Kizimen Volcano in Kamchatka Has Erupted - "potential for catastrophic eruption"

*Note: I don't know that catastrophic means anything other than catastrophic to the mountain itself or the local area, such as what happened to Mt St Helens, it's just the language KVERT is using.

Eruption of the volcano continues. Ash explosions up to 10 km (or 32,800 ft) ASL possible at any time. Ongoing activity could affect international and low-flying aircraft.

A danger of catastrophic eruption exists.

Strong explosive eruption of the volcano began at 19:57 UTC on December 12 and continued during 20 minutes. A height of ash explosions was about 3.0-3.5 km (9,840-11,500 ft) ASL but strong wind whirled ash plume to the north-west. Lightnings was observed into ash explosions. Too much steams obscured the volcano after explosions. Ashfalls occurred in the villages Kozyrevsk (110 km from the volcano) and Tigil (308 km from the volcano). Color of ash was grey. Smells of sulfur perceptible in air. The thickness of ash layers were 0.5 cm at Kozyrevsk (ash falls from 21:00 till 21:30) and 0.5 cm at Tigil (ash falls from 23:30 till 24:00). According to satellite data (MTSAT), a compact circle ash cloud in diameter about 90-120 km extending to the N-W from the volcano were noted from 20:30 till 21:30 UTC on December 12.

From about 23:13 UTC on December 12, an amplitude of volcanic tremor began increased. Probably strong explosive events will continues.

KVERT: www.kscnet.ru...

Outside of the immediate area, the biggest potential risk right now is to air travel. This is one to watch, however, as there is very little information about prior eruptions of Kizimen. The last known one was in 1927 and that apparently was not as large as what is going on right now, but there is evidence of much larger eruptions in the geologic record.

Large volcanic convulsions of fire, ash, and vapor appear intuitively to be too energy-intensive to be explained without a chemical reaction of combustible gas. Among combustible gases, methane, and hydrogen sulphide are widely recognized as components in volcanic eruptions. They produce heat on combustion, but not the ash that only silane can produce. The arguments for silane then are that the great blankets of siliceous ash observed worldwide require silane to explain their provenance and correspondingly large releases of energy to create them. Other metal hydrides in the silane-dominated effusion can provide the complement of minor metals found in ash and tephra, but only silane can produce the dominant silica.

blog.hasslberger.com...

Mod Note: One Line and Short Posts – Please Review This Link.

Kamchatka....

the crucial territory in... RISK? I didn't know it still existed by that name... unless I'm thinking of the wrong place.

If it's the same one from the board game... I'm doubting there will be many casualties if any...

Yes, Kamchatka still does exist in its own right:

en.wikipedia.org...

Also, seeing as Sarah Palin can see it from her house It's close enough to Alaska to pose some issues for air travel (though more likely to be an issue for planes bound for Asia.)

Did some more research on Kizimen and there are references to eruptive cycles lasting 10,000 years.

I wouldn't get concerned,like everything else posted here it's a plane,helicopter or a hoax no need to think for yourselves just believe what i say and go back to watching you rprograms..god i am sick of this place

reply to post by quakewatcher


Yeah, I remember the region from the Axis and Allies board game.

Though Palin didn't say you could see Russia from her house, that was Tina Fey spoof on SNL

www.youtube.com... (what Palin actually said)

www.youtube.com... (The spoof libs quote as fact)

It's not a hoax but nothing to worry about. Catasthropic is just misplaced and people should stop using that word every time a volcano blows some ash.

There were signs, for at least 2 weeks now, that Kizimen was probably going to blow a bit.

volcanolive.blogspot.com...

www.volcanolive.com...

Nidwin

Update: seismic activity is increasing at Kizimen, researchers in the area are more concerned (and not a little bit excited) about a possible big bada boom on the scale of Mt St Helens. Always nice when these things happen in remote areas.

shpilenok.livejournal.com...

(use Google Translate to get an English translation.)

KVERT updates don't seem to quite jibe with that blog post, but then KVERT is once again saying they will suspend operations due to funding cuts, this time on February 5th.
www.kscnet.ru...