Mount Soputan volcano erupts again!

Lava flowed about 1 km from Indonesia’s Mount Soputan crater

Mount Soputan volcano, one of Sulawesi island’s most active volcanoes, erupted again Monday, spewing flames, fiery spark and clouds of hot smoke up to a 1,000 meters into the air.

Lava flowed about 1 km from the crater, according to Indonesia’s volcanology center.”There’s no order to evacuate but people are asked to stay outside a radius of four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the volcano’s summit because it could spew lava and heat clouds down its slopes,” a volcanologist said.

Indonesia, which sits on the so called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” is home to 150 listed volcanoes. [See below for more information on Pacific Ring of Fir. ]

Soputan volcano spews thick smoke and heat clouds in Minahasa. Source: AFP. Image may be subject to copyright.

Description

Country: Indonesia
Region Name: Sulawesi (Indonesia)
Volcano Type: Stratovolcano
Last Known Eruption: 2008
Summit Elevation: 1784 m     (5,853 feet)
Latitude:     1.108°N     1°6’30″N
Longitude: 124.73°E     124°44’0″E

Soputan on a restful day!

The small Soputan stratovolcano, seen here from the west, was constructed on the southern rim of the Quaternary Tondano caldera in northern Sulawesi Island. The youthful, largely unvegetated Soputan volcano is one of Sulawesi’s most active volcanoes. During historical time the locus of eruptions has included both the summit crater and Aeseput, a prominent NE flank vent that formed in 1906 and was the source of intermittent major lava flows until 1924. Photo by Agus Solihin (Volcanological Survey of Indonesia). Image and caption: GVP.

Pacific Ring of Fire

The Pacific Ring of Fire is an area of frequent siesmic activity and volcanic eruptions caused by plate tectonic movements. Encircling the basin of the Pacific Ocean, which contains oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts, the 40,000 km Ring of Fire is home to 452 volcanoes. About ninety percent of the world’s earthquakes including 80% of the world’s major earthquakes occur along the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The trenches are shown in blue-green. The volcanic island arcs, although not labeled, are parallel to, and always landward of, the trenches. For example, the island arc associated with the Aleutian Trench is represented by the long chain of volcanoes that make up the Aleutian Islands.

Source: http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/fire.html