Eruption Update for May 15, 2012: Iceland, Kilauea, Popocatépetl and Rubber Ducks

Some quick volcano news hits for a sunny Tuesday: Iceland I find it amusing and frustrating whenever I see that some sectors of the media don't let pesky facts get in the way of a good lede. I've seen piles of headlines about the new tourist attraction at Thrihnukagigur in Iceland where people can be lowered into some vertical lava tubes via cable car to see the "inside" of a volcano. Yes, that is super cool. However, it is definitely not the "first time" tourists have been able to visit the inside of a volcano. There are plenty of places around the world where you can walk through old lava tubes where lava once flowed, you can climb down into craters formed as the volcano erupted and heck, at Crater Lake, you can take a boat ride around the deep interior of a now-demolished volcano. So, before people get all carried away, remember, this new attraction in Iceland is just the first time you can visit the inside of Thrihnukagigur but hey, that doesn't look nearly as good as a headline. In more salient news from Iceland, Jon Frimann reported that a small outburst flood occurred at Katla late last week, suggesting that it is still warm enough to melt some of the ice that caps the volcano. Now, the real question becomes how much of that heat might be volcanic, how much is springtime melting and how much/little does this change what people think of the state of Katla right now. Hawai'i Speaking of visiting volcanoes, if you happen to be lucky enough to visit Hawai'i right now, you can check out the lava lake in the Halema'uma'u Crater. The lake is producing some significant spatter as this USGS/HVO video shows and strands of Pele's Hair have covered the area near the crater. Pele's Hair is thin strands of volcano glass stretched out as they are spit out of the lava lake and blown in the wind. The latest Kilauea update from HVO describes the busy times at the volcano, with the lava lake level rising and falling over the course of a few hours this morning. There is also another lava lake at the Pu'u O'o Crater that is feeding some sluggish lava flows on the East Rift Zone as well. These lava flows (see above) show the typical overlapping nature of pahoehoe flows, with small budding toes of lavas that coalesce into flow fields as the small, slow flows march towards the sea. Mexico Popocatépetl continues to rumble away right now as well - over the weekend, the volcano produced a 4 km / 13,100 foot plume that closed an airport near the volcano and caused some nervousness in the people living near Popocatépetl. This week the winds in the area might cause ash to fall on Mexico City itself, which is sure to raise the level of media panic over the restless volcano. Ducks And if you want to see an artificial volcano, check out this video of recreating a Plinian eruption ... using rubber ducks. This recreation was done using a garbage can, water, liquid nitrogen and, yes, rubber ducks as a demonstration as University of Wisconsin-Stout. Now I just need to figure out what day this experiment will show up in my geology intro class next year.