Asama
eklemetti | February 18, 2009
I found this little press release that doesn't have a huge amount of information, but is interesting nevertheless. The Coordinating Committee for Prediction of Volcanic Eruptions of Japan (nice name) is putting seven volcanoes on "24/7" monitoring. That sounds like we might see a lot of eruptions in Japan soon ... except that their rationale was that these volcanoes "are likely to affect public life by erupting or becoming active in the coming 100 years". That is quite the window of eruptive opportunity! The question is what exactly "24/7" monitoring - does this mean that someone/something…
eklemetti | February 2, 2009
Mt. Asama near Tokyo did, in fact, erupt within the "two day" window predicted by the Meteorological Agency of Japan. The reports this morning put the ash column at ~2,000 meters (~6-7,000 feet), so relatively small, but big enough to dust parts of Tokyo (~145 km away) with ash. No evacuations are planned for the area around Asama, but people who live within 4 km of the volcano are to "take caution".Â
There are also new reports that Mt. Sakurajima in southern Japan erupted yesterday. Block were thrown up to a few kilometers from the volcano. The article suggests that ash spread as far as…
eklemetti | February 1, 2009
UPDATE 2/1/09 5:02 PM Pacific: Indeed, Asama did erupt today. The eruption was relatively small, throwing ballistic clasts up to 1 kilometer from the vent and ash into the outskirts of Tokyo.
Redoubt in Alaska has dominated the volcano news as of late, but it is clearly not the only volcano on Earth that is showing signs of eruption right now. The Meteorological Agency in Japan has just raises the alert level at Mt. Asama and warn that the volcano could erupt in the next "two days". Asama is ~150 kilometers from Tokyo and is very active (see above), having last erupted in September 2008. The…