Hawaiian Vog

Kilauea SO2

The latest eruption at Kilauea has increased the amount of vog on the big island of Hawai'i. Vog is more or less the same as the anthropogenic "smog" produced by car/industrial exhaust, but produced by volcanic gases (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide amongst others). It definitely doesn't make for good air quality, especially with the current lack of strong tradewinds in Hawai'i right now.

More like this

Photos by Dr. Edward Kohut, all rights reserved, used by permission, 2009 Many times people think that volcanic eruptions affect the economy through the destruction inflicted upon the landscape during an eruption: lahars and pyroclastic flows destroying bridges and homes, ash ruining crops and…
Some of the articles you might have missed this week ... A lava flow from Kilauea breaks local traffic laws in the Royal Gardens subdivision, Hawai'i The Mayon Watch continues in the Philippines. No eruption yet, but some of the local newspapers are printing stories talking about "odd animal…
Every once in a while Scienceblogs (through its publisher, Seed Magazine) gets a question from a reader that is circulated to see if one or more of the bloggers wants to take a crack at answering it. Recently a 9 year old wanted to know what is in the air we breathe (chemically speaking). On its…
The summit crater at Kilauea in Hawai'i has had a busy summer and now that fall is around the corner (yikes!), there is a bit of new info on activity in the crater. Halema`uma`u Crater emitting a steam plume in January, 2009. First off, the NASA Earth Observatory released an image of the steaming…