Nearly two months after ash and steam began spewing from a fissure in Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex, the volcano continued erupting. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image on July 31, 2011.
A pale ash plume rises above erupting fissures, then fans out toward the north and east. The plume casts a shadow over the lava flow along the western (left) edge of the image. To the south of the plume, areas that have not been coated with lava sport instead a dendritic pattern of white snow and brown ash.
On July 31, SERNOGEOMIN, Chile’s geology and mineral agency, reported that a minor eruption was in progress at Puyehue-Cordón Caulle. The volcano released gas and ash, accompanied by a continuous volcanic tremor. In late July, an average of one low-magnitude earthquake per hour occurred beneath the volcano. Cameras installed around the site showed an eruption column height of 2 kilometers (1 mile) on July 31, and Chile’s Meteorological Office forecast that the plume would likely move toward the east-southeast overnight.
The eruption at Puyehue-Cordón Caulle began on June 4, 2011. The eruption sent an ash plume high into the atmosphere, and winds sent the ash around the Southern Hemisphere.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Michon Scott and Robert Simmon.
