Pyroclastic surge, or base surge deposits from the 1957 phreatomagmatic Capelinhos eruption lap up against a lighthouse near the western coast of Fayal Island in the Azores. Pyroclastic surges produced by magma-water interaction during the Surtseyan eruption nearly buried the lower floor of the lighthouse building. The initially submarine eruption began off the western tip of Fayal, forming a small island that was eventually joined to the main island.

Photo by R.V. Fisher, 1979 (University of California Santa Barbara).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license terms.

Galleries: Human Impacts

Keywords: human impacts | pyroclastic surge | deposit | lava water interaction

Fayal