During 13-18 February, seismicity was relatively low at Colima and was dominated by landslide signals. In addition, landslides continued to travel down the volcano's S, SW, and W flanks, extending up to 2-3 km from the volcano's summit. During reconnaissance flights over the volcano, lava flows were observed extending ~70 m down the SW flank. On 16 February lava was seen on the E flank; CENAPRED reported that landslides are expected to travel down this flank in the following days. The 6.5-km-radius exclusion zone remained in effect and there were restrictions to access within a radius of 11.5 km from the volcano's summit.

Geological Summary. The Colima complex is the most prominent volcanic center of the western Mexican Volcanic Belt. It consists of two southward-younging volcanoes, Nevado de Colima (the high point of the complex) on the north and the historically active Volcán de Colima at the south. A group of late-Pleistocene cinder cones is located on the floor of the Colima graben west and east of the complex. Volcán de Colima (also known as Volcán Fuego) is a youthful stratovolcano constructed within a 5-km-wide scarp, breached to the south, that has been the source of large debris avalanches. Major slope failures have occurred repeatedly from both the Nevado and Colima cones, producing thick debris-avalanche deposits on three sides of the complex. Frequent recorded eruptions date back to the 16th century. Occasional major explosive eruptions have destroyed the summit (most recently in 1913) and left a deep, steep-sided crater that was slowly refilled and then overtopped by lava dome growth.

Source: Centro Universitario de Estudios e Investigaciones de Vulcanologia - Universidad de Colima