Quick Sunday Update for 1/2/2011: Kizimen, Etna, Popocatepetl and Eyjafjallajökull

I have a couple of news briefs for the first Sunday of 2011. First off, as many of you noted, Kizimen in Kamchatka had another explosive eruption over the weekend. The reports from say that the ash plume reached ~6 km / 20,000 feet and covered Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky with ~0.5 mm of ash. Of course, the ash from the eruption has had an unintended benefit to the region: making icy road passable. The alert status at Kizimen has been raised to Red by KVERT. Over in Mexico, Popocatepetl has started the new year with a 1.5 km / 5,000 feet ash-and-steam plume (spanish). The alert status remains at Level 2 – and you can watch Popo live on one of its webcams. Finally, Etna has also greeted the new year with some new strombolian explosions and impressive fountaining early Monday morning (1/3) – and you can see the action in a couple of great images captured by Dr. Boris Behncke. You can also see the activity for yourself on the Etna webcam (see below). Finally, there are unconfirmed reports of explosions heard near Eyjafjallajökull. There seem to be little other indications of renewed activity or what exactly the source of the explosions might be, but it is worth watching.

A webcam capture of Etna taken early morning January 3, 2010.

Definitely a lot to keep us bust as the new year opens!

{Special thanks to all how provided links for this post.}

Top left: Popocatepetl in Mexico.