• Registered: 2005-07-11

Re: April 21, 2006

Volcano’s lake turns bright red
Scientists puzzled by dramatic shift on South Pacific island of Ambae

Updated: 12:39 a.m. ET May 29, 2006
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A lake atop a rumbling volcano on the South Pacific island of Ambae has changed color from blue to bright red, puzzling scientists.

Mount Manaro, one of four active volcanos on the island nation of Vanuatu, has been showing signs of erupting for only the second time in 122 years.

“We are still ... trying to understand this change of color in the lake from blue to red,”  Geology and Mines Department director Esline Garae said by telephone Monday from Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila.

She said two scientists on Ambae Island were monitoring Lake Vui as well as seismic activity on the 5,000-foot Mount Manaro.

If the change of color “comes from new activity in the ground or just chemical change in the lake – these are two things I want to know from those guys before I can say anything”  about the danger posed by the volcano, she said.

Mount Manaro last erupted in November 2005, forcing half the island’s 10,000 inhabitants to evacuate their villages. An 1884 eruption killed scores of villagers.

New Zealand volcanologist Brad Scott said Lake Vui’s color was “quite a spectacular red,”  but what had caused it “is the $64,000-question.”

He said water samples from the lake would help determine what was happening in the crater and below it.

The color change could be a chemical process or gas from molten volcanic rock or something else coming into the lake, he said.

Three other volcanos in Vanuatu – Lopevi, Yasur and a two-crater volcano on Ambryn Island called Marum and Benbow – have spewed rocks, ash, smoke and steam in recent weeks.

Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides Islands, is made up of 13 main islands located about 1,400 miles east of Australia.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13027631/from/RS.3/

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  • Registered: 2005-07-11

Re: April 21, 2006

Mount St. Helens shoots steam, ash plume into air

Tuesday, May 30, 2006 Posted: 1717 GMT (0117 HKT)

VANCOUVER, Washington (AP) -- Mount St. Helens shot a steam and ash plume at least 16,000 feet into the air Monday after a large rockfall from the lava dome in the volcano's crater, scientists said.

Pilots reported the plume rose between 16,000 and 20,000 feet in the air, scientists at the Cascades Volcano Observatory said.

The rockfall coincided with a magnitude 3.1 earthquake shortly after 9 a.m. Monday at the mountain, scientists said.

Such events are expected during growth of the lava dome, they said.

Crater formed in deadly eruption
"There is no evidence of an explosion associated with this event," the observatory said in a statement. Clouds obscured the crater at the time.

"We don't know how much steam and how much ash," Cynthia Gardner, scientist in charge at the observatory, told The Columbian. "These are very short-lived events."

Lava has continued to push into the crater -- most recently forming a sheer rock fin -- since the 8,364-foot mountain reawakened with a drumfire of low-level seismic activity in September 2004.

The crater was formed by the volcano's deadly May 18, 1980, eruption that killed 57 people and blasted about 1,300 feet off the then-9,677-foot peak.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/TECH/scienc … index.html

"Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"
Mel Gibson / Signs

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