Tag: Philippines

NEW INFO: Mayon Volcano in Albay Province, Philippines Downgraded to Level 3

Photo of crater glow courtesy PHIVOLCS, the service institute of the DOST for monitoring and mitigation of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunami. 

UPDATE 3.9.19 Alert level for Mayon Volcano is now at Level 3, allowing some evacuees to return to their homes.

 

Updated photos 1.31.18

UPDATE: 1.28.18 Residents are warned to watch out for LAHAR, a concrete-like flowing substance which occurs when heavy rain mixes with ash. The only way to avoid the danger is to seek higher ground. This video shows a recent LAHAR flow that occurred in Bali as a result of the ongoing eruption of Mount Agung.

Update 1.26.18:

Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS-DOST) added 3 new photos.

Lava flow on the Bonga channel on southeast Mayon Volcano. (Photos taken at 2009H PST 26 January 2018 from Mayon Volcano Observatory, Lignon Hill, Legazpi City, Albay)

Update 1.25.18: Lava Fountaining:

UPDATE 1.22.18

Alert Level Raised to 4.

UPDATE 1.21.18

Lava fountaining from Mayon Volcano crater at 10:45 PST 21 January 2018. (Photo taken from Mayon Volcano Observatory, Lignon Hill, Legazpi City, Albay)

UPDATE 1.20.18

20 January 2018
Quiet lava effusion from the new summit lava dome and lava collapse events characterized Mayon Volcano’s eruptive activity in the past 24 hours. Five (5) rockfall events were recorded by Mayon’s seismic monitoring network. Rockfall events were generated by the collapsing lava front and margins of the advancing lava flow on the Miisi Gully and by shedding from the summit dome onto the Bonga Gully. Currently, the
Miisi lava flow has advanced to three (3) kilometers from the summit crater well within the PDZ. Ash clouds were lofted from the rockfall events as well as from the persistent disintegration of lava on the advancing front of the Miisi lava flow before drifting to the southwest.
Alert Level 3 remains in effect over Mayon Volcano, which means that it is currently in a relatively high level of unrest as magma is at the crater and hazardous eruption is possible within weeks or even days.

Courtesy: REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES
NATIONAL DISASTER RISK REDUCTION AND MANAGEMENT COUNCIL
National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Ce ter, Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, Philippines
NDRRMC UPDATE
SitRep No. 11 re Mayon Volcano Phreatic Eruption

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UPDATE 1.17.18: A photo of the erupting volcano sparks interest in the creation myth surrounding the Mayon Volcano.

Mayon Volcano spawns ash clouds as seen on January 17, 2018. Ciriaco Santiago III, ABS-CBN News

Photo of Mayon Volcano sparks romance in social media users’ hearts: read full story:

http://news.abs-cbn.com/life/01/18/18/photo-of-mayon-volcano-sparks-romance-in-social-media-users-hearts

UPDATE: As of 02:00 AM, 16 January 2018, a total of 5,318 families / 21,823 persons were affected in 25 barangays in the municipalities/cities of Camalig, Guinobatan, Ligao City, Daraga, Tabaco City, and Malilipot in the Province of Albay (Region V) and are currently staying in designated 18 evacuation centers.

Evacuations have taken place in areas closer than 7 km.

It is currently listed at a level 3, which is not yet the highest alert.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/639651/mayon-volcano-alert-levels-explained/story/

 

18-year-old Hillary Andales, $250,000 Scholarship Winner, Breakthrough Junior Challenge

The Breakthrough Junior Challenge is a global science video competition designed to inspire creative thinking about fundamental concepts in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics. In recognition of her winning submission, Hillary Diane Andales receives up to $400,000 in educational prizes, including a scholarship worth up to $250,000, another $50,000 for the science teacher who inspired her, and a state-of-the-art science lab valued at $100,000 designed by and in partnership with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

This was Andales’ second time in the competition, and last year, she was the Top Scorer in the Popular Vote, a segment of the contest that allows the public to vote for their favorites online. As the Top Scorer in the Popular Vote, she won a DNA molecular-biology laboratory as her school recovered from damage by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. This year, her overall victory in the competition will secure for her school a Fabrication/Physics/Design/Innovation Lab.

More than 11,000 entries from 178 countries were received in the 2017 installment of the global competition, which kicked off on September 1, 2017. The Breakthrough Junior Challenge is funded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Yuri and Julia Milner, through the Breakthrough Prize Foundation, based on a grant from Mark Zuckerberg’s fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and a grant from the Milner Global Foundation.

Here is her prize-winning submission, Relativity & The Equivalence of Reference Frames:

BREAKTHROUGH PRIZE – “THE OSCARS OF SCIENCE” – CELEBRATES TOP ACHIEVEMENTS IN PHYSICS, LIFE SCIENCES & MATHEMATICS, AWARDS $22 MILLION IN PRIZES AT GALA TELEVISED CEREMONY IN SILICON VALLEY

https://breakthroughprize.org/

Volcanic Ash Can Take Down an Airplane

Courtesy Australian Government, Bureau of Meteorology

Plane talking: tracking and forecasting volcanic ash

Volcanic ash regularly causes significant flight disruptions. So why is volcanic ash a serious safety hazard for the aviation industry and how does the Bureau track and forecast its movement?

What is volcanic ash?

Volcanic ash in the air is a mixture of fine pulverised rock, minerals and glass, and is accompanied by gases which convert into droplets of sulphuric acid and other substances. It’s extremely hazardous to aircraft, with the potential to melt in the engine, and fuse into a glass-like coating on components, causing loss of thrust (the force that propels the plane through the air) and possible engine failure. It can also cause abrasion of engine parts, and the body of the aircraft, and clog fuel and cooling systems.

Photo: Mt Rinjani eruption, Lombok, 5 November 2015. Credit: Centre for Vulcanological and Geohazards Mitigation.

In June 1982 a British Airways 747 suffered severe damage and had all four engines fail after encountering ash from Mt Galunggung in Indonesia. It descended to 12 000 feet (normal cruising height is around 38 000 feet) before restarting some engines and making an emergency landing in Jakarta.. Three weeks later the same thing happened to a Singapore Airlines 747, which lost two engines and also made an emergency landing.

These incidents drove a major international effort to start tracking and warning aircraft of volcanic ash clouds.

For the latest on Mayon Volcano erupting in the Philippines:

NEW INFO: Mayon Volcano in Albay Province, Philippines Downgraded to Level 3

For the latest on the volcano erupting in Bali:

Bali Volcano Mount Agung, The Great Mountain, Lowers Danger Level; Evacuees Headed Home

Volcanic activity

The highest concentration of active volcanoes in the world lies along the rim of the Pacific Ocean—the so-called ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’. This 40 000 km horseshoe-shaped area stretches along the western edge of the Americas, across to the Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia), down through Japan and the Philippines and across Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand to the islands of the South Pacific. It is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. Other active regions are the Great Rift Valley in Central and East Africa, countries around the Mediterranean, and Iceland (home of Eyjafjallajökull, which erupted in 2010, famously grounding flights in 20 countries across Europe and affecting around 10 million travellers).

Pacific Ring of Fire. Oceanic trenches are shown in blue. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey.

Volcanic eruptions range in nature from a quiet, steady outpouring of lava to highly explosive eruptions which blast several cubic kilometres of ash and corrosive gases high into the atmosphere over a wide area for several days. This explosive activity is of greatest concern to aviation, mainly because of the great volume of ash and the height that the volcanic material can reach. An ash cloud from a large eruption can remain in the atmosphere in dangerous concentrations for many days. Over this time, it can travel many thousands of kilometres with the prevailing winds.

Monitoring volcanic ash

Globally there are nine volcanic ash advisory centres (VAACs) that detect, track and forecast the movement of volcanic ash clouds and provide advice to meteorological offices in their area of responsibility. The VAACs are located in the USA, Argentina, UK, Australia, Japan, France, Canada and New Zealand.

The Bureau’s VAAC (known as VAAC Darwin) is responsible for an area that includes the volcanically active regions of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the southern Philippines—and monitors 152 active volcanoes. It provides advice to the aviation industry about the location and movement of potentially hazardous volcanic ash, using ground-based and satellite observations, pilot reports, and sophisticated forecasting models. The VAAC operates 24 hours a day.