Eruption May Have Started at Copahue on the Chile/Argentina Border
- 12.22.12
- 9:48 AM
- Categories: Eruptions, Science Blogs
A potential eruption plume from Copahue on the Chile/Argentina border, spreading off to the ESE, spotted by GOES-East. Image: NOAA.
Quick post, but I said if something interesting happened…
I was sent a GOES image showing a fairly strong plume from Copahue on the Chile/Argentina border – a plume that sure looks like an eruption from the volcano. Sure enough, reports out of Chile and Argentina show that the volcano is producing a pretty impressive plume. Sounds like geologists will conduct a flyover to see what is going on sometime today. I’ll try to dig up more information as I can find it, but feel free to add any info here as well, but there wasn’t much on yesterday’s Terra pass.
UPDATES: Supposedly this is a shot of the plume seen from close to the volcano. I can’t confirm its authenticity. Also, not surprisingly, the volcano has been moved up to Orange Alert. Ash is also apparently falling 50 km from the volcano.
According to a tweet from John Seach based on VAAC information, the plume might be as tall as 9.5 km / 31,000 feet.
Copahue last had an eruption in 2000 and has a history of VEI 2+ explosive eruptions.
Erik Klemetti is an assistant professor of Geosciences at Denison University. His passion in geology is volcanoes, and he has studied them all over the world. You can follow Erik on Twitter, where you'll get volcano news and the occasional baseball comment.
Follow @eruptionsblog on Twitter.
