As of November 21st, 2021, there are 49 volcanoes which are actively erupting.
These include volcanoes such as Masaya in Nicaragua, which is a caldera volcano that
has been producing a low intensity eruption since 2015.
It also includes Ol Doinyo Lengai in Tanzania, which produces rare earth element enriched
black lava that cools as a white color.
With this being said, here are a few of this week's major volcano related news stories.
In Turkey, scientists rushed to add seismic monitoring stations to a highly explosive
volcano after a major volcanic earthquake occurred.
Meanwhile in Iceland, a major glacial flood is about to occur from the Grimsvotn volcano,
which could then even trigger a volcanic eruption.
But first, a quick update of the Taal volcano in the Philippines.
During a 28-hour period from November 15th to November 17th, the acidic crater lake of
Taal produced three small phreatomagmatic explosions due to the presence of shallow
magma.
This occurred alongside the presence of significant sulfur dioxide emissions, totaling more than
10,000 metric tons of the gas per day.
Since then, emissions have continued to decrease by 75%, representing a decreasing amount of
shallow magma.
With this being said, three more small phreatomagmatic explosions occurred on November 22nd at 8:11
am, 8:17 pm, and 8:34 pm.
At the present, a large volcanic eruption is not to be expected, but more small phreatic
bursts are possible.
In Turkey, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck adjacent to the city of Derbent on November
8th.
Although some damage was done to structures, it was relatively minor and thus the event
was forgotten about.
Then, a professor of seismology analyzed the earthquake and concluded that this was no
tectonic earthquake.
Rather, it was most likely volcanic in origin, due to the intrusion of magma at a depth of
10 kilometers in the crust.
This claim did not gain much attention until a series of low magnitude earthquakes began
at one of the region's most explosive volcanoes, Hasan Dagi.
Hasan Dagi is a lava dome complex volcano which in a manner of speaking is very similar
to the Lassen Peak complex in California.
It has been active for several million years and each of its eruptions are highly explosive,
producing long reaching pyroclastic flows and emplacing thick dacite lava domes.
The overall volcano has partially collapsed into a caldera at least 4 times, proving that
at times an unusually large underground magma chamber has been present.
Although still largely debated, Neolithic era cave paintings dated to 6750 BC depict
this volcano producing a major eruption.
Contemporary evidence of this event alongside another potential eruption in 7550 BC has
since been found.
Thus, if Hasan Dagi was to erupt, it would produce a plinian style explosive eruption,
with a minimum VEI of a 4.
This volcano has a long period of dormancy between its major eruptions, and it appears
that we are approaching the beginning phase of one such cycle.
With this being said, the odds of an imminent eruption are incredibly slim.
However, there is a legitimate possibility that this volcano could erupt in the next
5 years, and as a result more seismic stations have been placed around the volcano.
In Iceland, a volcano which has been at a raised alert level for several months, Grimsvotn
just had a major development.
Part of its thick glacier covered edifice subsided by a whopping 140 centimeters in
only 3 days.
The cause of this sudden drop is not a volcanic eruption, but rather due to the unexpectedly
rapid melting of a section of glacier.
This melting occurred due to increased fumarole related activity which generated sufficient
heat to melt enough ice to form 1 cubic kilometer of liquid water.
A significant portion of this water will soon escape the overall volcano, creating a catastrophic
glacial flood known as a jökulhlaup.
This imminent flood could become the largest such flood of the 21st century so far in Iceland.
With this being said, this imminent flood could actually cause a volcanic eruption.
If enough material is removed overlying the caldera, it can cause the crust to rebound
upwards, thus allowing magma to erupt onto the surface.
Examples of jökulhlaup triggered eruptions occurred in 1922, 1934, and 2004.
Thus, in the next 2 weeks we need to keep a very close eye on this highly explosive
stratovolcano, which last erupted in 2011.
Here is a quick list of every volcano which is currently erupting.
Additionally, here are some volcanoes at raised alert statuses which are not erupting but
could erupt relatively soon.
I hope that you enjoyed this video.
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