Aug 10 2012, 7:15 am - Volcano roundup

Aug 10 2012, 7:15 am - Volcano roundup

A quick summary of overnight news from the volcanoes, plus some of your questions answered.

"It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it!" - Brad Scott on White Island.

GNS Science continues to monitor Tongariro and White Island volcanoes closely and will advise of any changes as they occur. There is no unusual activity being observed at any other New Zealand volcanic centre.

White Island

Volcanic activity at White Island remains at a low level. Weak eruption of ash, gas and steam continues at about the same intensity as yesterday. Seismic activity remains at about the same level as yesterday, with weak tremor continuing. Earlier reports attributing lightning seen last night from the Bay of Plenty coast to White Island, are not correct. We have reviewed data provided by Metservice, which clearly shows that the lightning occurred more than 50 km away from White Island, not in the ash plume close the island.

Brad Scott took the chance to clean the windows on the White Island webcams yesterday - we can all see the action that much clearer now. Dino is still with us!

Tongariro

Volcanic activity at Mount Tongariro also remains at a low level, with a few very small earthquakes occurring beneath the area and continued emission of steam and gas from the new vents at Te Māri craters area.

The online drums perversely seem to show more action at the Ngauruhoe drum (at OTVZ Oturere) than the Tongariro drum (at WTVZ West Tongariro). They have slightly different scales and OTVZ is closer to the action in this case. You can see where they are on the local network map.

Photos and reports

If you've taken some good photos of either volcano, or you'd like to tell us about what you've seen, please Contact Us - we'd love to hear from you. We are putting up the best photos from our observation flights on GeoNet's Flickr page.

Web Pages

Some of you reported problems with web pages not showing current information. We've changed some settings on those so you should now be up-to-date when you click on them; previously they needed a refresh.

ENDS

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