As of April 23rd, 2023, there are currently 43 volcanoes which are actively erupting around
the planet.
One of these erupting volcanoes is the famous Nyiragongo stratovolcano in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, which contains a fairly rare feature within its 1250 meter wide summit
crater.
Within this is the largest of the 8 active lava lakes currently on the planet, which
frequently bubbles and spatters material into the air.
With this being said, here are this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Costa Rica, the Rincon de la Vieja volcano produced a fairly large explosive eruption
at least in the context of the last decade of activity at this crater lake filled volcano.
Meanwhile, on the French island of Reunion which has a population of around 850,000 a
volcano produced a seismic crisis, suggesting that it is likely to erupt at some point in
the next two weeks.
And, for this week's top story.
The Taal volcano in the Philippines after going 6 months without an eruption is now
displaying its best chance of producing a new phreatomagmatic eruption.
People who live around Taal Lake might have noticed that since April 16th significant
vog or volcanic haze has developed.
This is because between April 6th and April 20th, sulfur dioxide emissions have increased
by 143%, likely indicating that an increased amount of shallow magma is present.
Alongside this increase, a sustained plume of up to 3,000 meters or 9,842 feet in height
of volcanic gasses from Taal's crater lake occurred on April 21st, whereas beforehand
Taal's gas plume height merely averaged around 900 meters.
Then, on April 21st 4 volcanic tremors occurred.
On its own, this isn't that much, but altogether they lasted for 32 minutes.
Clearly, either gas emissions, magma, or a combination of both were moving through the
subsurface.
I am leaning towards this being magma as for several months now, Taal had been as a whole
deflating, largely due to patches of its magma chamber partially solidifying and thus contracting.
However, on April 20th the northwestern sector of the Taal volcano began to inflate, meaning
the ground was pushed slightly upwards.
Taking all of this into account, it appears that another small group of phreatomagmatic
explosions of a small to medium size is quite possible in the next two weeks.
However, for an unknown reason this volcano is absurdly difficult to predict, as on some
prior occasions it has erupted when geothermal data was pointing towards it not erupting,
and has not erupted when geothermal data suggested an eruption was highly likely.
In other words, it is quite possible that no eruptions will come of this activity.
On the French Island of Reunion, a seismic crisis began at the Piton de la Fournaise
shield volcano on April 21st 2023 at 3:11 pm local time.
This was in my opinion most likely caused by a rapid intrusion of magma moving towards
the surface, generating earthquakes along the way.
However, this did not occur alongside ground deformation and 69 minutes later the seismic
crisis ended.
At this volcano, although seismic crises can occur in isolation, they often occur in the
days or weeks preceding an eruption.
Thus, a new eruption of Piton de la Fournaise is possible by May 4th 2023 that in my opinion
if it were to occur would begin in this zone I have outlined on screen.
In Costa Rica, there are three volcanoes currently at a raised alert level.
These are Turrialba, Poas, and the topic of this segment, Rincon de la Vieja.
The latter two of the three have active crater lakes, which are the site of fairly frequent
phreatic eruptions.
In these eruptions, small amounts of intruding magma interact with the overlying lake water,
causing it to flash to steam within the magma conduit, build in pressure, before exploding
upwards.
The Rincon de la Vieja volcano began one such new phreatic eruption on April 22nd via an
explosion which occurred at 3:50 pm local time, sending a plume of ash and steam via
a primarily white plume to a height of around 3800 meters.
Due to some of the eruptive products boiling over, it generated pyroclastic flows which
reached up to 2 kilometers away from its active crater.
As a result, in my opinion it is best to keep at least 5 kilometers away from its active
crater in addition to =staying away from drainages at slightly further distances where a lahar
might travel.
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 April 22nd of 2023.
Thanks for watching.
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