Corbetti caldera. Source: EGU
Caldera resurgence is either exceptionally boring or unbearably interesting. The slow crawl of the Lazufre system stands in contrast with the dramatic reawakening of Kita-Ioto. Some systems however straddle these lines, not up there with the scariest volcanoes but it wouldn’t be right to put them in the “boring’ territory. I can’t think of a volcano that lies in the middle more than Corbetti. This volcano occupies a weird spot in my rankings. Depending on my mood, it will either lie in my top 5 or top 15 most dangerous volcanoes. This volcano is easily one of the highest risk calderas on the planet, with 600,000 people just 5 km away from the volcano. A VEI 5-6 could kill 10s-100s of thousands of people if proper preparations aren’t made. Even a more modest VEI 3-4 could be catastrophic. Unlike my treasured trio, nothing crazy is happening, seismic activity is moderate, deformation is substantial but not extreme, and gas emissions are relatively unimpressive. Nothing screams imminent disaster: Corbetti seems to be stable. This is, of course, why I haven’t dedicated a full piece to this system despite it catching my eye all the way back in 2018 as a teenager.
EAR Ethiopia. Corbetti location is number 9. Source: Maestrelli et al. 2021 https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/geoscience/articles/10.5802/crgeos.63/
Corbetti is unique volcano, as it lies on the EAR (East Africa Rift). It is one of the few peralkaline rhyolitic calderas on the planet. Lying with in the larger Awasa caldera it is an elliptical 15kmx10km depression born from an eruption 182,000 years ago. Interestingly enough it was thought to have been a Rhyolitic shield before its climactic eruption. Since then it has mostly done lower level explosive events preceding large felsic flows with its eruptions concentrated on 3 intra-caldera edifices. Judging by the caldera size, the biggest eruption that it has produced likely had a volume around 120-150 km3 DRE. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t seem like this volcano has done anything remotely close to that level since, which is either really good or really bad. Studies have shown that this system is likely light-years ahead of other calderas in its resurgence. I made an error last time I spoke of the plumbing, confusing the volume for the shallow reservoir with the deeper reservoir. The shallow rhyolitic chamber has a volume of around 780 km3 and is 20-35% molten or 216-268 km3 of magma. The deeper mafic chamber’s volume hasn’t been constrained but it is far larger than the shallow reservoir and is 6-16% molten. The shallow chamber, technically speaking, is not a separate body but merely just the upper representation of massive magma body. Its rhyolite is distinctly lacking in crystals which likely means that crustal melting has little responsibility for this quality. Instead this transition was done the long way through crystal fractionalization. The magma is also rich in volatiles with the rhyolite having a 5-7% H2O wt. Another interesting detail is that the rhyolite is surprisingly fluid. The Alkalinity, lack of crystals, and heat from the mafic reservoir is responsible for this feature.
Corbetti is an active system, not really opting for large caldera-forming eruptions, it often does large basaltic and rhyolitic lava flows and medium sized VEI 3-4 eruptions. It will also do VEI 5 eruptions such as the Wendo pumice. Since its inception it has erupted over 750 km3 of rhyolite. This makes it the most prolific felsic volcano of the EAR in recent geological history. This volcano also erupts just about everything from very basic Alkali basalt to Obsidian rhyolite and the lovely stuff in between. Its hydro-thermal system is a solid potential clean-energy source for the denizens of the capital of Ethopia, Addis Ababa. You may expect from the other articles I’ve written on volcanoes that concern me, I am going to highlight something odd that I’ve noticed or detail why I think it will produce a catastrophic eruption. As I’ve said before, nothing odd is really happening. Typical caldera resurgence is the name of the game. However I want to highlight the fact that an eruption from a dangerous volcano such as this shouldn’t be treated like an implausible thought. It doesn’t need to do a caldera to be dangerous.
The shallow reservoir has had an intrusion rate of 0.03-0.035 km3/yr or accumulated 0.48-0.64 km3 of basaltic magma since 2009. Fluctuating uplift and minor-moderate seismic swarms has been the typical behavior. No consistent upward trend has been noted but things do fluctuate. The intrusion is straight from the deeper chamber and could last a decent bit longer. The deeper chamber dwarfs the 785 km3 shallow chamber so despite large difference between the melt-ratio it’s completely possible that both portions have the same amount of molten material. In another contrary trend in my articles, I am satisfied so far with plentiful studies into this volcano. I know it’s history, plumbing, and specific details on it’s unrest unlike ANOTHER volcano that shall not be named!
I have no need to extrapolate some niche way for this volcano to erupt thanks to all of this information. There are 2 ways for Corbetti to erupt. The simplest way is that the intrusion just lasts long enough for more of the shallower reservoir melt and erupts. The one thing that keeps me worried is that the chamber is already at the temperature of molten rhyolite and the intrusion is still raising the temperature. At a certain point of temperature, more melt could be gathered without need for direct interaction with the intrusion. I don’t know how hot the reservoir would need to be for that to happen though. Another possible way is chemical mixing between the injected mafic and felsic magmas. When Basalt and Rhyolite fuse, the resulting product will be saturated with volatiles and its viscosity will be lowered. This process is thought to have played a major role in Krakatoa’s intensity and other caldera-forming eruptions. However, these processes would either take a long time or be completely unpredictable so there is no fun in giving it any more thought. We also don’t know how far Corbetti is in it’s unrest, depending on it’s past and uncertain future it could have decades or even centuries before it’s ready or mere months to years depending on the specifics that we’re unaware of. No permanent monitoring exists for this volcano unlike its sibling in Campi Flegrei which is my only issue with this volcano.
As I said before this volcano is among the most dangerous on the planet, it is up there with Campi Flegrei, and Tatun, in my opinion. Extremely outdated statstistics have 565,000 people living within 5 km of this volcano. Since then that number has more than likely doubled to around a million. Likewise the 9.4 million living within 100 km of the volcano is now probably 20 million. Even though both Tatun and Campi Flegrei threaten more people at short range. Corbetti threatens more over distal ranges. Unlike it’s European rival, it is not well-monitored and unlike it’s Asian peer, it has done far more explosive eruptions.
map
The destructive potential this volcano has is hard to imagine. We will first consider a large felsic lava flow probably the least scary magmatic event possible. An eruption can this can effectively destroy the entirety of the Shashemene town and leave its 450,000 people homeless. The city is only 20 km away. Such an eruption would only need a volume of 0.4 km3 to do this. It has done basaltic flows and even smaller eruptions could still achieve this feat. A meager VEI-3-5 could kill hundreds of thousands of people if adequate preparations are not made. I am not aware of any evacuation plans or drills being done for Corbetti and the government is in no way giving this beast its dues. If you want a true apocalyptic event, a caldera-forming eruption on the level of the Hatepe event could kill over 20,000,000 people and completely cripply the economy of the country. This level of death would exceed that of all but 3 of our wars and 4 of the biggest pandemics. This completely ignoring the indirect deaths through volcanic winter and economic hardship following the disaster. Thankfully, nothing in the studies suggests that this is likely. However, the most recent major eruption 2400 years ago left 50 cm of deposits in the Shashemene region: a recurrence would be a significant disaster.
Urji cone, location of the eruption 2400 years ago. Source: https://volcanohotspot.wordpress.com/2023/10/01/corbetti-caldera-ethiopia/ (The original source, from USAID, no longer exists)
I am sure we all remember the 2 massive dikes within EAR in 2025. Fentale failed but Erte Ale managed to do a VEI 4 eruption with it’s event. One thing to note is that these events came rather suddenly and caught us off guard. No one knew exactly when or if it was going to happen up until it happened. It was these events that made me reconsider my “chill” disposition on Corbetti. Sure I’ve got at least 7 other volcanoes that I think are far more likely do a major eruption in the near future but only a couple of them threaten as many as Corbetti. Due to the lack of monitoring and preparedness for the challenges that Corbetti could bring, it is a mistake, in my opinion to have anything less than a cautious disposition on this system. Recent events have reaffirmed how quickly things can escalate with volcanoes. For a volcano that could leave a half a million people homeless with the most mundane of eruptions, Corbetti is a monster that should bring concern
Tallis, April 2026
Interesting article, thanks Tallis! There’ve been a few M4s in that area lately, like this one last Wednesday and one about 10 days before that. They’re more near KVC (no. 3 on your map) than Corbetti though. I’d have to hunt back in the USGS data for others.
They may be more aftershocks of the dike intrusion rather than ongoing inflation, but they certainly underline that stuff is going on in that area close to Addis Ababa.
USGS latest earthquakes map
Thanks! Albert got the maps together though since I was too busy with non-volcano stuff to pay that detail any mind.
As you say those quake are probably not related to Corbetti. Maybe just tectonic BS. The volcano is more than capable of sending dikes to Addis Abba so let’s keep on guard!
It’s quite discomforting to think about how many systems like Corbetti are out there and not properly monitored despite proximity to population centres.
It’s unfortunate but that’s just how things are. Some areas like Indonesia just don’t have the resources to monitor every single volcano. In other cases, the political and scientific world often need each other but the interest hardly ever align.
O’a caldera is also a significant hazard within the region.
Absolutely. Difficult to get funding for anything not viewed as a present threat. Especially so when nations have little funding to spare in the first place.
A phantastic examination of an interesting volcano! Thanks Tallis!
I like the surprises by volcanoes that awake after a long dormant period. They can do volcanism in an area, where humans haven’t seen any for long time. Volcanoes like these escape the predictability of frequently active ones.
Corbetti is an alkali volcano. Are there more like this in Ethiopia? Can we explain, why alkali magma is there?
EAR is rift and that’s alkali magmas usually like forming. All I know is that alkali magma is just magma with a lot of alkaline rocks within it so it depends a lot on setting.
Do Alkali magmas often occur in continental settings? The EAR is a rift inside a continent. The same applied to the failed rifts of Europe that once sought to expand the Alantic Ocean there, but didn’t continue their work. Also the Italian volcanism happens in a predominantly continental collision zone, where ocean floor is scarce.
Shashamane (Oromo: Shaashamannee, Amharic: ሻሸመኔ) is also known for its Rastafarian community.
From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shashamane
Came to my mind from those Marley-links Albert included in “The Caribbean paradise” article.
Good to know!
By the way, how likely it is that something like Parícutin would occur again in the near future on Michoacán–Guanajuato volcanic field, or in some other monogenetic volcanic field of Mexico? And even under a sizeable town or city?
Non-zero is the best we can say. There are a number of places where towns are build on volcanic field. Naples is a prime example and is probably most at risk. Still, one eruption in 500 years is a risk the locals seem quite willing to take. The best way to assess the risk is by looking at house insurance premiums, by the way. At the moment, this will show that the highest risk is flooding from global warming. Volcanoes are down the list.
Paricutin is in a Volcanic Field. Volcanic Fields are in fact a volcanic lottery or roulette, where you can bet on the location for the next monogenetic event. If a volcanic field like Auckland VF is densely populated, the inhabitants play actual volcanic roulette with their houses, because they don’t know where a monogenetic dike comes next …
Canada and US Cascades zone have several VFs which can do monogenetic eruptions like Paricutin.
Usually the eruptions of a VF are moderate ~VEI3. But if the have a phreatic/phreatomagmatic element or are close to dense population, they can cause local disasters.
Swarm at Vesuvius.
From volcanodiscovery:
But note that the continuing activity at Campi Flegrei is much more significant
Before the onset of previous episodes of Kilauea, there was sometimes a calm gap of the “gas pistoning” activity. We’ve now entered one of these calm gaps between the micro-episodes and the actual episode 44. The micro-episodes often followed a similar sequence as the episodes: First an effusive lava flood, second the lava fountain receives more and more gas, so that it finally ends with explosive gas disturbances.
The 44 episodes follow likely on big scale the same mechanism as the gas pistoning micro-episodes. There must be a “point of no return” of gas pressure that overcomes a certain physical point, after which the episode starts and all magma comes up what has accumulated down there. First the degassed magma is erupted, later the gasrich magma follows and builds tall “Skyscraper” lava fountains.
We seem to be in a DI event where we are waiting for the ‘I’. Once that happens, the overflows should resume.
The ‘I’ of DI has started. But visibility is near zero. Most of the time – sometimes it is just zero. Things can only get better!
A major storm is ongoing, so the tilt could be unreliable right now.
Yes, the caldera has turned into a valley of thousand steam plumes:
A new lava overflow occured half past 6 a.m. during the new inflation phase. Was it an acutal DI event or an interrupted continuous inflation?
Hector noted the storm, which makes the interpretation harder. But the overflows ceasing and then coming back in line with the tilt suggests this was a DI event. The event interrupted the inflation, so it was both
There are some nice views on the cameras with low clouds rolling over the cladera backlight with the glow of the vents. It is 4:04am HST as I am watching this now on v3 cam.
mac
Alaska has several (nearly) unkown volcanoes and volcanic fields in the north close to Bering and Chucki Sea: https://avo.alaska.edu/volcano/
Some of the volcanoes did eruptions during Holocene. So we can’t exclude that Alaska does volcanic surprises outside the belt of famous and classic volcanoes. One example is Alaska’s most northern volcano Espenberg: “The maars are younger than the shields and range in age from >0.12 Ma to ~7,000 yr”
My question now is, could they be as explosive as the volcanoes on the Aleutian Arc can be.
Imuruk field is nothing to sneeze at.
And several other volcanics appear poorly-studied, and might be good candidates for research.
The clouds have cleared and the overflows are back in force. Some vigorous flaming at times as well. Will 44 be today?
The best predictor for episode start so far, the cross caldera distance measured by GPS, shows deflation the last few days. It had a couple of similar data points before episode 40, but nothing like this. If we ignore the last few points and instead extrapolate from the trend prior to the deflation, we should reach the breaking point today, or maybe tomorrow. The big question mark here is the deflation.
If you wonder if I have forgotten my own advice to never trust single GPS points because the measurement is always noisy, I will point out that this is the difference between two GPS stations. Any atmospheric disturbance, GPS orbit errors and such will be common to both stations and cancel out. It’s still noisy, but much less so than a single GPS station by itself.
It was a significant DI event, superposed on a tilt change which seemed slow compared to previous episodes. The cross caldera distance though increased at the usual rate – an interesting difference which could mean that the centre of inflation in the caldera has moved. The last point on the distance is very low but it coincided with poor weather, and this can affect two stations differently. Your statement that noise will cancel out is correct for the terms you mention, but not for on-the-ground errors. Anyway, I would not be surprised it it takes another week, nor if fountain starts today. I would be surprised if the fountains cease firing and declare victory.
That’s true, I forgot about the bad weather.
I tend to ignore the tilt. The cross caldera distance has been much more consistent. With the current overflows and dome fountaining, I do believe it will start either today or tomorrow, but as always, Tūtū Pele will have the final word.
Cross Caldera Distance has been negative since 5th April:
Activity is becoming much more vigorous and has shifted to the other vent
It was only a micro-episode preceding the big one (when ever it is). HVO: “The vigor of dome fountains and lava overflows from the Halemaʻumaʻu south vent has increased over the past several hours. Gradual inflationary tilt and low-level seismic tremor continue at Kīlauea summit presently.”
The growth of the rate and estimated volume of the micro-episodes indicate that something has changed. Maybe this influences the deformation. It may also indicate that either the episode will be larger or behave somewhat different (does the 2024… eruption have an exit strategy?).
Looks like Episode 44 is starting…
Episode 44 has officially started.
It is now growing nicely.
Single vent, so far
Yup. And the fountain only got to about 800 feet before starting to decline.
And it’s over!
The most enjoyable part for me was the vigorous hydrogen flaming and jetting from the south vent over the last hour of the episode once night had fallen over the caldera.
Very intriguing how we can go from a single fountain episode to a double then single again, sometimes north only, sometimes south, often both!
The flaming was spectacular!
Still a lot of gas is burning from the non eruptive vent! 21.57.
missed it, again….
Photos uploaded for your enjoyment, to see what you missed!
Some shallow earthquakes under de south part of the Kilauea caldera during the last part of episode 44.
Any thoughts what might caused these quakes?
There were shalliw quakes in the east end of the 2018 caldera a few months ago after I think E42, which were possibly small intrusions or the edges of the magma chamber caving in to expand it. Ultimately resulted in nothing new though.
But this is a different area that seems to be where the SWRZ starts from, so it might e a sign things are starting to reach some limits
HVO noted that, while the swarm was ongoing, the southern crater rim experienced minor uplift (centimeter-scale) as measured by InSAR. Might be an intrusion (though “south crater rim” suggests to me a larger area than normal with an intrusion), but I wonder if the new magma was a bit too excited to rush in considering the steep increase in tilt post-episode, thus lifting part of the caldera with it; the quakes in any case seem to have originated from near the top of the Halema’uma’u chamber if the depths are indeed this shallow.
It might be of interest that the swarms (not just this one) tend to limit themselves to within the boundaries of the (mostly-filled) Powers Caldera. The rift zones are still keeping quiet, however, so – coupled with the persistence of the vents despite the swarms all over the caldera as of late – I don’t really expect the eruption to move location anytime soon. I suppose that’s the advantage of having an eruption centered on the ring fault rather than on a rift zone.
The earthquakes occur in a shallow level ~2 km below the summit (orange dots). Do we see a new Halema’uma’u magma chamber forming, or do the earthquakes indicate anything else? E44 didn’t release much magma, it was a minor episode. It looks as if Kilauea does something else with the remaining magma.
Episodes with just north vent erupt about half that of an episode featuring both active; the average effusion rate also goes that route. This was true for E37 and E40, and may have come into existence in the interval between E32 and E33 (or during E32, but not apparent/too late to have any effect on the ongoing episode). E33 was the first episode where the average effusion rate went over 400 m³/s and – I recall – south vent’s first voluminous episode (and what, retrospectively, led to the giant, inclined fountain of E38 after what I believe was the structural failure of the upper section of south vent). Prior to that it was usually north as primary vent and an average effusion rate around 200 m³/s, if that.
I recall someone earlier commented a theory regarding this, to do with much slower tilt increase just prior to the episode and higher amount of degassing as a result. Though the change in eruptive style which occurred with E33 suggests to me also something structurally changed, because I don’t think we’d consider E44 “minor” if the maximum effusion rate hadn’t doubled that episode.
In any case I don’t think Kilauea is doing something else with the magma. The pressure has been relieved sufficiently enough by north to pause eruptive activity, although the interval should be significantly shorter than the 30 days we’ve had (I hope so, anyway – I noticed “lava withdrawal syndrome” in the latter third of the interval). There has already been 4½ µrad recovered despite the swarm, but that will undoubtedly slow down to about 1½ to 2 µrad when unaffected by swarms.
How long can the current episodic style last? I’m a bit too unpatient to expect a significant change soon. There was likely a similar eruption style in 1800-1820 as HVO wrote in current Volcano Watch: ” tephra fall mapped in Kīlauea’s summit region indicate that high lava fountains erupted within Kaluapele … in the first two decades of the 1800s.” https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/volcano-watch-caldera-clues-tephra-deposits-kilaueas-past
Does this mean that Kilauea can erupt episodically (and with tephra producing lava fountains) like now for 10 or 20 years? If the current epidosic eruption is a longterm one, then it’s clear that Kilauea won’t do anything new with the stored magma volume of E44.
If the fountains are kept stable because episodes are too short to melt or erode the vents wider, then yeah this could potentially last a long time, I dont know about decades but its already into the realm of years so lasting a few more is entirely plausible.
The main reason Pu’u O’o stopped is because the vent was on a rift zone so when pressure got high enough the magma could easily break into the adjacent areas both uprift and downrift, and eventually permanent redirection. But Pu’u O’o also had many flank vents for its entire fountain era, the current eruption has only had a single flank vent and the area that occurred is now deeply buried too.
Things can change quickly but until magma can seriously push into tbe more distal areas of the rift zones I doubt it will do anything. The caldera may well overflow before fountaining stops, and send huge a’a flows down the south and southwest flank. At this rate thats likely to be next year…
Your prediction of the speed of recovery from the 2018 eruption has held up pretty well. Let’s see whether the is also true for next year’s breakout!
The summit has no cone left from the era 1800-1820. If there was a shield cone like now (or larger), there had to happen a collapse afterwards to eliminate the structure.
One possibility is that the location of the shield cone was replaced by the lava lake of 19th century that was reported about by missionaries. 1823 they already observed a lava lake. So if there was a shield cone with episodic eruptions, the collapse had to happen once before 1823.
After 1790’s East Rift Zone lava flow (and “[p]ossible but unproven caldera collapse”, table linked on https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/science/geology-and-history-kilauea), HVO notes four lava flows on the Southwest Rift Zone, before, in 1840, there’s the first lava flow from the ERZ since 1790. Though not well constrained, these SWRZ flows are all dated to 1790-1823. Personally I think the first decade since 1790 is out of the question for all but the first lava flow (which covered less than 0.45 km² with a volume less than 0.01 km³; might be viewed similarly to the 2024 SWRZ eruption), if the sequence of events since 2018 is anything to go by (and, by extent, that following 1924). Thereafter it gets tricky.
The volumes of each of these SWRZ flows could conceivably be equal to a (very) large summit episode (0.02, 0.03 and 0.01 km³, respectively; the first two dated 1790-1823, the latter dated 1823; there’s also a Koa’e fault system eruption in the mix, but details are next-to-none in the table). Episodes currently top out at 0.0125 km³ or so, after increasing roughly linearly and “bumpily” in volume from E21 to E38. It’s possible future episodes could be larger, on the order of 0.02 to 0.03 km³ each, at which point I figure the pressure regained rapidly during the interval could open a pathway to the SWRZ as I don’t think the caldera block likes it when it’s rapidly shifted up and down. Not to mention Kilauea would be at a heightened pressure without relief for an extended period of time, which is of course asking for problems. The ERZ should, however, if this period of time parallels post-1790 closer than post-1924, remain shut for perhaps another 25-35 years.
This SWRZ scenario, however, seems to me at least a couple of years away. The episode intervals are already inching closer to a month and haven’t really gained volume since E38. The repeated swarms currently also don’t affect the eruption except by delaying the onset of the next episode a few days at most (E44 seems like an outlier to me), but I do think they point out the plumbing system isn’t as stable as once was.
Was there once around 1800 a lava shield, where the old Halema’uma’u crater was until 2018? Or did the caldera filling lava shield of 1800-1820 occur at the same place as the current eruption? Maybe the eruption later migrated towards the center of Halema’uma’u and Kaluapele.
1959 the Kilauea Iki eruption shows how a “twin eruption” of a summit eruption first and a flank eruption second can run. There the low ERZ eruption had in a later stage magma from the summit eruption. But there was no dike like 2018 moving from the summit to the ERZ. The source for the 1959 Kilauea Iki eruption was likely deeper than the source for the 2008-2018 summit eruption. So the y-shaped connection between the summit and the flank eruption happened at a deeper level than 2018. I imagine that a possible future SWRZ eruption will have some commonalities with the 1960 LERZ eruption. Should we expect it at the southern strand of SWRZ, where the Kamakaia Waena occured around 1800? I think that a deep connection between the summit and SWRZ works different than a shallow dike like 1919.
I’d say technically there was a dike from the summit to the LERZ in 2018, only that the first half of the dike (south caldera chamber – Pu’u’o’o) came into existence in 1983 with the opening of Pu’u’o’o, then gradually evolved into a conduit; the extension from the south caldera chamber to the summit formed between 1983 and the appearance of fumaroles at the summit in 2007; and finally a catastropical conduit failure when the floor of Pu’u’o’o collapsed in 2018. Kapoho 1960 also caused the summit to collapse at Halema’uma’u, just to a significantly lesser degree because the erupted volume was significantly smaller than 2018 – 0.13 km³ vs. ±1.5 km³; summit collapse volume 0.02 km³ and ±0.8 km³, respectively.
According to the plumbing model of Kilauea which HVO has published, the East Rift Zone is connected to the lower or south caldera chamber only, so the connection with the summit then as in 2018 would’ve gone through there and the upper or Halema’uma’u chamber. The important distinction to make with 1959-1960 is that the eruption at Kilauea Iki had only lasted a month or so before the ERZ opened (notably no rooted lava lake, only a vent), while in 2018 the volcano had been active for 35 years straight, of which ten years with a rooted lava lake at the summit and roughly 32 with a rooted lava lake at initially Kupaianaha and later Pu’u’o’o. I’d say the amount of eruptible material thus was significantly greater in 2018 than in 1960 because of the higher liquid content of the chambers, even though the 1960 fissures opened up further downrift than in 2018.
As to the existence of a lava shield or similar set-up in the early 1800s to now I can only speculate, but I do find it interesting the pre-2018 southwestern boundary of the crater lines up with a possible extrapolated edge of the current caldera, Kaluapele, from the Keanakako’i Crater to Uekahuna. It is therefore feasible to think Halema’uma’u came into existence initially in a similar set-up as the vents (and probable future new crater) now – at the edge of an existing crater or caldera, becoming established through a long-lasting eruption (initially with tall fountaining), the creation of a shield, and then progressively collapsing through repeated rift zone eruptions while usually maintaining a lava lake in the intervening time “like in the olden days”.
Episode 44 eye candy
The last screenshot show the hydrogen jet flame which Artemis would have found useful. (Or maybe not, seeng they are having enough trouble with the helium valves.) (A problem that I think may date back to Apollo.)
Excellent stuff!
The peak of the lava shield of the since 2024 ongoing eruption has nearly reached the altitude of the caldera rim. If it once reaches totalle to the level of the caldera rim, future lava flows may take a direction outside the caldera, f.e. towards the west from the vents.
The style of the eruption will have to change before that can happen. The tephra mound southwest of the vents will direct the lava to the northeast as long as tephra keeps on being deposited.
North of the tephra mound is a possible gap for an exit of lava flows from the caldera. But it’s uncertain whether the eruption continues like this until it can happen.
many thanks ….
Artemis II preparing for Reentry reentry module now with its heat shield tilted towards earth. Their speed is also increasing fast because of Earths pull. You can watch the live here
Still some time left until the reentry fireworks starts the firestorm that happens only in the last minutes before parachutes pops up
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=585iGcN1JFw&pp=0gcJCdoKAYcqIYzv
https://issinfo.net/artemis
Thank you.
“Gravity does the rest.”
Absolutely fascinating. Amazing that astrophysicysts have been able to figure this out over the last decades.
I have had many funny dreams of them or apollo astronauts getting the location wrong and the radio/ internet communications breaks down and they reenters and parachutes down over Africa ending up in the middle of the african savannah
There the astronauts haves to surivive in a dangerous world of predators and agressive megahebivores and try to reach for help ( walking a 100 miles or so or much much more )
It has happened three times, with Russian crafts. Soyuz 23 landed at the wrong time/place after a failure in orbit and ended up at the bottom of a lake (they were supposed to land on land). The rescue took something like half a day. Another mission landed 400 km off the agreed spot just west of the Ural mountains. It took time before they were found, helicopters could not land in the area. The crew had to shelter for two days in freezing temperatures (and without winter clothing or heating) before being rescued. And Soyuz 5 had a capsule failure during re-entry. The cosmonauts barely survived but landed in the Ural Mountains, and had to walk through -40C temperature to a local farm for shelter.
After this, Russian cosmonauts were equipped with a gun, to be used against dangerous wildlife! Obviously not in space ..
One of the US Mercury missions had a failure after a proper landing, when the hatch opened too early, let in water, and caused the capsule to sink. The astronaut got out just in time.
All of these were in the 1960’s.
There is an international agreement that if astronauts land in the wrong country, they will be repatriated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IPflHpIPdo
The Splashdown. Phantastic.
Where is my old avatar?
Starship keeps swelling in size and complexity.. Version 4 is going to become a real monster
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LD2FFMRN1rc&pp=ygUSc3RhcnNoaXAgdmVyc2lvbiA0
Amazing pic, Artemis II in Eclipse:
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/amf-art002e009301/
694,481 miles in total, farther than any humans have ever traveled befor.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-record-setting-artemis-ii-moonfarers-back-to-earth/
Great. NASA and America can be proud of this. How do you feel about it, Tallis?
My old avatar was round an blue. I preferred it.
random choice by the system! You can personalise one on gravatar
Yesterday Piton de la Fournaise entered a third episode 2026. Unlike present Kilauea’s eruption, the episodes of Piton are long, while the breaks between only last some hours. The rate is low, but the duration of the episodes is longer.
https://la1ere.franceinfo.fr/reunion/eruption-du-piton-de-la-fournaise-un-cone-en-formation-suite-a-l-ouverture-du-nouveau-point-d-emission-de-lave-1690328.html
Back at Iceland, it looks like bad news for armchair volcano tourists. The GPS plots for SENG and HS02 show that expansion under Svartsengi has flatlined for about 24 days without much earthquake activity anywhere in the peninsula. So, apparently magma is no longer flowing in. Is this just an unprecedented pause in the current phase of the Reykjanes Fires, or an end to this phase?
Based on past eps in the svartsengi system, a pause seems to be the most likely scenario. I also wanna point out that, while gps is flat, weather was also terrible this past month and the inflow models still show rather constant low inflow.
I am not so convinced. This series is coming to an end. There is still a chance of an eruption but it may need an external event (an earthquake.. to create a way up) but it is far from guaranteed.
Bardabunga on the other hand is nicely restless at the moment. A Thomas event may coming.
Katla has also been more restless this year, with another small cluster occuring just 3 hours ago. Actually the entire Katla-Torfajöfull region has been pretty active recently i feel like.
The timetable says 2-3 weeks from now. Let’s see how that holds up 🙂
I think we’re seeing a bit more noise this time because of the change to SeisComP, as well as some quakes in slightly different locations. For instance, there has been a band of quakes stretching down towards Hamarinn. They are all very small in magnitude, so they could be mislocated, or they are correct, but might have gone missed before SeisComP.
Outside Reykjanes Peninsula Iceland has been quiet since Holohraun 2014-15. Unusually long time. A similar long time without significant eruption last happened Hekla 1947-48 and Askja 1961.
Do above-average eruptions like Hekla 1947-48 and Bardarbunga 2014-15 exhaust EVZ in general for a while, so that a long calm period follows? Did it a long “volcano sabbat” also happen after Laki 1783?
Contrary to these cases, after the above-average eruption of Askja 1876 no calm period followed.
A word was missing: “A similar long time without significant eruption last happened between Hekla 1947-48 and Askja 1961.”
Bardarbunga dominates the Vatnajokul region, and it seems that the 2014 eruption removed significant stress from the area. So there may be a relation, at least on this occasion. Whether that is from pressure in the deep magma zone below the mountains, or the filling of the rift by Holuhraun magma, is not clear (to me). But you can see in the Grimsvotn plots how Holuhraun caused it to quiet down for some time.
Did Holohraun also influence Askja negatively? The eruption was close to Askja’s southern lava fields. Askja had more than 200 eruptions during the last 7000 years, what applies to 1 every 35 years on average. The break since 1961 is 65 years, so above average. On the other hand the five “swarm eruption” of the 1920s had a high frequency of eruptions.
You’re making the wrong assumption by looking just at the vertical component of a couple of stations. Here’s the estimated accumulated magma over time, based on a sill model and mapping the observed ground deformations, both horizontal and vertical, of a large number of stations to the volume change in the sill. There’s another model for a point source (Mogi) that shows similar results.
As you can see, it has slowed down, but it has not stopped.
1210-1240 the Reykjanes Fires lasted for 30 years, but “During these Fires, at least six discrete eruptions occurred at 2 to 12 year intervals.” https://icelandicvolcanos.is/?volcano=REY (Possible eruption scenarios)
The episodic eruption since 2023 can be seen as the 4th “discrete eruption” of the new Reykjanes Fires. 2021-2023 three Fagradalsfjall eruptions, after them one Svartsengi eruption. I think it is impossible to predict what systems will participate in the current Fires period that can last for decades. 1210-1240 shows that Svartsengi may erupt again after a break of many years. Krafla shows that a delayed eruption can be very voluminous.
The GPS charts for SENG and HSO2 show no recent deformation in both horizontal and vertical axes. If incoming magma is affecting other stations, why has earthquake activity in the region declined during the same time period?
I know that IMO is still expecting an eruption, and I hope that they are right. It will be interesting to see if their modeling is correct.
I disagree. They haven’t stopped, just slowed down enough so the trend is somewhat hidden in the noise. Look at the one year plot for SENG. I’d say the inflation trend continues.
I was just looking at the last 25 days of the 90 day charts, with no detailed analysis. Another week of data will make the current trend more obvious.
I am not convinced it has ended, in fact the sizeable dike filling/expansion that occurred last time alongside the quantity of magma garnered this time makes me think that when it does it go, it will be the biggest one yet. It’s at tipping point and just waiting for a trigger.
IMO seems to agree with you.
25 million cubic metres of magma now beneath Svartsengi (RÚV, 14 Apr)
Although the inflation is low now, it can change anytime.
1981 Krafla had in spring and summer a period with slow inflation, but later small centers with high inflation occured. They preceded the November 1981 eruption.
Shaun Willsey did a good recent video on this where he showed that Krafla’s inflow had slowed right down (almost flatted the curve) prior to its large last 2 eruptions. The 2nd last eruption had about an 8 month gap, comparable to this one.
The last eruption had a gap of almost 3 years, and had slowed down to 0.75 m3/s influx yet produced the largest eruption of the series in 1984.
Krafla shows that the flat inflation during late stages make it impossible to constrain the time window of eruption risk. During Svartsengi’s first episodes we had a certain time with high eruption risks and after the eruption a certain time with low eruption risks. If Svartsengi behaves like Krafla, we get a long period of moderate eruption risks and a significant danger for life on the potential eruption locations.
A difference to Krafla is, that Svartsengi is linked/related to neighbouring volcanic systems, while Krafla was a more individual volcano. The future of Svartsengi depends partially on the volcanic systems around it. We saw, how the onset of Svartsengi’s unrest in fall 2023 shut down the Fagradalsfjall eruptions. A change like this can influence the current Svartsengi eruption series.
Found this paper today, just started reading it.
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.ady2027
“Tectonic origin of Yellowstone’s translithospheric magma plumbing system”
Zebin Cao https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9899-2965, Lijun Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3232-0151, Bo Wan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5896-9485, Ling Chen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7170-5954, and Craig Lundstrom https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8470-4819Authors Info & Affiliations
Science
9 Apr 2026
Vol 392, Issue 6794
DOI: 10.1126/science.ady2027
Etna: A “petit-spot” volcano – https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mount-etna-volcano-kilometer-deep.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawRK1NFleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBNVXplMzkwTXdmc2lQb3NTc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHlF2qEYo1pY3d7ysBJCuQ8_svY8RZFm-BS838WefzZRcyVkhCyr5iN7iVvft_aem_SujpPosG4UP37GXFaKxBuQ
According to the study by University of Lausanne, Etna belongs to a fourth category of volcanoes. There are similar submarine volcanoes which also are “petit-spots”: “These tiny submarine volcanoes provide compelling evidence for the existence of pockets of magma at the top of Earth’s mantle and show that, under certain conditions, such magmas can give rise to volcanoes.”
Somehow ‘tiny submarine volcanoes’ and ‘Etna’ don’t match very well
They assume that Etna and these submarine volcanoes share a mechanism by which 80km deep magma is erupted. So a bit like a hotspot, but small.
Actually that is exactly what a hotspot is. A spot of deep magma. You need a higher temperature for the melt, which is why it is a ‘hot’ spot. The alternative to high temperature is high water content which is what happens in subduction zones. Higher temperature can be caused by residual heat or by convection (a ‘plume’). Pick your choice – but attaching the word ‘petit’ to Etna seems abuse of language!
Anyone seen this about Kavchi?
https://youtu.be/rK00tvzJ1Yc?si=hezh9AFxmqaDJTSD
Looks like it should be AI, but I assume it’s real and it’s amazing what we can see now with drones. The “underwater lightening” is fascinating.
I hadn’t! Thanks
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03334-0
Always wanted to live in Tuscany, at least before it turns into the Altiplano-Puna.
Thanks, nice. This inspired me to check whether Etruscans had their own volcanic god. Of course they had:
“Śuri (Etruscan: 𐌉𐌛𐌖𐌑, lit. ’black’), Latinized as Soranus, was an ancient Etruscan infernal, volcanic and solar fire god, also venerated by other Italic peoples – among them Capenates, Faliscans, Latins and Sabines – and later adopted into ancient Roman religion.”
– says the Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Auri
New post is up! When aid averts disaster
https://www.volcanocafe.org/eruption-and-cooperation-a-pinatubo-story/