Volcano World

Satellite image courtesy of AVO/USGS. 

This satellite radar image is of Mount Cleveland stratovolcano that is located 940 miles southwest of Anchorage on Chuginadak Island in the Aleutian Islands. The image was collected on February 10, 2012 and shows a small lava dome in the volcano's summit crater. The summit crater is about 200 meters across. Recently, the volcano had a brief explosion on March 7th and another on March 9th, both of which likely produced some airborne ash, according to volcanologists. The eruptions may have also removed or partially removed the lava dome that was growing within the summit crater (seen in image above).  

Several news agencies around the world have picked up on the story that Uturuncu volcano is rapidly inflating.  Recent INSAR studies have shown that Uturuncu is inflating at a rate of 1 to 2 cm per year over a 70 km area, suggesting that magma is currently intruding into the system.   Volcanologists, petrologists, geophysicists, and geomorphologists from institutions around the world are studying Uturuncu to understand the history and current unrest of this beautiful volcano.

Since we regularly get questions about this type of thing, I wanted to repost this excellent post from Erik Klemetti's blog 'Eruptions.'

"I recently read a post about how humans couldn't be to blame for the warming of the oceans.    
The "logic" of their post was this:

• We see water getting warmed by magma at volcanoes worldwide, like Taal andRuapehu.
• The bottom of the ocean is covered in volcanoes, whether it be seamounts or the mid-ocean ridge system.
• Volcanoes at the bottom of the ocean must heat up the ocean water (like in crater lakes), so humans aren't to blame.

There are a number of ways to attack this poor reasoning, but I'll try to go with the ones I think are most convincing.