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Report on Anatahan (United States) — 26 December-1 January 2008


Anatahan

Smithsonian Institution / US Geological Survey
Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, 26 December-1 January 2008
Managing Editor: Sally Sennert.

Please cite this report as:

Global Volcanism Program, 2007. Report on Anatahan (United States) (Sennert, S, ed.). Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, 26 December-1 January 2008. Smithsonian Institution and US Geological Survey.

Weekly Report (26 December-1 January 2008)

Anatahan

United States

16.35°N, 145.67°E; summit elev. 790 m

All times are local (unless otherwise noted)


Low-level tremor at Anatahan continued during 21-29 December. On 31 December, the Washington VAAC reported that a gas-and-steam plume with low ash content was visible on satellite imagery and drifted NW. The Volcanic Alert Level remained at Advisory and the Aviation Color Code remained at Yellow.

Geological Summary. The elongate, 9-km-long island of Anatahan in the central Mariana Islands consists of a large stratovolcano with a 2.3 x 5 km compound summit caldera. The larger western portion of the caldera is 2.3 x 3 km wide, and its western rim forms the island's high point. Ponded lava flows overlain by pyroclastic deposits fill the floor of the western caldera, whose SW side is cut by a fresh-looking smaller crater. The 2-km-wide eastern portion of the caldera contained a steep-walled inner crater whose floor prior to the 2003 eruption was only 68 m above sea level. A submarine cone, named NE Anatahan, rises to within 460 m of the sea surface on the NE flank, and numerous other submarine vents are found on the NE-to-SE flanks. Sparseness of vegetation on the most recent lava flows had indicated that they were of Holocene age, but the first historical eruption did not occur until May 2003, when a large explosive eruption took place forming a new crater inside the eastern caldera.

Sources: Washington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC), Emergency Management Office of the Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands and United States Geological Survey Volcano Hazards Program