Eruption Update for January 7, 2013: Colima, Copahue, Stromboli, White Island and Turkey

The eruption plume from Colima during a January 6, 2013 explosion. Image: @gobiernocolima. Here we are, a full week into 2013 and it is time to catch up on some of the volcanic activity that has occurred in this new year. I'm currently mired in the final week before spring semester starts, so I might be a little scarce as I prepare for a new class on Earth Resource and try to get a draft of my first Lassen manuscript finished and sent off to the coauthors. Anyway, what's up in the world of volcanoes? Mexico Yesterday, Colima produced an impressive explosive plume, towering into the blue sky above the volcano. Normally, Colima has fairly small explosive events caused by collapsing domes at the summit (like Cleveland in Alaska or Soufriere Hills). However, it looks like the volcano uncorked a larger event on Sunday. Reports of the eruption were calling it a phreatic event (steam-driven), although I haven't been able to find an official report on the explosion. Officials in Mexico have decided to evacuate people in the National Park of Colima due to this new activity. You can also check out some video footage of yesterday's plume shot from a nearby village. Chile/Argentina Over at Copahue, the alert status at the restless Andean volcano has been moved back to Orange after an increase in seismicity that has been interpreted as magma moving upwards into the volcano. Copahue has not produced any new explosions since the pre-Christmas blast. However, there has been a steady steam plume from the volcano on the webcam since that eruption. New Zealand The alert status at White Island has been lowered to Yellow after no signs of changes with the small dome that was spotted in December 2012 within the main crater. More importantly, there doesn't seem to be any thermal anomaly associated with the new dome, suggesting that this spiny mass is just cold magma that was pushed out during the actively last summer. GNS Science volcanologist Nico Fournier went as far as to call the current eruptive period "finished". However, you can see keep an eye on the crater floor with the GeoNet webcam. Italy Dr. Boris Behncke from the Osservatorio Etneo reported that a new lava flow has started at one of Italy's other very active volcanoes, Stromboli. You can actually catch a glimpse of the lava flow on the thermal webcam pointed at Stromboli by INGV. Turkey I know this has been mentioned in the comments and around some of the interwebs, so I thought I'd mention the rumors of a submarine eruption offshore of Turkey. There hasn't been a great deal of information out there on the event (at least in English), but VolcanoDiscovery puts the location of the eruption inbetween the Turkish mainland and the island of Simi. This would put further east than any identified active volcano in the Hellenic arc but not too far east of volcanoes like Nisyros and Kos. Hopefully we can get more details of the eruption so that the activity can be confirmed as the most recent in the arc. {Special thanks to Eruptions readers for various links in this post.}