Monday Musings: Kirishima, Cleveland, Tambora, Santorini and more!

Sorry about the paucity of new posts lately – there is a lot going on in the background here at Eruptions HQ, but all will be revealed in the next day or so.

Lots has been going on volcanically, so trying to play catchup seems a little futile – I know many of you have been watching the revived activity at Kirishima (top left) in Japan – be sure to check out the webcams for the action – and Sakurajima isn’t doing too badly either. Speaking of Japan, CNN posted a tourist account of visiting Mt. Aso (albeit with an overblown title). Last week we also saw a volcano headed in the other direction, as AVO lowered the alert status at Cleveland back to Yellow from Orange. Around the globe, there isn’t much concern about a major eruption from Indonesia’s famed Tambora right now, but eyes are watching the volcano as it shows increasing signs of unrest. The NASA Earth Observatory also posted yet another image of the almost-constant plume at Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle. Today, there is also still a live feed from the dive to the Colombo Bank near Santorini. You can try to catch up on all of last week’s volcano news in the GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report as well.

And if you’re interested in reading some science fiction, check out the article about the so-called “artificial volcano” built by Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering that will release sulfates to attempt to cool the atmosphere. I’m sure “artificial volcano” is a lot more palatable (but less accurate) name than “sulfate spewer”.