Saturday, 9 January 2021

2021's impressive volcano eruption uptick continues! An eruption has produced two lava flows from vents on the northern flanks, currently about 50 m and 200 m long at the Pacaya volcano in Guatemala


Ashy eruption at Pacaya, shortly after a very large earthquake affected the area in 1976. Photo credit: USGS.

The effusive-explosive eruption of the Pacaya volcano in Guatemala has been increasing during the past days confirmed by the INSIVUMEH volcano observatory.

A new effusive eruption has been producing two lava flows that started to descend slowly from vents on the northern flanks, currently about 50 m and 200 m long. New vents are eruptive fissures.

The lava flow on the southwestern slope remains active, currently about 550 m long. A moderate-to-strong eruptive episode of strombolian explosions is now in progress at the volcano's Mackenney summit crater characterized by higher-than-usual dense ash plumes that rose to estimated 3 km altitude as can be seen in the video recorded below. Blocks were ejected as far as 300 m away from the crater.

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