The world’s longest chain of volcanoes on a single continent has been discovered in Australia.
The 1,240 miles long chain spans most of eastern Australia from the north at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef to the island of Tasmania in the south.
“We realized that the same hotspot had caused volcanoes in the Whitsundays and the central Victoria region, and also some rare features in New South Wales, roughly halfway between them,” said Dr. Rhodri Daviesfrom the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences.
“The track is nearly three times the length of the famous Yellowstone hotspot track on the North American continent.”
The scientists used satellite images and NASA topography models which allowed them to discover how material usually found in a volcanic center tracked across the nation. The team then visited new sites for potential new volcanoes to confirm their findings.
“This technique has already helped to uncover a lot more volcanoes in the area,” lead researcher and graduate student Julie Boyce told Live Science in an email. “As part of my ongoing research, I have found another 20 probable small eruption centers. I haven’t driven out to visit most of them yet, though.”
The scientist admitted that there have been no eruptions in the last 5,500 years but still consider the area an “active region” because of emissions of carbon dioxide indicating magma trying to come to the surface.
One of the world’s largest volcanos erupted without warning Monday morning.
Mount Aso, on the Japanese island of Kyushu, exploded without any warning tremors and is sending a plume of ash and smoke over a mile into the sky.
A group of 30 tourists who were near the crater at the time of the blast were safely recovered by police.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency raised the alert level for one of the mountain’s peaks to level 3 on a 5 level scale, meaning that the public should avoid the mountain out of fear of hot rocks shooting from the plume.
The volcano, located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, has produced more explosive eruptions than any other volcano in the world. The caldera of the mountain is 12 miles in diameter and has smaller active peaks in the middle.
A 2.5 mile exclusion zone is now in effect around the mountain. The area includes restaurants and museums but no residential homes. All flights from nearby Kumanoto Airport have been cancelled or re-routed.
An underwater volcano off the Granada coast is causing a threat to the shipping industry for the island.
Kick ‘em Jenny is off the country’s northern coast. The threat level of the volcano currently sits at yellow after spending the weekend at the higher orange level. The yellow threat level means that an eruption of the underwater volcano is possible and that ships should avoid the area of the volcano by a minimum of 1.5 kilometers.
The volcano, despite being 600 feet below the ocean surface, is a threat because a burst of gasses from the volcano could instantly sink a ship in the waters above. The process, called “degassing”, would make ships suddenly lose their buoyancy and sink.
Plus, hot rocks can shoot out of the water like missiles and endanger other ships in the region. It could also cause a tsunami depending on the strength of the eruption.
The volcano has erupted a dozen times since being discovered in 1939. The last major eruption was in 2001. The volcano is blamed for Grenada’s worst maritime disaster when 60 people died after a ship went right into the ocean over the volcano.
The volcano has been causing hundreds of small earthquakes over the last few weeks. At one point on Thursday, over 150 quakes were recorded in four-hour period around the volcano.
Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) reported Tuesday a major explosion that rocked the Cleveland Volcano.
The scientists said that the explosion likely produced an ash cloud but that it stayed below 20,000 feet and was not a threat to commercial aircraft.
“We see this quite often and we think that they are associated with some sort of ash production,” U.S. Geological Survey geologist Kristi Wallace said.
The AVO recorded a similar explosion from the Ring of Fire placed volcano last November.
The Cleveland Volcano forms the western part of Chuginadak Island and is about 940 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.
The volcano has been seismically active over the last 14 years, with occasional lava flows and small ash clouds that stay below the 20,000 foot level of concern by the Federal Aviation Administration.
With the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coming to an end, thousands of Muslims who were trying to travel home for the Muslim Eid festival are stranded in Indonesia because of a series of volcanic eruptions.
Officials concerned about safety for aircraft shut down four small airports on Java, the nation’s most populous island after the latest eruption by Mount Raung. The same volcano last week shut down airports in the region including Bali’s Denpasar International. Volcanic ash is a concern for aircraft not because of visibility but because the ash turned into a form of molten glass when sucked into a jet engine.
The government has raised the alert level for Mount Raung to the second-highest level because of the hot ash and lava shooting from the mountain.
Then Mount Gamalama erupted on the nation’s North Maluku island shutting down Sultan Babullah International airport in Ternate.
Indonesia lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire.
The Colima Volcano erupted again on Saturday, sending ash and cinders high into the Mexican sky.
The intensity of the ash cloud forced the closure of Colima’s airport and at least half a dozen small communities around the base of the mountain had to be evacuated.
“The communities in this 12km radius are very small and don’t exceed 800 inhabitants. They have all been evacuated,” civil protection co-ordinator Luis Felipe Puente the BBC.
The mountain’s first eruption took place on Thursday and escalated through the weekend. Local officials said the activity of the volcano was “atypical” and something not seen since the last strong eruption in 1913.
The volcano is known by the locals as the “Volcano of Fire”.
The Mexico Interior Department reported that 2 inches of ash had fallen on the village of Yerbabuena. Rain in the region is making conditions worse as the ash thickens from the moisture.
A group of Australian researchers were looking for lobster larvae.
Instead, they found a huge underwater volcano range they estimate to be millions of years old.
The four are calderas, bowl-shaped craters that happen when the land around an erupting volcano collapses. The largest is just over half a mile wide and rises about 2300 feet above the ocean floor.
Professor Iain Suthers from the University of New South Wales told the London Guardian newspaper he was stunned by the discovery.
“My jaw just dropped,” Suthers told Guardian Australia. “I immediately said, ‘What are they doing there and why didn’t we know about them before?’ It really backs up the statement that we know more about the surface of the moon than our sea floor.”
Suthers called the trip “enormously successful.”
“The voyage was enormously successful. Not only did we discover a cluster of volcanoes on Sydney’s doorstep, we were amazed to find that an eddy off Sydney was a hotspot for lobster larvae at a time of the year when we were not expecting them,” Professor Suthers said.
Suthers said that their research vessel can scan the ocean’s floor past their previous limit of 3,000 meters, meaning they can find more new structures off the Australian coast.
Flights into and out of Bali are suspended due to the eruption of Mount Raung.
The volcano burst to life on Thursday but winds are now carrying the ash from the eruption toward Denpasar Airport. The ash is being described as “not very thick” and from “a weak plume” yet it was enough to endanger aircraft.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said that the plume could cause cancelled flights for a few more days. Some airlines were hoping to resume service on Sunday but most said they were counting on local officials.
“Our team of meteorologists are continuing to monitor the situation, in consultation with the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre,” Virgin Australia said in a statement. “The safety of our guests and crew is our highest priority, and we will recommence normal operations as soon as the volcanic ash safely allows it.”
Witnesses say the ash is so fine in the area around the airport that most people don’t even realize something is happening with the volcano. Sally Neville was traveling to Bali on vacation with her family and have found them broken up because of cancelled and rescheduled flights.
“We had booked and planned this holiday for four months,” she said. “The ash is not visible in Bali, the locals are unaware of the volcano.”
Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung has now released a plume of ash strong enough to cover the provincial capital of North Sumatra.
The residents of Medan now have to don masks to be able to breathe when they step outside of their homes or businesses. The city is located 31 miles from the volcano and has a population of 3.4 million people.
The monitoring post watching the mountain says seven hot ash avalanches slid down the mountain on Wednesday for a distance of 10,500 feet. The ash cloud from the eruptions rose over a mile into the sky.
Mount Sinabung, located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, had been dormant for 400 years before roaring to life in 2010. Scientists who are investigating the rebirth of dormant volcanoes have published a study suggesting that earthquakes could be the cause.
Solid Earth, the journal of the European Geosciences Union, suggests that “megathrust earthquakes” in the region around previously dormant volcanoes could be the cause of new eruptions. In the case of Mount Sinabung, three megathrust quakes between 2005 and 2007 could have sparked the volcano’s 2010 awakening. These earthquakes include the magnitude 8.6 earthquake in 2005, the magnitude 7.9 earthquake in 2007, and another magnitude 8.4 earthquake in 2007.
Indonesian officials are evacuating hundreds more residents near Mount Sinabung as the volcano continues to increase a lava flow and eruptions.
Gede Suantika, government volcanologist, said that 28 hot ash avalanches took place in one day on Mount Sinabung. The lava dome on the mountain continues to build in size creating the possibility of a serious eruption.
The number of people evacuated in recent weeks has topped 3,000.
The circle of exclusion around the mountain is now 3 miles. Residents forced to flee have been complaining about the forced evacuation, saying they are farmers and they have no way to make a living if they are forced off their land.
However, a Saturday blast of hot ash spread two miles from the volcano, leading the government to expand the forced evacuation and removal of angry residents.
The mountain has caused scientists to keep it on the highest alert level since June 2 with a lava dome estimated at 106 million cubic feet.
The mountain came alive after 400 years of dormancy in 2010. Last year, an eruption left 17 people dead. The mountain is on the Pacific Ring of Fire.
