A small plume rose from the summit of Ulawun Volcano on Papua New Guinea’s island of New Britain in early June 2010. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image on June 10.
Midway down the slopes of Ulawun, vegetation predominates, but bare volcanic rock coats the slopes near the summit, appearing in charcoal-brown streaks. A white plume blows from the summit toward the west. The plume’s pale color suggests that, of the visible components in the plume, steam (rather than volcanic ash) predominates.
Ulawun is a symmetrical stratovolcano and one of the most active in Papua New Guinea. The volcano has experienced multiple large eruptions and lava flows since 1970.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team and the United States Geological Survey. Caption by Michon Scott.
