Huge earthquake may have triggered volcano's first eruption in 600 years, Russian team says
'This is the first historically confirmed eruption of Krasheninnikov Volcano in 600 years,' RIA cited Olga Girina, head of the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team, as saying.
She added that the eruption may be connected to the earthquake on Wednesday that triggered tsunami warnings as far away as French Polynesia and Chile, and was followed by an eruption of Klyuchevskoy, the most active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
On the Telegram channel of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Girina said that Krasheninnikov's last lava effusion took place in 1463 - plus or minus 40 years - and no eruption has been known since.
The Kamchatka branch of Russia's ministry for emergency services said that an ash plume rising up to 6,000 meters (3.7 miles) has been recorded following the volcano's eruption. The volcano itself stands at 1,856 meters.
'The ash cloud has drifted eastward, toward the Pacific Ocean. There are no populated areas along its path,' the ministry said on Telegram.
The eruption of the volcano has been assigned an orange aviation code, indicating a heightened risk to aircraft, the ministry said.
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"There's a self-induced complexity in the process, and that leads to a bit of randomness." There is one certainty, which is bound to disappoint anyone who shares the hope that a "Big One" simply won't ever strike California again. "There will be an earthquake at some point," Antoine said. "If there is stress building up on the fault, the fault won't hold forever." Further research and observations are essential to refine models of future possible earthquakes, including from the Sentinel satellites, which are operated by the European Space Agency, the authors said. The other coauthors of the study are Rajani Shrestha and Chris Milliner of Caltech; Chris Rollins of Earth Sciences New Zealand; Kang Wang of the Washington-based EarthScope Consortium; and Kejie Chen of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
