The prolonged eruption of
Sinabung Volcano
is disrupting the lives of the tens of thousands of Indonesians living
nearby. In this natural-color satellite image (top), a steam and ash
plume from the volcano partially obscures the town of Kabanjahe, located
between Sinabung and
Lake Toba. Ash settles on the surrounding villages (photo, below ©2014
Richard Roscoe)
and farmland, destroying crops, and causes breathing problems for
people far from the volcano. The satellite image was acquired by the
Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on the
Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite on January 29, 2014.
The ash emissions are fueled by a cycle of
lava dome growth and
collapse.
In this process, thick lava is extruded from the erupting vent near the
volcano’s summit. As the dome grows the outside of the lava cools,
forming a solid shell, while more lava oozes up from below. Eventually,
the sides of the lava dome become too steep to be stabilized by the weak
rock, and it collapses. The rock, often red-hot and riddled with
gas-filled holes, disintegrates as it flows down the mountainside,
creating a
pyroclastic flow and ash cloud.
The following
video shows a dome collapse and pyroclastic flow that occurred on Sinabung during January 2014.
References
- Financial Times (2014, January 23) Sinabung devastation highlights Indonesia volcano risk. Accessed January 29, 2014.
- Klemetti, Erik (2014, January 28) Eruption Update for January 28, 2014: Etna and Sinabung. Accessed January 29, 2014.
- Roscoe, Richard (2014, January) Sinabung Volcano (Gunung Sinabung). Accessed January 29, 2014.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data from the NASA
EO-1 team. Photograph & video ©2014, Richard Roscoe,
Photovolcanica. Caption by Robert Simmon.
- Instrument:
- EO-1 - ALI
