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.
- Global Volcanism Program. (n.d.) Puyehue-Cordón Caulle. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Accessed August 1, 2011.
- Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería. (2011, July 31). Reporte Especial de Actividad Volcánica No 90 Complejo Volcánico Puyehue – Cordón Caulle. (Spanish) Accessed August 1, 2011.
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.
- EO-1 - ALI