Monday Musing: Iceland update, false alarm at Taal and the SI/USGS Weekly Report

Quick hits for a Monday morning (however, the week did have a good start).

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nLava fountaining on March 27, 2010 at the Eyjafjallajokull-Fimmvörduháls eruption in Iceland.

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• The Eyjafjallajokull-Fimmvörduháls eruption is still going strong with two active fissure – and a lot of tourists poking around as well. If you watch the webcams closely, you can even see the cars and hikers trekking up near the erupting basaltic fissure (except today, as there seems to be a blizzard). Not to say that people are getting a little, well, nonchalant, but there is a story of serving meals cooked on lava up by the vents. You can get a real bird’s eye view of the eruption from the latest NASA EO image showing both vents and two lava flows heading off to the north and southeast. You can also see some video of the eruption going at night.

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• There was a volcanic “false alarm” this weekend at Taal in the Philippines. Tourists near the volcano claimed to have seen lava flows on the slopes of the volcano – in fact they even took a picture of it. However, PHIVOLCS says that the rumor is false and that there has been no eruptions or even signs of eruption at Taal. Instead, it is believed that the glow on the volcano was local villagers setting grass fires to clear the land. The last eruption of the volcano was in 1977.

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• I also meant to post last week’s Smithsonian/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report, but it got lost in the shuffle. Lots of news on the Icelandic eruption, but also check out the rumblings at Shiveluch and Santa Maria, along with news of things quieting down at Llaima.