What the Future May Hold for El Chichón

After yesterday's retrospective on the 30th anniversary of the eruption of El Chichón in México, I thought I'd follow up with a bit about what is going on at the today and what the future activity might be for the volcano. For volcanoes with long repose time between eruptions, it isn't too surprising how little has happened at El Chichón since 1982's events. Inputs of new magma might be widely spaced in time or accumulate slowly under such volcanoes, so after the 1982 eruption was declared over in September of the same year, the most obvious sign of heat beneath the volcano has come in the form of intense hydrothermal activity in the crater and the acidic crater lake (see above). The hydrothermal activity at El Chichón typically manifests itself as fumarolic activity in the crater lake area (see below) and the changing acidity of the crater lake (although this ...