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Volcanic Activity Information:

VHP News

View the new VHP Web Site we've been building to better highlight our volcano status information. Access the latest U.S. Volcano Alerts and Updates from our Home Page, learn what's going on at our volcanoes with elevated statuses on our new Elevated Status page, and don't miss our U.S. Volcano Status map. The site construction phase will continue until early October 2008 when we make the site live at this (volcanoes.usgs.gov) address in time for Earth Science Week. You can see the new site under construction at http://volcano.wr.usgs.gov.

This April AVO is celebrating twenty years of volcano research and hazard mitigation in the North Pacific. AVO was founded in 1988 in the wake of the 1986 eruption of Augustine Volcano and only 18 months before the reawakening of Redoubt Volcano in Cook Inlet. Over the next twenty years, eighteen Alaskan volcanoes have erupted including several significant events near main population centers in south-central Alaska. At least seven more volcanoes were restless, producing significant gas plumes, sudden acidic crater lakes and floods, or strong earthquake swarms. For more information and the opportunity to "Join the Celebration" please see http://www.avo.alaska.edu/avo20/.

On the evening of March 23, 2008 small incandescent particles were observed erupting from the vent below the Halema`uma`u Overlook. A few particles were ejected with sufficient velocity to be deposited on the rim of Halema`uma`u Crater. For more information on the changing eruption at Kilauea including photos, text updates, a new Halema`uma`u Crater webcam, and details about the Kilauea 1924 explosive eruption please see the HVO Web Site.

Growth of the new lava dome inside the crater of Mount St. Helens, which began in October 2004, appears to have paused during the past month. The alert level has been lowered from Watch to Advisory and the aviation color code from Orange to Yellow, which signifies that volcanic activity has decreased significantly but continues to be closely monitored for possible renewed increase. For more information please see the Change in Mount St. Helens Alert Level and Aviation Color Code.

The U.S. Geological Survey, through its Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, invites applications for the 2008 Jack Kleinman Volcano Research Grants Program. Stipends of $500 to $2,000 are available to senior undergraduates and graduate students who are conducting research in volcanology, preferably in the Cascade Range, Aleutian volcanic arc, Hawaii, Yellowstone, or Long Valley caldera. The application deadline is March 1, 2008. For more information please see the Jack Kleinman Internship page.

The Cascade magmatic arc is a belt of Quaternary volcanoes that extends 1,250 km from Lassen Peak in northern California to Meager Mountain in Canada, above the subduction zone where the Juan de Fuca Plate plunges beneath the North American Plate. Newly published Professional Paper 1744, Quaternary Magmatism in the Cascades—Geologic Perspectives by Wes Hildreth, presents a synthesis of the entire volcanic arc, addressing all 2,300 known Quaternary volcanoes. Wes Hildreth’s insightful understanding of volcanic processes and his uncompromising scientific integrity make him uniquely qualified to present this synthesis. During more than three decades of volcanological studies, he has carried out comprehensive investigations of Mount Adams, Mount Baker, the Three Sisters, and the Simcoe Mountains Volcanic Field. He also brings a broad experience in other volcanic arcs, having conducted integrated field and laboratory investigations at several major volcanic centers in the Andes and the Aleutian arcs. His expertise and perspective have been further enhanced by in-depth petrologic studies of caldera environments, primarily in Long Valley, California, and Yellowstone. This scientific volume will influence and guide the course of Cascade investigations for decades to come. [excerpted from Foreword]

The November 9, 2007 issue of Science Magazine features an article, Accelerated uplift and magmatic intrusion of the Yellowstone Caldera, 2004 to 2006, by YVO scientists from the University of Utah and USGS. Using GPS and another satellite-based technique (InSAR), the authors find that parts of the Yellowstone Caldera rose as much as 7 cm (~3") per year from 2004 to 2006. The uplift is most noticeable at the White Lake GPS station, as has been discussed in our monthly YVO updates over the past year. Chang and his colleagues credit the relatively rapid uplift to magma entering the region beneath the Yellowstone Caldera. During this period of uplift, there have been relatively few earthquakes at Yellowstone. Heat and gas flow from the geysers and hot springs also remain unchanged. Calderas such as Yellowstone can display this sort of geologic behavior, even for centuries or millennia, without erupting. Also see the University of Utah press release. Read more about the uplift in our article Recent ups and downs of the Yellowstone Caldera. Also see the University of Utah press release.

A National Volcano Early Warning System (NVEWS) is being formulated by the Consortium of U.S. Volcano Observatories (CUSVO) to establish a proactive, fully integrated, national-scale monitoring effort that ensures the most threatening volcanoes in the United States are properly monitored in advance of the onset of unrest and at levels commensurate with the threats posed. Volcanic threat is the combination of hazards (the destructive natural phenomena produced by a volcano) and exposure (people and property at risk from the hazards).

According to a new USGS report on NVEWS, since 1980, 45 eruptions and 15 cases of notable volcanic unrest have occurred at 33 U.S. volcanoes. About half of the most threatening U.S. volcanoes are monitored at a basic level and a few are well monitored with a suite of modern instruments. However, the report cautions, monitoring capabilities at many hazardous volcanoes are sparse or antiquated, and some hazardous volcanoes have no ground-based monitoring whatsoever.

Recognizing that there are potentially dangerous volcanoes within the United States and its Territories that have inadequate or no ground-based monitoring, the USGS Volcano Hazards Program, with CUSVO, is preparing a plan for a National Volcano Early Warning System (NVEWS).

A workshop of a broad group of stakeholders including representatives of emergency- and land-management agencies at the Federal, State, and local levels and the aviation sector was held in Portland, Oregon on February 22-23, 2006 to solicit input about implementation of NVEWS and specific information requirements. Information about the workshop can be found in the Summary of the Stakeholders Workshop to Develop a National Volcano Early Warning System (NVEWS) (pdf format).

For more information on NVEWS, please see the NVEWS Fact Sheet (pdf format).

Previous news stories are available in the VHP News Archive

Predict an Eruption: Case Study from Kilauea and Mount St. Helens volcanoes

Try your hand at predicting an eruption of Mount St. Helens volcano using data collected by scientists of the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory. This presentation uses data from several eruptive episodes of Mount St. Helens in the 1980's to show the way in which a series of eruptions were accurately predicted by USGS scientists as far as 3 weeks in advance. Go to Predict an Eruption.