Latest Lava Stories

SEATTLE -- Roughly every three seconds, the equivalent of a large dump truck load of lava - 10 cubic yards - oozes into the crater of Mount St. Helens, and with the molten rock comes a steady drumfire of small earthquakes. The unremitting pace, going on for 15 months now, is uncommon, said U.S. Geological Survey geologist Dave Sherrod. Experts say it is unclear what the activity signifies or how much longer it will continue. "One view of this eruption is that we're at the end of the...

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala's Volcano of Fire erupted on Tuesday, sending rivers of lava down its slopes and a huge cloud of ash and smoke into the sky.About 25,000 local residents were put on alert. Emergency teams said there was no immediate need for evacuations but they might be necessary if there were more eruptions.Experts said two rivers of lava, both about 1.5 miles (2 km) long, were flowing down the volcano's slopes, although they posed no threat to villagers in the area. A...

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's giant Popocatepetl volcano threw up an ash column almost 2 miles high and spat glowing rocks down its snow-clad slopes on Sunday, but nearby towns were not affected, officials said.Popocatepetl, whose name means "smoking mountain" in the Nahuatl Indian language spoken by the Aztecs, spewed out the huge plume of ash and rocks in a three-minute exhalation."The recent activity is within the expected scenarios and there is no evidence of a major risk in the...

A rare volcanic eruption is expanding the size of an island in British Overseas Territory. Spectacular new satellite images show that Montagu Island, an erupting volcano in the South Sandwich Islands, South Atlantic has grown by 50 acres (0.2 km2), equivalent to 40 football pitches in the last month. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) were alerted to satellite data showing a large and fast flowing lava flow that is...

HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, Hawaii -- Fresh molten rock from Kilauea Volcano is flowing into an area where a 12-acre bench of hardened lava crashed into the ocean last weekend. "It's already rebuilding, but a lot goes below sea level," said Christina Heliker, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. There were no reports of injuries from the 80-minute Saturday morning collapse that included boulders as large as 3 feet in diameter being washed...

New discoveries about the timing and speed of gigantic, 6500-foot (2-km) thick lava flows that poured out of the ground 65 million years ago could shift the blame for killing the dinos. The Deccan Traps of India are one of Earth's largest lava flows ever, with the potential of having wreaked havoc with the climate of the Earth - if they erupted and released climate-changing gases quickly enough. French and Indian geologists have now identified a 600-meter (2000-foot) thick portion of the lava...

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Western Mexico's Volcano of Fire spewed glowing, volcanic rock and a cloud of ash Friday, before sending gray smoke a half-mile into the air, officials said. The activity followed an explosion late Thursday inside the crater of the 12,533-foot mountain. The eruptions rained ash on several nearby communities, and officials asked some schools to close while they cleaned up the fine grit. Straddling the border of Colima and Jalisco states, the Volcano of Fire has unleashed...

SAN MARCOS, Mexico -- The Volcano of Fire has rumbled back to life with its strongest eruptions in 20 years, spewing lava and ash clouds that had some residents who remained in their homes Wednesday casting nervous glances at the peak. The volcano, which straddles the line between Colima and Jalisco states 430 miles west of Mexico City, has had six spectacular eruptions in the past three weeks. The largest, late Monday, shot glowing lava three miles above the crater of the 12,533-foot...

VOLCANO, Hawaii (AP) -- The Kilauea volcano, one of Hawaii's most popular tourist attractions, is also by far the state's worst air polluter. Researchers now are trying to determine if that also makes it one of the state's biggest health risks. Since it began erupting on Jan. 3, 1983, the volcano has been sending an average of 1,000 metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere each day, according to the Hawaii chapter of the American Lung Association. This is 6,000 times the amount...

VOLCANO, Hawaii (AP) -- Lava from Kilauea volcano began dropping into the ocean at two new points this week, treating visitors to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to a fiery show. The lava began flowing into the Pacific on Monday at one spot that is about a mile and a half from a park ranger station. The second spot is on the far side of the park near the former town of Kalapana, which was covered by lava in 1990. As lava hits the ocean, it can create crowd-pleasing explosions and fantastic...