Yesterday’s spectacular eruption of Volcán de Colima in Mexico

January 22, 2015 • 10:08 am

Reader Stephen Q. Muth (Butter‘s staff) sent me a link to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s video and report of a big eruption of the Colima volcano (Volcán de Colima) in southwest Mexico. It’s erupted several times in the last year, and the Spanish title of the video notes that this eruption happened yesterday. The ABC’s notes:

The active but isolated volcano is located approximately 500 kilometres west of the capital Mexico City and has erupted at least 30 times since 1585.

The vision was recorded on a permanent fixed webcam operated by Webcams De Mexico, which had placed a series of cameras in the area since the volcano’s last major eruptions in 2013 and 2014.

Colima experienced several significant eruptions in the late 1990s and scientific monitoring of the site began two decades ago.

Ash fell on towns up to 25 kilometres away from the volcano, but no lives or properties were under immediate threat.

Note what appears to be a pyroclastic flow moving down the volcano’s flanks. Nothing could survive that avalanche of hot gas and debris.

I’d dearly love to see something like this. I’ve watched the red molten lava from the volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island flow into the sea, making a huge cloud of steam and building up the island, but it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the video above.

33 thoughts on “Yesterday’s spectacular eruption of Volcán de Colima in Mexico”

  2. I wonder if the film is shot in normal speed, or if it’s sped up (time laps). If it’s normal speed, the pyroclastic flow looks awfully fast. Chunks seem to fly down slope much faster than gravity would propel them.

    1. No, it is sped up. Watch the minutes and seconds in the time stamp at the upper right corner.

      However, pyroclastic flows are not always falling just under gravity, as they can get a lot of initial momentum from expanding gasses and flying rock and lava during the explosion.

  3. If a volcano erupts in a remote area, is God still punishing someone? Seems like a waste of perfectly good fire and brimstone. Maybe it’s just target practice.

      1. I saw the face of Jesus in the cloud! It was surely a sign he’ll be back soon to get those nasty sinners he missed this time!

        (No, I didn’t really see a face.)

  5. I don’t believe that’s an example of a pyroclastic flow. That seems to be a case of gasses escaping through cracks and subsidiary vents in the volcano’s flanks.

    1. The very first wave of what appears to be debris on the flanks of the mountain appears to be simultaneous with the shock wave (which you can make out traveling down the flanks in the air above). So my guess is your right; it might also be enhanced by dust etc. being lifted from the ground as the shock wave passes.

      There are later flows down the sides of the mountain that could be pyroclastic flows, but I’m not a geologist or volcano expert, so I wouldn’t like to speculate further.

  7. “The Volcano Cowboys” , by Dick Thompson, is an excellent read: it follows a band of USGS volcanologists as they try to learn more about eruptions and how to predict them. The timeline includes Mt. St. Helens, where a tremendous amount was learned, to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines a few years later where they were actually able to save lives with what they had learned. The destructive power of these natural events is almost beyond comprehension; a valley once used for bombing training near Clark Air Force base was buried in up to 300 feet of white-hot ash.

  10. Amazing. Watched many times.

    The stability we manage in our society through predictive management, e.g. weather forecasts, and engineering controls, e.g. airbags, is greatly under appreciated by the faithful.

    They balance all of their fateful declarations with, “That is God’s will” or “It’s a miracle people were saved”. There are no miracles; there is no will. Volcanoes, hurricanes, asteroids, and neighborhood supernovae are not part of any plan, but the effects of them can largely be avoided only through science.

  11. I’ve always wondered, what does that sound like?
    I know there are different types of volcanoes and not all eruptions are explosive, but I still can’t help but wonder about the sound.
    Is it a roar or more like a bang?
    Anything with enough force to displace millions of tons of earth must make one hellish, guttural yaup.

    1. I can answer that….I’m a long-time resident on an active 5000m volcano, Tungurahua; I live at 2100m. Both kinds of sounds you mention can occur here. When the volcano is cranking up for some major action, it will often make what the local people call “canionazos”, or cannonshots, REALLY loud bangs that echo off the surrounding mountains for quite a few seconds. These broke two of my windows. This same noise is also common on Volcan Arenal in Costa Rica, a much-visited volcano.

      But the very largest eruptions, the ones that shoot ash straight up 30,000 ft or more, are long extended ground-shaking roars. I guess that this much material just can’t get out quickly enough to make a single bang.

      In both these kinds of events, though, there is another sound, the sound of giant rocks the size of houses falling and bouncing down the flanks. These start a few seconds after the explosive sounds, since it takes that long for these rocks to fall back to earth. I can feel these bounces as my floor shakes from them. That is always unnerving.

      2. And how do you know that you’re safe where you are?

        (Thanks for the engrossing description!0

        1. Diane, when I built my house I dug a deep foundation, and uncovered ancient indigeneous potsherds from two different cultures (different styles of pot, and large difference in burial depth). Those potsherds tell me I dug at least 500 years into the past, perhaps much more. In all that digging, I never found any big volcanic “bombs”, just a few layers of small pumice pebbles. (So the statistics are reassuring–a serious event happens in this spot less than once in 500 years. That’s good enough for me.

          I did experience a fall of those pumice pebbles in 2006. Quite frightening initially, since one can’t help but wonder if bigger stuff is on the way. But the physics of that is also reassuring–the biggest rocks have the highest terminal velocity and will hit first. If you survive the first stone rain, you’ll survive the rest. In 2006, the bigger stones fell first, and after an hour the stuff falling was like big snowflakes, completely harmless.

          1. The next time someone tells me to get a life, I’ll say, “I’ll have Lou’s.”

            This is so fascinating! I grew up in Portland and have always been thrilled by the idea of the Pacific ring of fire.

            Your writing, both here & in your blog post, is the perfect example of how knowing the “whys” behind phenomena completely enhances the entire experience.

            (And I think your volcano pictures would make a great coffee-table book!)

      3. Thanks for that, as I was wishing there was audio with this webcam. That’s something Webcams de Mexico should consider, as this is amazing footage!

        DO you plan to come down from the mountain anytime soon, Lou? I’d be too scared to stay up there.

          1. I was enrapt with both posts, Lou; the prose esp. in the last one was as exciting as the pictures.

            The 4th image down in the 1st post reminded me of St. Helens before it blew. Such a young, perfect cone!

          2. Now I see what you mean, Lou! It’s a paradise unto itself there. Such beauty, diversity and ferocity all in one place! I love the photos and the journal entries.

  12. I saw the volcano erupt back in the 90s when I was working out of Colima. The policia chased me and the people I was with away from our viewpoint because we were “too close”. We left after we got one of the officers to take our group picture with the volcano as a backdrop.

  14. Several years ago, my best friend and her husband from Australia went to view volcanic activity in the Vanuatu archipelago. They were guided to a ‘safe’ spot to photograph, and one of those hot blobs landed right beside her foot!

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