Today marks of the start of the annual American Geophysical Union meeting, where over 20,000 geoscientists descend on downtown San Francisco to talk shop. I will be attending the meeting, but I won't get there until Thursday (tight schedule this year for a number of reasons). When I am there, I'll be busy - presenting a poster on my research into ancient rhyolite calderas in the Mineral King area of the Sierra Nevada of California and chairing a session of talks on Friday morning entitled "
Frontiers in Understanding Igneous Processes From Crystal to Arc Scale". If you are going to be at AGU, please come by my poster on Friday afternoon and say "hello!" My poster is #V53B-2619 and I'll be in front of it from ~1:40 until 4 PM. If you want to live vicariously through others, you can search for the AGU hashtag on twitter (#AGU11 or #AGU2011) for news from the meeting.
Onto some news!
Indonesia The news this morning from Indonesia is of another volcano erupting near a populated area (which could define almost any volcano in Indonesia). The culprit this time is Gamalama, which comprises the island of Ternate in eastern Indonesia. An eruption from Gamalama isn't too surprising as it has a long history of small VEI 1-2 eruptions, the last of which was in 2003 (although unsubstantiated smaller explosions occurred in 2007-08). The eruption appears to be minor so far although the details are sparse - it appears that local residents have been told to wear masks if they go out and some have also fled areas near the volcano. Interestingly, a lot of the news of Gamalama centers on the closure of the island's airport - now, maybe this is still all post Eyjafjallajokull stress disorder, but why does the media feel like making that piece of information is the first thing to report? Do most people, when told a volcano is erupting, think "I wonder if the airport is open?" I know I don't, but I am likely atypical. The volcano was placed on the second highest alert level. Ecuador The new period of heightened eruptive activity is continuing at Ecuador's Tungurahua. Over the weekend, the eruptions intensified with a ash plume that reached 3-5 km / 9,800-16,000 feet and even a small pyroclastic flow that traveled half a kilometer down the volcano's slopes. Some reports mention lava flows reaching a kilometer from the vent as well, although the report does make it seem that it could merely be bombs and tephra from the eruption instead. You can watch some nice nighttime video footage of the eruption (with interesting music) as well. Iceland Katla continues to stubbornly not erupt no matter how badly the media wants it. Now, some people might accuse me of downplaying the threat of Katla - it is a dangerous volcano. Over the past decade, seismicity has been increasing under Katla (see below; thank you to @Volcan01010 for finding this Icelandic Meteorological Office image) but this still isn't undeniable proof that an eruption is imminent (weeks to months) even though the media will make it seem that way, no matter what the Icelandic geologists try to say otherwise. Just looking at the plot shows how variable the seismicity can be, with bursts of increased activity in 2002-04. However, when looking at the current seismicity over the past year and the small jokulhlaups under the ice at Katla, you do have to wonder when an eruption might occur - and more importantly, how large. That, I think we can say, is still very much up for debate ... but right now, the rest is merely fearmongering.
Canary Islands Finally, I wanted to mention the great new YouTube channel set up by INVOLCAN for videos of the ongoing activity at El Hierro. The activity at the island volcano has settled over the past few days and seismicity has remained constant, but we have seen this oscillating behavior before, so it is far from safe to say that the eruption might be ending. However, carbon dioxide emissions continue to go down as well, another sign that the supply of magma might be waning for the time being under El Hierro.
