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Volcano Hazards Program (VHP) News Archive

USGS scientists recently published a new report about potential volcano hazards at Medicine Lake volcano, a southern Cascade Range volcano covering more than 2000 square kilometers in northern California. Medicine Lake volcano has erupted nine times during the past 5,200 years, making it one of the most active Cascade volcanoes. It most recently erupted 950 years ago. Based on its long eruptive history and frequent eruptions in recent geologic time, the scientists indicate that the volcano will erupt again and that the consequences of some types of possible eruptions could be significant. Owing to its frequent eruptions, explosive nature, and proximity to regional infrastructure, Medicine Lake volcano has been designated a “high threat volcano” by the USGS National Volcano Early Warning System assessment. This newly published hazard assessment, USGS Scientific Investigations Report 2007-5174-A, "Volcano Hazards Assessment for Medicine Lake Volcano, Northern California", can be downloaded as a pdf or a printed version can be purchased from the USGS Store.

Jim Kauahikaua, the Scientist-in-Charge of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, has just released a new hazard assessment, Lava flow hazard assessment, as of August 2007, for Kilauea East Rift Zone eruptions, Hawai'i Island. The most recent episode in the ongoing Pu'u 'O'o - Kupaianaha eruption of Kīlauea Volcano is currently producing lava flow north of the east rift zone. Although they pose no immediate threat to communities, changes in flow behavior could conceivably cause future flows to advance downrift and impact communities thus far unaffected. This report reviews lava flow hazards in the Puna District and discusses the potential hazards posed by the recent change in activity. Members of the public are advised to increase their general awareness of these hazards and stay up-to-date on current conditions. Click here for Daily Updates, Images, and maps.

We've teamed up with our USGS earthquake colleagues to produce Google Mapplets for displaying both volcanic activity and earthquakes on the same map. USGS Mapplets are mini-applications that pull information from our feeds onto the "My Maps" tab of http://maps.google.com. To access the new Mapplets, you will need a Google account from the Google Maps Web site. Once you have an account, you can search for USGS Mapplets by clicking here. Then click "add to map" for each layer. After adding the layers, click the "back to maps" link at the top left of the web page. You can now click the checkboxes to turn the volcanic activity and earthquake layers on. Please click here for images of the mapplets.

USGS scientists along with our colleagues at the U.S. Forest Service have published a new Fact Sheet, Boiling Water at Hot Creek - The Dangerous and Dynamic Thermal Springs in California's Long Valley Caldera. The Fact Sheet was written in response to safety concerns regarding recent hot spring activity and geysering in Hot Creek Gorge. Due to the unpredictability of the hazardous spring activity, the U.S. Forest Service has closed parts of the Hot Creek Geologic Site. Fact Sheet 2007-3045 explains why the previously popular swimming area is thermally unstable.

For more information please see the summary of the June 12th earthquake sequence south of Long Valley caldera.

For more information please see the Kīlauea update page (http://volcano.wr.usgs.gov/hvostatus.php). For the most recent images, please see the current images page (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/images.html).

The ability to forecast near future activity during periods of volcanic unrest has been a primary concern for human populations living near volcanoes. Our ability to forecast future activity and mitigate hazards is based on knowledge of previous activity at the volcano exhibiting unrest and knowledge of previous activity at similar volcanoes. A small set of experts with past experience are often involved in forecasting. To both preserve the knowledge the experts use and continue to investigate volcanic data to make better forecasts, the World Organization of Volcano Observatories (WOVO) has designed a database called WOVOdat. The Design Document, written by USGS scientists Dina Venezky and Chris Newhall, covers the first phase of the project and explains the schema for version 1.0. For more information, please seeWOVOdat Design Document: The Schema, Table Descriptions, and Create Table Statements for the Database of Worldwide Volcanic Unrest (WOVOdat Version 1.0).

Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) just released a Preliminary Assessment of Volcanic and Hydrothermal Hazards in Yellowstone National Park and Vicinity. The assessment, four years in the making, is authored by Robert Christiansen, a leading expert on the Yellowstone volcanic system, along with eight colleagues. The preliminary assessment has been published as an Open-File Report. Over the next 2 years, the assessment will be enlarged to include a seismic hazards analysis and other additional enhancements. At that point, the hazards assessment will be released as a more formal USGS Scientific Investigations Report that will replace this preliminary report.

The U.S. Geological Survey, through its Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, invites applications for the 2007 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, 2007. For more information please see the Jack Kleinman Internship page.

It is with deep sadness we inform you that our colleague, Jim Luhr, Curator in the Department of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian Institution, passed away unexpectedly on January 1, 2007, at the age of 53. He died peacefully in his sleep. He directed the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program since 1995, and is well-known for elegantly written descriptions of insightful, multi-pronged studies of his beloved Mexican volcanoes. For more information please see the Smithsonian's page on James Luhr.

The long awaited third edition of the popular This Dynamic Planet map has been released. The map is designed to show Earth's most prominent features when viewed from a distance, and more detailed features upon closer inspection. The back of the map zooms in further, highlighting examples of fundamental processes, while providing text, timelines, references, and other resources to enhance understanding of this dynamic planet. The map was published by the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. More information about the map can be found on the USGS publications site. For an interactive online version, please see The Smithsonian's This Dynamic Map page.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has adopted a common system nationwide for characterizing the level of unrest and eruptive activity at volcanoes. See USGS Volcano-Warning Scheme for the United States for a description of the new alert-level system.

This March 2006, the journal Nature published a paper by YVO scientist Charles Wicks and colleagues about a period of uplift in the northern part of the Yellowstone caldera. For more information about the recent findings, please see Satellite Technologies Detect Uplift in the Yellowstone Caldera. See also the InSAR research Group Section.

The Volcano Hazards Program is now using a standard format called CAP for all volcano information statements. CAP was created to meet the recommendation of the National Science and Technology Council's report on "Effective Disaster Warnings" (2000) that:

"A standard method should be developed to collect and relay instantaneously and automatically all types of hazard warnings and reports locally, regionally and nationally for input into a wide variety of dissemination systems."

The volcano information statements on our websites will look similar to how they have looked in the past. The underlying format, however, is now in eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and includes additional information describing the type of alert for emergency managers. The full CAP messages are available as an RSS feed from the following url http://www.usgs.gov/homepage/rss_feeds.asp#volcanoes. For more information about CAP please see the OASIS website.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has provided new header and footer templates to give our web pages a unified look and to increase accessibility. The Volcano Hazards Program will slowly roll out the templates starting with new pages. You will notice that changes have been made to this page including easier access to information about erupting volcanoes in the 'Worldwide and U.S. Volcano Updates' and news stories with dates of publication. We will also be adding new features, such as RSS feeds, and revising the navigation. Stay tuned for more information about our exciting web changes.

The Five-Year Volcano Hazards Plan, Understanding Volcano Hazards and Preventing Volcanic Disasters, A Science Strategy for the Volcano Hazards Program, U.S. Geological Survey, 2004-2008 is now available in pdf format.