HR: 1400h
AN: V33A-08 [Abstracts]
TI: The activity of the Colima volcano in the 2005-2007
AU: * Suarez-Plascencia, C
EM: csuarez@cencar.udg.mx
AF: DGOT/SISVOC/CICESE, Mariano Barcena y Av. de los Maestros, Guadalajara, Jal 44100,
Mexico
AU: Nunez-Cornu, F
EM: pacornu77@gmail.com
AB:
The Colima Volcano, is located in the West of the Volcanic Mexican Belt, has shown a new cycle of explosive
activity beginning in 30 of May of 1999, having its maximum in March and April the 2005. In this year the activity
increase gradually, having the maximum event on May 23, when a new dome was created, hours later its dome
was destroyed by a strong explosion, which formed a column 5.6 km high and piroclastic flows that reached a
distance of 4.2 km on the ravines of the South sector.
On May 30 the most intense explosion from 1999 occurred, when the plume reached heights over 4.4 km above
the crater, and piroclastic flows were created. In the month of June it generated four explosive events of
characteristics similar to those of May. These constant explosions caused constant morphological changes on
the top, being the most significant the collapse of the North and South walls of the crater in the first week of June,
and the creation of a new crater in July. In the 2006 the explosive activity most significantly was in April, May and
July, when the plume reached a height of over 1500 meters above the crater, occasionally forming small
pyroclastic flows. The explosive events continue to date, but they have diminished in size and intensity. The
seismic analysis of these explosions appears in another abstract.
This activity was similar to the one shown in 1902-1903 and reported by Severo Diaz (1906), but without reaching
the maximum levels of activity reported for 1903, where it had levels of three to five maximum explosive events per
day.
The explosions deposited great amount of nonconsolidated materials, like ash, lithics and rocks on the flanks of
the volcano, which with the present rainy season have generated lahares. These have flowed in small flows on
the ravines of La Lumbre, Montegrande and La Arena. None of them have caused damages in the season of
rains of the 2006.
DE: 8419 Volcano monitoring (7280)
DE: 8428 Explosive volcanism
DE: 8488 Volcanic hazards and risks
SC: Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology [V]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly