Ecuador - Mt Tungurahua Poised for Major Eruption

Over 16,500ft tall, it could be a pretty big one...

Foxnews Article

A couple of quotes from the vulcanologist were pretty interesting:

That it "is preparing to generate, in days or weeks, a great eruption."

"We have indications that there may be important volumes of magma which would be liberated in an eruption"

Its eruptions are generally strombolean according to wikepedia and those are typically low-level so it doesn't sound like it has a habit of "blowing its top" so to speak...




[edit on 10-1-2008 by Necrosis]

I had done some checking and it looks like this volcano normally erupts at about a VEI 4 level. The biggest listed was a VEI 5 which is a Mount St. Helens level. So while it may be physically large it doesn't have a history of producing the big eruptions like the VEI 6 we saw from Pinatubo or the big explosive eruptions like the historic eruptions at Krakatau and Tambora.