Unfortunately Named Or Impossible To Pronounce Volcanoes

One of the fun parts of 'Earth Browsing" on programs like Google Earth, is that you run across some... shall we say... unfortunately named places in the world. Some of the names of these places are downright hilarious, such as the town of "Batman" in Turkey, or places with ridiculously long names like Ambodilazanivivy in Madagascar. But truly, people who have the privilege of naming volcanoes have gotten away with a wee bit of fun, or at the very least, had no idea what some of these mountains would sound like in other languages.

The list of silly names for volcanoes is sort of long, but I'll pick the ones I consider to be the top 5 in the hilarity/strangeness category, and of course give you some info on them.

5) Kamchatka, Russia. Kamchatka is Russia's volcanic capitol, and home to the vast majority of all of its active volcanoes. The place lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire, and is host to frequent eruptions from several of its many stratovolcanoes. One of these dormant volcanoes goes by the very unfortunate name of "Taunshits".  Taunshits volcano last erupted in 550BCE, and has not had any historical eruptions, however it is likely to one day erupt again. Its summit sports a very thick andestitic lava flow reminiscent of its namesake... or at least the second syllable... oh brother....

4) Andaman Islands, India. India does not have many active volcanoes. The country itself is host to the Deccan Traps, remnants of what is thought to be ancient lava flows from the hotspot that is responsible for Reunion Island's "Piton de la Fournaise", but India itself is no longer host to any active volcanism. It does however own some island volcanoes North of Indonesia... namely an island called "Narcondum". Sounds like a mix of "narcotics" and "condom", but I'm certain it has some cultural meaning... or at least I hope. Narcondum island hosts one of India's two volcanic islands, the other being Barren Island. There have been no verified historical reports of any eruptions at Narcondum, but it does have a youthful look to it.

3) New Guinea is host to many active volcanoes, and many dormant ones. Off its North shore lies the volcanic island of "Blup Blup" (one can only guess as to why it may have been given such a silly name), which has never had any historical eruptions, although it is suspected to have erupted during the Holocene.

2) North of Grenada Island, in the Carribean chain of volcanoes which include volcanic 'superstars' such as Sofreirre Hills in Montserrat, and Montagne Pelée on the island of Martinique, is the bizarrely named "Kick 'em Jenny" submarine volcano. Again, one can only guess as to what brought a volcanologist (or whoever named this volcano) to name this volcano something that sounds like a violent suggestion, but hey, it gives us something to ponder I suppose. Kick 'Em Jenny has had many eruptions since its discovery in the 1930's, with rumbling sounds frequently audible by beach goers who dive underwater. It is a relatively new volcano, and it's last eruption was in December of 2001.

1) And the number one country with funky names for volcanoes has to go, hands down, to Iceland. Yep, we're going there with Eyjafjallajökull, a volcano with a name I'm not sure even Icelanders like to attempt to speak out loud (many opt for the shorter 'Eyja' or 'Eyjafjöll' moniker... to which I say, bully, still hard to pronounce!). Indeed, every web site, news caster, scientist, even the local Icelanders seem to have a different way to pronouncing this tongue twisting, air-travel-halting monster of a mountain. Eyjafjallajökull was the source of an eruption in 2010 that created massive ash clouds that drifted directly over Europe, causing airports to ground their air craft during the holiday season, creating travel chaos, delaying families, celebrities, students, musicians, and politicians from being able to fly. This eruption caused massive amounts of economic hardship for countries that were already experiencing the effects of the global recession. Eyjafjallajökull isn't the only tongue twisting Icelandic native however. It is also host to volcanoes with such names like "Snaefellsjökull", and "Theistareykjarbunga".

Hope you enjoyed this list! There are definitely more places and volcano names out there that will make you scratch your head, twist your tongue, or simply make you chuckle. Go find them!

AVO Upgrades Cleveland Alert To Orange

Alaska's notorious Cleveland Volcano has been upgraded from yellow alert status to orange amid recent explosions from the summit crater. The volcano has been in a state of unrest for several years and has had periods of summit crater dome growth, followed by explosions that destroy the dome, only to restart the process. Typically (during this particular unrest period), Cleveland will have a brief explosion that 'unplugs' the summit, ejecting hot ash and blocky lava, and then change to a period of very slow effusion that builds a plug or dome within the crater. After the dome reaches nearly the rim of the crater, this is when the explosions have been occurring usually.

Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) does not have monitoring equipment on Cleveland due to its remote location within the Aleutian Islands chain of volcanoes. They rely on satellite data for the majority of their reports, mainly from MODIS or German satellites. Some seismic signals are strong enough to be detected by other 'nearby' monitoring stations, but it is quite probable that Cleveland volcano is a bit more active than we give it credit for, having had probable explosions that have gone undocumented, or unnoticed.

Currently in Alaska, there are only two volcanoes showing activity of any kind. Veniaminof volcano has gone up and down from Yellow to orange and back to yellow several times in the past year or so, with periodic lava effusion from the summit cone.

In a typical year, at least one or two volcanoes is usually in a state of unrest or eruption, and Cleveland volcano is one of the most frequently active in the chain.

Cleveland volcano does not pose any threat to human populations, but does lay under many air travel routes, so an Orange designation means that air traffic may need to divert to other routes in order to avoid being unexpectedly caught in an ash column, as happened with the 1989 eruption of Redoubt volcano (which also had an eruption in 2009). An airline full of passengers was temporarily disabled as it flew through a column of ash some 45,000 meters in height, causing its engines to choke on volcanic ash that turned to glass within the turbine. Fortunately the plane was able to restart its engines before it would have crashed, and landed safely.

Little Known Palena Volcanic Group In Chile Has Eruption

It appears that on Dec 22, a volcanic group in Chile may have had eruption, possibly for the first time in the historical record. The Palena Volcanic Group, which is described by the Smithsonian GVP as "The Palena volcano group consists of five cinder cones oriented along a NNE trend NE of Melimoyu volcano. The youthful volcanoes, which are named after the middle cone, are Holocene in age (Moreno 1985, pers. comm.)" has not had any confirmed historical eruptions. If this is true, it would mark the first observed activity in this chain of cinder cones.

I went to check out the location via Google Earth, and was only able to visually identify 3 obvious cinder cones, to the SW and NE of where the GVP marker was (Image below) so it is not clear exactly where this eruptive center (if an eruption is occurring) is located. The cones I was looking at look to be monogenetic in nature, heavily vegetated, but pretty fresh looking morphologically.

                                     

Screenshot of location for Palena Volcanic Group with 3 cones identified by marker pins, from Google Earth. 

If this report is true, this would mark the 2nd volcano in recent history with no known eruptions to pop off in less than a decade, after the spectacular and unexpected rhyolitic eruption of Chaiten. However, analysis from volcanodiscovery.com seems to indicate that this may not in fact be the case, as SERNAGEOMIN has failed to identify any seismic signals, or verify any eruption has actually taken place. As stated by volcanodiscovery.com regarding the image (below), while this looks like an ash/eruption plume, it could also have been a wildfire that was mistaken for an eruption. Only time will tell.

Image from Volcanodiscovery.com showing purported eruption in Palena volcanic group (photo: A Gillmore / Twitter)

Judging from the photographic evidence so far, and having lived through a multitude of wildfires here in San Diego, CA, this looks a lot more like a wildfire than it does a volcanic eruption, and indeed, a wildfire on a volcano can and has stirred up older ash from eruptions when it becomes swept up in the fierce fire-driven winds. So what we're looking at could possibly be a combination of wildfire ash, and older volcanic ash. I'll reserve judgment however until the science is in.

If this turns out to be a real eruption and not simply a coincidental wildfire on a volcano, this would be scientifically significant, especially regarding lower Andean eruptions. Recent large quakes along Chile's subduction zone ranging from 7.0-8.8 may have altered magmatic systems for some long dormant volcanoes, which is entirely possible, and could help to explain why some volcanoes in Chile remain dormant for so long, and seemingly randomly wake up.

Indonesia's Mount Sinabung Forces Evacuations

Indonesia's long-dormant Mount Sinabung began erupting earlier this year after initially breaking its silence during a period in 2010, and has now increased its level of activity so drastically that over 19,000 people have had to be evacuated. Mount Sinabung lies around 20 miles NNW of the famous Toba super-volcano. The irregularly shaped stratovolcano has had minor fumerolic activity prior to 2010, so it was known that it would probably erupt in the future, however there had never been any confirmed historical reports of eruptive activity before then.

Mount Sinabung had a massive eruption yesterday, sending a plume of gas and ash up to 3km skyward, prompting Indonesian officials to issue air alerts, and subsequently evacuate nearby populations to evacuation centers.

Indonesia is home to one of the largest concentrations of active volcanoes in the world. In any given year, probably 5-15 volcanoes are active simultaneously in the elongated archipelago. Some of its volcanoes are truly the biggest killers of all time, with famous eruptions like the ~75,000 B.C. super eruption of Toba, thought to have contributed to a massive die off of the human population that left a mere 5,000 or so survivors, to Tambora, one of the largest historical eruptions ever recorded and responsible for the famed 'year without a summer', and the infamous eruption of Krakatoa (now Anak Krakatau, "Child of Krakatoa") which destroyed a large island and killed over 36,000 people by way of pyroclastic flows.

Only the more recent eruptions of Novarupta in Alaska, Rotorua in New Zealand, and Pinatubo in the Philippines have come close to the larger Indonesian eruptions.

Indonesia lies on the Pacific Ring of Fire and is home to very frequent earthquakes, eruptive activity, and other disasters. In 2008, a mega thrust earthquake killed over 200,000 people with its super-destructive tsunami and associated damages. It is more than likely one of the least 'stable' geologic places on the planet, aside from possibly Japan, which also recently experienced a deadly and disastrous mega-thrust quake that caused a devastating tsunami, and provoked a nuclear power plant meltdown at Fukushima-Daiichi.

El Hierro Volcano Alert Raised To Yellow

It seems as if PEVOLCA has decided to raise the alert level at El Hierro yet again to yellow after a spate of larger earthquakes measuring up to 5.1, and inflation totaling about 3-4 inches has occurred on the island volcano. earlier this week I had reported that Earthquake-report.com's El Hierro blog was noticing a sharp increase in deformation and seismicity.

This swift a rise in seismicity and deformation is attributed to new magma injection, but whether or not it will again find its way to the surface remains to be seen. It is however becoming more and more likely that this is the case if the trend continues. The inflation of the island at its current state is greater than when it had its offshore submarine eruption off the coast of the fishing village called La Restinga.

The eruption was closely watched by scientists, and geeks like me, who were 'hoping' for the eruption to transition from the submarine Serretyan phase to a more prominent island building phase called a Surtseyan eruption (after the volcano Surtsey in Iceland, which was one of the first islands to be observed in its moment of creation by modern volcanologists). The web camera set up by Earthquake-report.com, and some others were a source of spellbinding anticipation at least on my end.

The deformation so far bisects the island down the middle (as shown in the link), and it is anyone's guess where the island may choose to vent its payload. The area with the greatest uplift (as of today, 3CM in less than a week!) is the NE town of Sabinosa, which is built directly on the remnants of a cinder cone.
The island is dotted by many holocene to pliestocene cinder cones, as well as a collapse-related pseudo caldera, as well as its more recent and older submarine cones. Predicting where the island may erupt is next to impossible, but very hopefully it will erupt in an area that is not populated, or is remote enough for people to evacuate in time. The island does not have a heavy permanent population, but it is a popular tourist spot in the region.

Video showing rockfall on El Hierro.

Some hazards are occurring due to the unrest. Rockfalls are a very real problem for the various roads and homes that lie at the bottom of cliff faces, and some have already ruined or blocked some roads. So even though an eruption isn't occurring, and the quakes are small, it is still creating some problems.

As always, I will keep an eye on this volcano and post updates when they occur. This is one of my very favorite volcanoes to observe lately, so you'll probably see a few more of these posts.