Tag Archives: ash plume

Alaska volcano spews thick ash cloud, triggering aviation warning

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – An Alaska volcano that has been rumbling since midsummer shot ash about 5 miles (8 km) into the sky on Sunday, triggering a warning to aviators and dusting one small fishing village, officials reported.

Shishaldin Volcano, one of the most active in Alaska, kicked out a plume of ash that satellite imagery detected as high as 28,000 feet (8,535 m) above sea level, according to the Alaska Volcano Observatory, the joint federal-state-university office that tracks the state’s many volcanoes.

The plume stretched about 90 miles (145 km) as of midday, blowing mostly east and over the Gulf of Alaska, said the observatory.

A sprinkling of ash was reported in the tiny Aleutian village of False Pass, about 23 miles (37 km) northeast of the Shishaldin, said David Fee, the observatory’s University of Alaska Fairbanks coordinating scientist.

“Someone reported some ash on their windshield,” he said.

False Pass has a year-round population of about 40, according to state data, but draws many more people during the summer fishing season.

Also pouring out of Shishaldin’s caldera on Sunday was a stream of red-hot lava, the observatory reported.

Shishaldin has been in an on-and-off eruptive phase since July, occasionally dribbling lava down its snowy flanks and puffing ash and steam.

Most of the ash production has been relatively minor, but Sunday’s event was serious enough to warrant a “code red” warning for air traffic to avoid the area, the second such warning in the volcano’s current eruptive phase, Fee said.

“It’s a higher plume. It’s sustained. And it’s a higher concentration,” he said.

Shishaldin, about 680 miles (1,095 km) southwest of Anchorage, is the tallest mountain in the Aleutian chain, rising to 9,373 feet (2,857 m) in elevation. The upper two-thirds of the spherical peak are usually cloaked year-round in snow and ice, according to the observatory.

It is in a cluster of frequently erupting volcanoes in the eastern Aleutians. “This is the most active region in Alaska for volcanic activity,” Fee said.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Rumbling Alaska volcano sends ash plume 5 miles into the air

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – One of Alaska’s most active volcanoes, a towering ice-covered cone in the Aleutian Islands, shot a cloud of ash more than 5 miles high on Friday, triggering a warning to aviators and putting on a show that was captured in satellite imagery.

The ash burst from Shishaldin Volcano, about 670 miles southwest of Anchorage, was part of an on-and-off, mostly low-level series of eruptions that began in July with a stream of lava from the crater at the peak of the 9,373-foot-tall mountain.

The ash plume was spotted by a pilot and was visible in satellite images captured from space. It drifted over the sea at least 75 miles southeast of the volcano, the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported.

No communities were affected by ashfall or were otherwise in danger as of Friday morning, said David Fee of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, a coordinating scientist with the observatory.

“This is a remote volcano,” he said.

The National Weather Service issued an alert, and air traffic was advised to steer clear of Shishaldin, though aviators were already avoiding the volcano well before Friday because of earlier activity, Fee said.

While Friday’s cloud, the largest yet of the series, was considered moderate, conditions at Shishaldin could worsen quickly.

“Shishaldin remains at a heightened level of unrest, and explosions may occur with little warning,” the observatory warned in a public statement. Friday’s explosion lasted about an hour to 90 minutes, U.S. Geological Survey scientist Matt Haney said.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Editing by Steve Gorman & Kim Coghill)

Hawaii volcano belches new ash plume as geothermal wells secured

A volcanic ash cloud hovers in the distance over the small town of Pahala during the eruption of the Kilauea Volcano in Pahala, Hawaii, U.S., May 23, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Garcia

By Marco Garcia

PAHALA, Hawaii (Reuters) – The restive Kilauea Volcano belched clouds of ash into the skies over Hawaii’s Big Island twice more on Wednesday as civil defense authorities reported that pressurized geothermal wells at a nearby power plant had been spared from approaching lava.

The latest back-to-back upheavals of ash from the main summit crater of Kilauea — one before dawn and another several hours later — came on the 21st day of what geologists rank as one of the biggest eruption cycles in a century from one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

The earlier ash plume rose to a height of 8,000 feet (2,438 meters), while the later one reached about 5,000 feet (1,524 meters), authorities said.

Intermittent explosions of ash from the summit, believed to be driven by underground bursts of steam deep inside the throat of the crater vent, are occurring about twice a day, with smaller blasts in between, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) vulcanologist Wendy Stovall told reporters.

The Hawaii County Civil Defense agency warned in its latest bulletin that residents downwind of Kilauea should take care to avoid exposure to ash, which can cause eye irritation and breathing difficulties, particularly in people with respiratory problems.

“The ash has just been nonstop every day since the summit has been erupting,” said Tiahti Fernandez, 24, as she sat in a car parked outside her father-in-law’s home in the tiny farming village of Pahala, 26 miles (42 km) southwest of the summit crater.

“Every day we have to wash our cars and wash down the patio because the ash just covers everything,” she said over the crowing of four roosters tethered to a chicken coop in the yard. “The air quality has been so bad that everybody has been walking around with a (dust) mask.”

A fine layer of brownish-gray ash coated vehicles and other surfaces, and an ash plume rising from the volcano summit was visible in the distance through the hazy air.

Emissions of sulfur dioxide gas, harmful if inhaled, also remained at high levels from newly opened lava-spewing fissures in the ground running through populated areas on the eastern flank of the volcano, authorities said.

“Residents in the affected area should be prepared to take leave of the area with little notice due to gas or lava inundation,” the civil defense bulletin warned.

CRISIS AVERTED AT GEOTHERMAL PLANT

One potential hazard that appeared to have been brought under control was at the Puna Geothermal Venture (PGV) plant, which provides about a quarter of the Big Island’s electricity.

Lava from an active fissure nearby had flowed onto the property early this week, posing the risk of toxic gases being released in the event molten rock encroached into any of several pressurized deep-underground wells.

Utility crews racing to quench the wells with cold water and plug them with mud had managed to mostly secure the site. The civil defense agency reported on Wednesday, “there is no immediate threat to any of the wells at PGV.”

The facility also received a respite from Mother Nature. Accumulations of cooled, hardened lava created a thick, 30-foot (9.14-meter) high wall of solid volcanic rock channeling fresh lava streams from fissures to the south, away from the PGV plant, USGS scientists said.

Authorities also were monitoring hazards from noxious clouds of acid fumes, steam and fine glass-like particles — called laze — emitted when lava flows pour into the ocean on the island’s southern end.

Laze — a term combining the words “lava” and “haze” — is formed when molten lava, reaching temperatures of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,093 Celsius), reacts with sea water. Although potentially fatal if inhaled, Stovall said the danger was confined to the immediate vicinity of laze plumes themselves.

Kilauea rumbled back to life on May 3 as it began extruding lava and sulfur dioxide emissions through a series of fissures, marking the latest phase of an eruption cycle that has continued nearly nonstop for 35 years.

The occurrence of new lava vents, now numbering about two dozen, have been accompanied by earthquakes and periodic eruptions from the summit crater.

At least 44 homes and other structures have been destroyed, and a man was seriously injured on Saturday when a chunk of lava shot out of a fissure and struck him in the leg.

Some 2,000 people remain under evacuation orders due to lava flows and sulfur dioxide gas. Civil defense officials said contingency plans for further evacuations were being prepared with National Guard officials in case they become necessary.

(Additional reporting by Jolyn Rosa in Honolulu; Writing and additional reporting by by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Sandra Maler and Michael Perry)

‘Ash fallout’ alert after Hawaii volcano erupts in 30,000-foot plume

People watch as ash erupts from the Halemaumau crater near the community of Volcano during ongoing eruptions of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, U.S., May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

By Terray Sylvester

PAHOA, Hawaii (Reuters) – An explosive eruption spewed ash 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) into the air above Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano on Thursday and residents of the Big Island were warned to take shelter as the plume engulfed a wide area, authorities said.

The wind could carry the ash plume as far as Hilo, the Big Island’s largest city and major tourism center, the County of Hawaii Civil Defense warned in an alert.

“Protect yourself from ash fallout,” it said.

The 4:15 a.m. (10:15 a.m. ET) blast that sent ash and smoke nearly six miles into the atmosphere was followed by other emissions of up to 12,000 feet, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement.

USGS geologists and staff were evacuated from the summit shortly before the blast and a webcam showed a gray plume of ash and chunks of magma known as pyroclasts that showered the volcano’s slopes.

An aviation red alert was issued due to risks that ash could be carried into aircraft routes and damage jet engines, USGS said.

The eruption could not only enshroud large areas of the Big Island in volcanic ash and smog but other Hawaiian Islands and potentially distant areas if the plume reaches up into the stratosphere and ash is carried by winds.

National Guard troops donned gas masks to protect themselves from toxic sulfur dioxide gas at the intersection of highways 130 and 132, the main exit routes from the village of Pahoa, 25 miles (40 km) east of the volcano, where many of the ground fissures have erupted, a Reuters reporter in the village said.

Schools were closed in the area due to “elevated sulfur dioxide (SO2) levels,” according to a phone alert from emergency authorities

The volcano has destroyed at least 37 homes and other structures in a small southeast area of the island where lava has oozed from fissures, forcing around 2,000 people to evacuate their homes.

Geologists had warned explosive eruptions could begin once Kilauea’s falling lava lake descended below the water table, allowing water to run on to the top of the lava column and create steam-driven blasts.

The powerful explosions could hurl “ballistic blocks” the size of refrigerators across a distance of more than half a mile (1 km) and shoot pebble-sized projectiles and debris up to a dozen miles, the USGS has warned.

Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, last experienced explosive eruptions in 1924.

(Additional reporting by Jolyn Rosa in Honolulu; writing by Andrew Hay; Editing by Bill Tarrant)