Fogbow

Mexican authorities canceled in-person classes for more than 100,000 students on Thursday in multiple towns clustered around one of the country's most active volcanoes as its fiery activity intensified in recent days, raising health concerns.

A series of relatively small but powerful eruptions from the snowcapped Popocatepetl volcano prompted Puebla state officials to suspend both public and private school classes at all levels across 22 towns due to falling ash, according to officials.

Classes in the affected towns will temporarily be conducted online.

Falling ash, plus gases spewed by the eruptions, can be harmful when inhaled, and in a worse case scenario could trigger the need for massive evacuations.

Popocatepetl, meaning "Smoking Hill" in the native Aztec language Nahuatl, is one of the world's most closely monitored volcanoes. It rises only about 45 miles (72 km) southwest of Mexico City, home to about 9 million people or around 22 million including the metropolitan area.

Flights serving the eastern Sicilian city of Catania were halted on Sunday after an eruption from nearby Mount Etna spewed volcanic ash onto its runways, airport authorities said.

The 3,330 metre (10,925 ft) high volcano can burst into spectacular action several times a year, firing lava and ash high over the Mediterranean island. The last major eruption was in 1992.

Flights to and from Catania, a popular tourist destination, would be suspended until normal safety conditions could be guaranteed, the airport said on Twitter.

Cars in the city were covered in a layer of dark gritty dust, images in the Italian media showed.

Phoenix520 wrote: ↑Fri May 19, 2023 4:48 am You know how they’ve discovered that the root systems of trees are huge and connected in a symbiotic way with all the other trees in the network/vicinity? Is there something like that going on way down deep in the core with volcanos?

Incandescent materials, ash and smoke spew from the volcano. Mexico’s National Center for Prevention of Disasters (Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres, or Cenapred) said that small domes of lava continued forming inside the crater that were then being destroyed by small and moderate explosions. It is likely this will continue for days or weeks.

keith wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 9:57 am Innocently brushing my teeth before bed and a earthquakd rumbles thru.

Pretty small but it rattlrd the windows and freaked the cat for a few seconds.

4.7 about 35k north of me. No info on how deep.

keith wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 7:10 pm

keith wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 9:57 am Innocently brushing my teeth before bed and a earthquakd rumbles thru.

Pretty small but it rattlrd the windows and freaked the cat for a few seconds.

4.7 about 35k north of me. No info on how deep.

Revised report. Magnitude 3.8, 3 km deep. Aftershocks likely.

Australian volcano near Antarctica captured on satellite spewing lava
Lava flow from Big Ben on Heard Island about 4,100km south-west of Perth part of eruption first noted more than a decade ago

Graham Readfearn
Tue 30 May 2023 06.33 BST

One of Australia’s two active volcanoes on an island near Antarctica – known as Big Ben – has been spotted by satellite spewing lava.

The lava flow on the uninhabited Heard Island, about 4,100 kilometres south-west of Perth and 1,500km north of Antarctica, is part of an ongoing eruption that was first noted more than a decade ago.

The image was caught by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite on 25 May and is a composite of an optical picture and an infrared image.

The lava is seen flowing down the side of Big Ben from near the summit, known as Mawson Peak. Australia’s other active volcano is on the nearby McDonald Islands.

Reports collated by the Global Volcanism Program at the Smithsonian Institution, before the image was shared, suggest the current lava flow is part of an “eruption episode” that has been ongoing since September 2012. The program has records of eruptions at Heard Island going back to 1910.

Dr Teresa Ubide, a volcanologist and associate professor at the University of Queensland, said: “This volcano has been erupting since the beginning of the 20th century. What’s happening is quite normal and is generating lava flows.”

The Global Volcanism Program records about 20 “lava flow” incidents since September 2012.

Ubide said Heard Island was known as an intraplate volcano because it was in the middle of a tectonic plate rather than being on their margins.

She said these types of volcanoes were caused by a “hotspot” inside the Earth and were typically not very explosive and so emitted little ash.



https://www.theguardian.com/australia-n ... ewing-lava

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