First visit to our site? Try our free app! Android iOS version. Hawai'i and Kilauea volcano photos Lava flows, lava lakes, eruptions and aerial images from Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawai'i throughout the years. Eruption Specials. Tours to erupting volcanoes From time to time, we organize special tours to see volcanoes in eruption.
These are often announced only few days or weeks in advance. Find out more! What is a volcano? Definition of a volcano A volcano is the term for any place on the surface of the earth, where hot molten rock magma reaches the surface. Lava fountains. Q: You grew up with an active volcano always in the background. What inspired you to study it in more detail? I grew up impressed by the daily eruptive columns that crowned the top of the volcano and by the idea of how the volcano could look like inside.
There is a 7 to 10 km exclusion zone around Colima, which normal people are not allowed to intrude for their own safety. In order to investigate the volcano, I needed to become a volcanologist and so I started my way to become one.
I was able to get a sense of how likely the occurrences of different types of volcanic events are, to what extent they could affect the surrounding populations, what monitoring and forecast techniques exist to be informed about these events, and where to search for information about the volcanic activity. Therefore, I believe that communicating simple but detailed information about Colima and its associated activity to the surrounding population could not only help people to be more aware of changes in the activity of the volcano information which is provided by the local authorities.
But it also provides them with a clearer concept of the different styles of eruptive activity and helps to self-evaluate the potential effects that these could have in their lives and the probabilities for them to occur.
Munguia Gonzalez: From a statistical point of view, events like ash-falls and lahars mud and debris flows could be acknowledged as the major hazards of Colima considering the frequency in which they occur and the distance they reach. However, threats are not exclusively attributed to the volcanic activity: the most hazardous instances can result from the people themselves, when they settle or wander too close to the volcano within an established exclusion zone.
Those self-risk scenarios can be either due to ignoring the range of some volcanic events including pyroclastic flows, lava flows and material ejected from explosive events or by not caring much about them. Munguia Gonzalez: Within a short distance, it has killed some livestock of ranches near the pathways of pyroclastic flows; at medium distance, the generation of acid rain burned and damaged some crops.
On a more positive side, the current activity, combined with increasing use of social media, has made people much more aware of and interested in the development of the volcanic activity at Colima.
Q: The volcano seems particularly active at the moment. Are there any estimations about the future development of the eruption? However, there is a current hypothesis regarding the activity of Colima that says that the volcano behaves in a centennial cyclic way. After a very big eruption Plinian or sub-Plinian , the volcano starts a cycle of alternating effusive and minor explosive activity, with an increasing frequency and magnitude of the activity as the end of the cycle approaches.
Finally, this culminates in another major Plinian explosion after which a new cycle begins. The current eruption is a continuation of a longer eruptive phase. From February to February , the volcano erupted almost continuously and has burst forth with several smaller eruptions since that time. The large snow-covered mountain to the north is Nevado de Colima. This older edifice dwarfs the younger and historically active Colima volcano to the south, shown here with a minor steam plume.
Several lava flows from previous eruptions can be seen emanating from the Colima volcano summit area. ASTER is not the only instrument that has proven useful in monitoring volcanoes from space.
This plot shows the eruptive phase as well as later sporadic events.
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