GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for June 23-29, 2010

Just a reminder, if you any questions for Sally Kuhn Sennert of the Smithsonian/USGS Global Volcanism Program – about the Weekly Report, about life at the GVP, about volcanoes – be sure to send them to me soon at

Now, on to this week’s update!

Some highlights (not including Gorely):

Lahars from Tungurahua in Ecuador moved blocks upwards of 2 m in diameter downstream over the last week and ash fall was reported over 20 km from the volcano’s vent. For some reason, FoxNews decided to use an image of Tungurahua for an article on stats of natural disasters in 2009 – nice image, but the volcano isn’t mentioned anywhere but in the captions.

Small ash-and-steam clouds were spotted at Karymsky in Kamchatka over the last week, reaching upwards of 10 km / 32,000 feet. This goes with the current activity at Kliuchevskoi and Shiveluch, both of which are experiencing explosions produced ash-and-steam columns that reach over 7 km / 22,000 feet. I’ve been trying to figure out the situation at KVERT now that we’ve past the date on which they said they would be “closed” due to lack of funding, but no luck. I did notice that the statement about the closure was removed on June 28 from the June 24 update, but that is as far as I’ve gotten. Anybody have any more insight?

Kirishima in Japan might have has a small eruption on June 28, however the details are scant at best.