Volcano erupts in Iceland, spurs 50 quakes

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Iceland's most active volcano erupted Saturday, with a white plume shooting 18,000 feet into the air, scientists said.

The eruption was followed by around 50 small earthquakes, the largest of which measured 3.7 on the Richter Scale, according to Iceland's meteorological office.
There was a similar eruption at the same volcano in 2004.
Scientists don't believe this eruption will lead to air travel chaos like that caused by ash from the Eyjafjallajokul volcano in April 2010.
The Grimsvotn volcano is located underneath the Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland.
Sparsely populated Iceland is one of the world's most volcanically active countries and eruptions are frequent.
They often cause local flooding from melting glacier ice, but rarely cause deaths.

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Japan volcano erupts with big blast of ash, rocks - World news - Asia-Pacific

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TOKYO — A revived volcano in southern Japan erupted Tuesday with its biggest explosion yet, shooting out a huge plume of gas, boulders and ash and breaking windows 5 miles (8 kilometers) away.

The danger zone around Shinmoedake volcano was widened to keep residents safe. The largest eruption since it burst back to life last week covered wide areas in ash, shot boulders onto distant roads, knocked down trees and broke hundreds of windows in hotels and offices.
No serious injuries have been reported since the initial eruption last Wednesday, but public broadcaster NHK said a woman suffered cuts from shattered glass in Tuesday's blast.
NHK said the eruption was five times larger than the initial activity last week, which was Shinmoedake's first major eruption in 52 years.
Japan's Meteorological Agency has restricted access to the mountain, and on Tuesday broadened the no-go zone to anywhere within a 2 1/2-mile (four-kilometer) radius of the crater. Two lodges and scattered homes are within the perimeter.
Dozens of domestic flights in and out of Miyazaki — about 590 miles (950 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo — were grounded last week and more cancellations followed. Train service was temporarily suspended in the area and many schools closed.

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Indonesia volcano blasts searing gas; 122 now dead - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101105/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_disasters

• Slideshow:Mount Merapi volcano erupts
• Play Video Video:Indonesia Volcano erupts causing devastation AP
• Play Video Video:File footage of Mount Merapi eruption on October 28 AFP

By SARAH DILORENZO, Associated Press Sarah Dilorenzo, Associated Press – 1 hr 57 mins ago

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia – Searing gas avalanched down an Indonesian volcano with a thunderous roar, torching houses and trees and incinerating villagers as they fled Mount Merapi's worst eruption in a century. Scores of bodies found Friday raised the death toll to 122.
The injured — with clothes, blankets and even mattresses fused to their skin by the 1,400 degree Fahrenheit (750 degree Celsius) heat — were carried away on stretchers following the first big explosion just before midnight.
All Friday, Merapi shot towering plumes of ash that dusted the windshields of cars 300 miles (480 kilometers) away. Bursts of hot clouds occasionally interrupted aid efforts, with rescuers screaming "Watch out! Hot cloud!"
The intensifying eruptions have baffled scientists who have monitored the mountain for years and left them uncertain what to expect. Dozens of explosions that followed Merapi's initial blast Oct. 26 had been predicted to ease pressure behind a magma dome.
The danger zone where residents have been ordered to flee has now been expanded to 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the crater.
Friday's explosion — said by volcanologists to be the biggest since the 1870s — hit hardest in Bronggang, a village nine miles (15 kilometers) from the crater. Soldiers joined the rescue operations, pulling at least 78 bodies from homes and streets blanketed by ash up to one foot (30 centimeters) deep.

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Global Cold Wave May Be Looming — This Time, the Science Is Good

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clipped from pajamasmedia.com In a cosmically ironic twist of fate and timing, nature may be set to empirically freeze any and all anthropogenic global warming talk: a blast of Arctic cold may encase the earth in an icy grip not seen for 200 years. From records we know that every time Eyjafjallajokull has erupted, Katla has also erupted. In the early summer of 1783, Laki erupted, releasing vast rivers of lava. The explosive volcano also ejected a massive amount of volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide into the air — the eruption was so violent that the ash and sulfur dioxide were injected into the stratosphere, some 8 miles up. This cloud was then swept around the world by the stratospheric winds. The result was a significant decrease in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface for several years. That reduction in sunlight brought about bitter cold weather across the northern hemisphere. The winter of 1784 was the coldest ever seen in New England and in Europe.

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Big volcanic eruptions in Guatemala, Ecuador

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clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com An American Airlines jet is parked in the tarmac covered with ash from the eruption of the Pacaya Volcano at the international airport in Guatemala City, Friday May 28, 2010. The volcano started erupting lava and rocks on Thursday afternoon, blanketing Guatemala City with ash and forcing the closure of the international airport. One television reporter has been killed and thousands of residents from villages closest to the volcano have been evacuated to shelters. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Pos)  View related photos GUATEMALA CITY - Explosive eruptions shook two huge volcanos in Central and South America on Friday, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and disrupting air traffic as ash drifted over major cities. Guatemala's Pacaya volcano started erupting lava and rocks Thursday afternoon, blanketing the country's capital with ash and forcing the closure of the international airport. A television reporter was killed by a shower of burning rocks

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Experts: No end to volcano ash in sight

clipped from www.cnn.com (CNN) -- Weather experts predicted Friday that a volcanic ash causing chaos to air traffic across Europe would affect the region well into the weekend and possibly beyond as the dust cloud continued to spread. Scientists said it was too soon to predict when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland would cease spewing ash, raising the prospect of thousands more grounded flights in coming days. Prevailing westerly winds are expected to fan the massive plume of dust from an erupting volcano in Iceland further east and north, according to predictions from the London Ash Advisory Center. By 07:00 GMT Saturday (7 p.m. ET) the cloud traveling at up to 9,000 meters (30,000 feet) is forecast to be covering parts of Russia, Poland, Finland and other East European countries while continuing to affect the UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Denmark and Netherlands. Volcanic ash still causing travel chaos

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More from Eyjafjallajokull Volcano photos

More can be seen at the link below.

clipped from www.boston.com As ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continued to keep European airspace shut down over the weekend, affecting millions of travelers around the world, some government agencies and airlines clashed over the flight bans. Some restricted airspace is now beginning to open up and some limited flights are being allowed now as airlines are pushing for the ability to judge safety conditions for themselves. The volcano continues to rumble and hurl ash skyward, if at a slightly diminished rate now, as the dispersing ash plume has dropped closer to the ground, and the World Health Organization has issued a health warning to Europeans with respiratory conditions. Collected here are some images from Iceland over the past few days. (35 photos total) The volcano in southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier sends ash into the air just prior to sunset ON Friday, April 16, 2010

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Volcano ash: Threat of second volcano Katla '10 times the strength'

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk A second volcano in Iceland could erupt with 10 times the force of Eyjafyoll if history repeats itself, scientists have warned. Katla lies next to the volcano currently causing worldwide travel chaos with molten lava and ash shooting into the sky. The last time Eyjafyoll erupted in 1821-23, Katla followed shortly afterwards. The same pattern occurred in 1612. Katla erupts approximately every 60 years but has not done so since 1918, when it was 10 times as powerful greater than the ongoing activity in Eyjafyoll. Assistant professors Andy Hooper and Joris Melkert, from the University of Delft in the Netherlands, said the ongoing activity could cause trouble for months. “A new volcanic dust cloud potentially heading towards the United Kingdom underlines the very real danger that Eyjafyoll could potentially sputter on for months or even more than a year. “Even in the scenario that Katla doesn’t erupt, disruption could be continuous for many months to come from Eyjafyoll.”

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Volcano spews more ash, spawns wider flight chaos

clipped from news.yahoo.com LONDON – A lingering volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of Europe on Saturday, as scientists warned that activity at a volcano in Iceland had increased and showed no sign of abating — a portent of more travel chaos to come. Scientists say that because the volcano is situated below a glacial ice cap, the magma is being cooled quickly, causing explosions and plumes of grit that can be catastrophic to plane engines if prevailing winds are right. "The activity has been quite vigorous overnight, causing the eruption column to grow," Icelandic geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson told The Associated Press on Saturday. "It's the magma mixing with the water that creates the explosivity. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight." "Currently the U.K. and much of Europe is under the influence of high pressure, which means winds are relatively light and the dispersal of the cloud is slow,

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