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Lava fills Anatahan volcano’s crater floor
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Posted on Feb 20 2005
Fresh lava with diameter of about a kilometer now covers the entire crater floor of Anatahan’s volcano, as the U.S. Geological Survey continues to monitor a plume of steam and smog extending about 90 nautical miles southwest.
It could not be immediately ascertained by the Emergency Management Office if such a situation could result in greater pressure and bigger explosions should volcanic activity escalate anew.
The volcano continues to emit steam and smog, as several motorists on Saipan reported a film of dust covering their vehicles late Friday night to early Saturday morning.
Motorists believed the incident as ashfall, but EMO director Rudolfo Pua dismissed that suspicion, saying that the wind was blowing from east to west over the weekend. The EMO hoisted no haze alert over the weekend.
As of Saturday noon, the EMO and the USGS said that seismic activities on Anatahan have dramatically declined to pre-January 5 level before strombolian explosions occurred.
When the third historical eruption of Anatahan’s volcano began, the activity resulted in pyroclastic rocks being thrown out from the crater to hundreds of feet in the air.
During the eruptions’ peak on January 26 and February 1, the volcano spewed out ash to about 15,000-20,000 feet. Ash reportedly blew as far as 100 nautical miles and vog blew nearly 600 miles downwind in the following days.
The volcano first erupted after centuries of dormancy on May 10, 2003, with ash plume rising to an altitude of over 30,000 feet, covering over 1-million-square kilometers of airspace above the Pacific Ocean and reaching Philippine jurisdiction. That eruption, which ceased by mid-June that year, deposited about 10-million cubic meters of material over Anatahan Island and the sea.
The second batch of volcanic eruptions happened from April to June last year. (John Ravelo)
