volcanic eruption could also occur at the
Takawangha volcano.
While an eruption may not end up occurring at either of these volcanoes, they have when
combined produced a total of 464 earthquakes in the last week, which increasingly occurred
under the summit of the Tanaga cone at depths of only a few miles.
This volcanic unrest surprisingly began all the way back in November of 2022, when a moderate
intensity earthquake swarm began underneath the Takawangha volcano, causing its alert
level to be raised from green to yellow.
These earthquakes may have occurred due to an injection of magma deep in the crust, possibly
interacting with Takawangha's hydrothermal system.
After its elevated rate of earthquakes remained but largely waned over the next 4 months,
something changed on March 7th 2023.
On that date, a series of earthquakes began occurring underneath the Tanaga volcano 5
miles to the west of Takawangha which seemingly got shallower over time.
The alert level of Tanaga was as a result raised from green to yellow on March 8th 2023.
One day later on March 9 2023, Tanaga's alert level was seemingly raised again from yellow
to orange alongside Takawangha which was also raised to orange at about the same time.
This occurred alongside the possible but not confirmed detection of both volcanic tremor
and uplift on the edifice of the Tanaga volcano.
Thus, while an eruption may not end up occurring at either of these two volcanoes, it in my
opinion seems likely although not certain that some form of a small explosive eruption
will occur in the next two weeks.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, a large eruption occurred at the Mount Merapi volcano north
of the city of Yogyakarta on the island of Java.
As perhaps as much as 1 million cubic meters of its lava dome collapsed, it generated a
large pyroclastic flow which reportedly travelled to a distance of up to 4,000 meters away from
the volcano, hugging a drainage.
Moving at a speed of greater than 50 kilometers per hour, this pyroclastic flow luckily harmed
no one and was followed by several other much smaller collapses.
However, the eruption plume caused ashfall to accumulate over a large area to the west
of the volcano over the following 12 hours.
Because of all of this activity PVMBG is maintaining a variable 3 to 7 kilometer exclusion zone
around the Merapi volcano although in my opinion I would just recommend keeping at least 7
kilometers away from Merapi's summit in all directions.
In Hawaii, Kilauea has been nearly continuously erupting erupting since September of 2021,
as after its 2018 caldera collapse due to a voluminous flank eruption lava has slowly
refilled much of the summit caldera.
Well, it appears that 63 days of continuous eruption at Kilaeua finally ceased on March
8 2023, as lava stopped being visible in its summit region.
Although this followed a deflationary trend, Kilauea may soon resume its eruption as an
increase in the summit tilt was detected in the last 48 hours.
In El Salvador, the San Miguel volcano has historically been one of the most active volcanoes
in the country.
It traditionally has produced numerous small and intermittent explosions over a period
of months during its eruptive episodes.
One such eruptive episode began in November of 2022 and ended the following month.
However, after 3 months of no eruptions occurring, this volcano once again sprang to life, generating
a vulcanian explosion which released an ash plume 1000 meters above its summit, alongside
minor amounts of ash.
It is quite likely that more small volume explosions will occur in the following days,
and people in my opinion should keep at least 3 kilometers away from the summit of this
volcano.
Here is a quick list of all of the world's volcanoes which are currently erupting.
Additionally, here are some volcanoes showing signs of unrest which are not erupting as
of the recording of this video on March 11th of 2023.
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