Volcanoes Erupting All Over

Etna, Sicily - Italy
10-11 Feb 2022

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Pyroclastic Cloud in Video (at night)

I found a video with a scene that is even more impressive because it makes you see the dark, ominous looking pyroclastic cloud as it started to roll down the slopes of the South East crater.

(facebook link/video)


Vulkanet.net wrote:
Yesterday, Mount Etna in Sicily produced its first paroxysm of the year. The interval to the previous one was seven and a half weeks. The eruption appeared during the course of the day, but only reached its peak phase in the late evening, but in beautiful weather and with excellent visibility.

There are photos of the eruption taken from the Lipari island of Salina, at a distance of almost 100 km. The eruption produced volcanic ash up to a height of 9700 m.

Pyroclastic flows went off at 20:40, 21:19 and 21:26 UTC, sliding several hundred metres. The longest lava flow emerged from the breach in the New Southeast Crater cone and moved towards the south. The lava front stagnated at 2700 m altitude. Unusual for an Etna paroxysm has been the high frequency of volcanic lightning. There had been isolated flashes during previous eruptions, but not nearly as many as this time.

It is possible that the frequency was due to atmospheric conditions, or that the grain size of the fragmented tephra was different from usual. A higher exit velocity of the pyroclastics is also possible.

Vulkane.net (Marc Szeglat) wrote in a newer entry:

Etna took quite a beating yesterday: the paroxysm significantly enlarged and destabilised the south fissure in the New Southeast Crater cone. This has led to massive rockfalls and debris avalanches in the fissure. The depression in the eastern direction has also widened. Although a remote diagnosis is difficult only on the basis of video recordings, I would not be surprised if larger parts of the cone collapse during one of the next paroxysms.

On the thermalcam you can see that the lava flows are still giving off a lot of heat. The INGV reported this morning that a thermal anomaly was discovered at the base of the southeast crater cone, which only formed after the paroxysm. Therefore, it is possible that a lava flow is still going on. The anomaly could be a newly formed fissure/vent. Volcanologists observed a slight ash emission from this opening.

Update 18:30: There is indeed still a small lava flow to the east of the cone. It is flowing towards Valle del Bove. Such aftershocks are not untypical for Etna. If the volcano takes a long time to cool down, the next paroxysm may not be too long in coming.

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Etna Impressions.

The first 3 images are from 7-8 Feb 2022, which the photographer called "Ice and Fire". All other images are from yesterday's paroxysm late evening on 10 Feb 2022.

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10 Feb 2022

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Fagradalsfjall, Iceland
Askja, Iceland
Grimsvötn, Iceland

18 Feb 2022

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🇩🇪 Vulkanet.net writes:

• Inflation registered under Fagradalsfjall
Askja also inflates
Grimsvötn could erupt at any time

After a very exciting volcanic year 2021, it seems to be calmer at the moment, not only on Iceland. But this is only a snapshot of the visible activity: there is a lot going on underground, especially on Iceland.

The IMO deformation researcher Benedikt Gunnar Ófeigsson interpreted the current events under Iceland for the Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið. According to the paper, geoscientists are documenting ground uplift triggered by rising magmatic fluids at several locations on Iceland. Especially under Fagradalsfjall, the ground continues to rise after a new magmatic vein intruded at the end of the year. For us, the ground uplift is indirectly visible as it triggers the numerous tremors around the newly formed cone. The deformation researcher explained: "The uplift originates at considerable depth. Its centre is somewhere in the area under Mount Fagradalsfjall. It is difficult to locate it precisely.
This suggests that magma is accumulating at a depth of about 12-16 km."

Ground uplift under Grimsvötn and Askja

Benedikt Gunnar Ófeigsson further reveals that there is also ground uplift in the Vatnajökull area. Here it is mainly Grimsvötn that continues to charge. The researcher said that
an eruption could occur at Grimsvötn at any time. The advance warning from earthquakes is normally only a few hours for this volcano. A few kilometres further north is the Cadera volcano Askja. Although the IMO has lost contact with most of the measuring stations there, which is a regular occurrence in winter, the readings still coming in from one station show that there is inflation. Under Askja, the magma reservoir is already very shallow: it collects at a depth of only 3 km.

So far, it is not possible to say when there will be another eruption in Iceland, but it is considered certain that there will be another volcanic eruption.
 
Etna, Sicily - Italy
21 Feb 2022 • Paroxysm No.2

Etna just had it's second paroxysm two hours ago.

It started unexpectedly, without any large signs, around noon in order to reach it's peak at 13.00-13.30. As I write here, around 14:43 - it is already over. From the Tremor chart you can see that it is made up of a sudden, thin, high spike, already falling abruptly. Ash was detected up to a height of 6100 meter (above the sea level).

Our friend Ruth who lives in Mascalucia just 18-19 km south of the Volcano (north of Catania), just sent me two images of the event (see below).

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Below you see another photo from the Paroxysm, albeit not many have been published yet at Vulkane.net's open facebook group (mainly only screen dumps from web cams which I don't feel are so cool to look at). I will post more photos from photographers if or when they become published.

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Different beautiful photo: Yesterday, 20 Feb 2022 - Double steam image before sunset, which was noticed by many.
And a remarkable photo from 18 Feb 2022 where Giò Giusa, followed the moon setting inside the Southeast crater.

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Etna, Sicily - Italy
25 Feb 2022

No paroxysm, but dense ash has been ejected from the now split Southeast Crater.
🇩🇪 Vulkane.net writes on 26 Feb 2022:

Etna with ash emissions

Yesterday [25 Feb 2022] , the New South East Crater emitted ash clouds again. Strong winds pushed the ash down so that the clouds did not rise very high. A photo shows that the clouds were not even that small otherwise. The ash passed through the embrasure in the southwest. It remains unclear whether this was not even an ash flow triggered by further collapse events.

The LGS registered moderate infrasound signals that produced an acoustic pressure of up to 1 Pa. The explosions came predominantly from the direction of the NSEC. All 4 summit craters degassed. Tremor and seismicity were low. MIROVA registered moderate thermal radiation. So once again the question arises whether the current ash eruptions could be omens of the next paroxysm? Before the last events, there was a break of about 1 week between the first sighting of ash clouds and the paroxysm.

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More Images from the second Paroxysm
21 Feb 2022

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In the last photo you can see that the SouthEast Crater is now split in half.
 
Popocatepetl, Mexico
25 Feb 2022

I thought this was an interesting, unusual photo giving a free view into the crater of Popocatepetl.

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🇩🇪 Vulkanet.net wrote on 25 Feb 2022 following:

Popocatepetl: Remnant of the dome sighted in crater

Volcanologists from CENAPRED undertook an observation flight over the crater of Popocatepetl volcano 2 days ago. They saw the remains of several lava domes at the bottom of the 160-200 m deep crater. The inner crater has a diameter of a good 400 metres. The researchers report explosive eruptions and expect further ash emissions. Within 24 hours, 86 ash-steam exhalations were recorded and 14 minutes of tremors were recorded.
 
Spaceweather.com
Tuesday, Mar. 1, 2022

TONGA VOLCANIC ERUPTION TOUCHED THE MESOSPHERE:
When a volcano exploded out of the Pacific Ocean near Tonga on Jan. 15th, scientists immediately realized they were witnessing something special. Little did they know how special. A new analysis of images from Earth-orbiting satellites shows that the plume punched a hole in our atmosphere all the way up to the mesosphere.​


"The intensity of this event far exceeds that of any storm cloud I have ever studied," said Kristopher Bedka, an atmospheric scientist at NASA Langley who specializes in studying extreme storms.

Bedka and colleagues combined images from two satellites: NOAA's GOES-17 and Japan's Himawari-8, both of which observed the eruption using similar infrared cameras from different points in geosynchronous orbit. Using the mathematics of stereo geometry, the team calculated that the plume rose to 58 kilometers (36 miles) at its highest point.​


For comparison, the largest known volcanic plume in the satellite era before Tonga came from Mount Pinatubo, which spewed ash and aerosols up to 35 kilometers (22 miles) into the air above the Philippines in 1991. The Tonga plume was 1.5 times the height of Pinatubo, making it the tallest of the Space Age.

The extreme height of the Tonga plume means it could potentially affect space weather phenomena such as sprites, airglow, and noctilucent clouds, which also occur in the mesosphere. Indeed, there was a surge of noctilucent clouds after the eruption (possibly coincidental) as well as ripples in the airglow layer over the Pacific Ocean. Tonga was truly out of this world.

This movie shows waves of red airglow rippling through the mesosphere over Hawaii 4.5 hours after the Tonga volcanic eruption on Jan. 15, 2022​

Related:

Static electricity strengthens desert dust storms Windblown sand grains can create electric fields that raise up to 10 times more dust than wind alone 8 JUL 2016
For years, scientists have noticed rapidly varying electric fields inside dust storms and dust devils, the dirty whirlwinds that skitter across many desert areas. Some even wondered how those fields might alter the size of the storms, but no one had made any measurements. Now, first-of-their-kind field tests in the western Sahara reveal that the fields—generated when windblown sand grains rub together—loft desert dust much more effectively than previously recognized, creating larger and longer lasting storms than wind alone.

"I'm pleased [the new] results show that what we'd previously theorized," says Nilton Renno, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the new work. "But I didn't expect to see the effect so clearly in the data."

When wind begins to blow across a sandy, dusty surface, the lightest particles aren't the first to move. That's because much of the dust is either stuck to larger particles or tucked between them. But when sand grains start to bounce across the surface, they strike other grains and shake loose the dust, which then rises into the air just above the ground. All that bouncing and jostling also generates static electricity—the geological version of shuffling your feet across the carpet.

When this happens, the larger sand grains typically lose electrons to the lighter dust particles, giving the dust a negative charge. The dust particles are blown higher into the air more readily, whereas the now positively charged sand grains usually remain closer to ground level. That separation of charges creates an electric field that may help electrify some of the dust still bound to sand grains, thus boosting even more of it into the air.

Previous studies have suggested that electric fields generated during the early stages of a sandstorm would have that effect, but nobody had made field measurements to support the idea, says Francesca Esposito, a planetary scientist at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Naples, Italy. So she and her colleagues set out to do just that. At a broad, flat site in southeastern Morocco, they set up a weather station that would constantly measure wind speed, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and sunlight intensity. Extra sensors measured the electric field 2 meters above the ground. The team collected data during the height of the Saharan dust storm seasons in 2013 and 2014.

The instruments chronicled several dust storms and dust devils. And in each of those events, the electric field grew stronger than normal, often in just a matter of seconds—bolstering the idea that the shuffling of sand grains generates static electricity. But the data showed another trend, too: When the wind blew above certain speeds, as much as 10 times the expected amount of dust rose from the ground, the researchers report online in Geophysical Research Letters. On each occasion, the rise was very rapid, suggesting that the dust emissions and the electric field were reinforcing each other, Esposito says.

Renno, who co-authored a paper suggesting such a dust-boosting feedback loop in 2008, says he is seeing similar phenomena in field studies at California's Owens Lake. In some cases, the electric fields differ in direction from those Esposito and her colleagues measured—possibly, Renno says, because different minerals make up the sand and dust at the two sites.

The findings might be a boon for climate scientists. Atmospheric dust may have a powerful effect on climate, absorbing sunlight and warming the atmosphere at some altitudes while shading and cooling underlying layers of air. Some of the largest uncertainties in current climate models stem from their wide-ranging estimates of the size and number of dust particles in the atmosphere. Many of those models estimate the sizes and numbers of dust particles in the atmosphere based on weather conditions, but they don't include the effects of electric fields. Reducing uncertainties in the models could lead to better long-term assessments of climate, Esposito says.


 
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