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Eruption of the Piton de la Fournaise volcano on Réunion Island March/April 2007

Pition de la Fournaise as seen on 5 April 2007. [Image: Patrice Boissier; source: OVPF/IPGP website]

 
Late in the evening of 30 March an eruption on the south-east flank of Piton de la Fournaise, the central volcano of Réunion Island, produced a small lava flow, followed on 2 April by the opening of a fissure on the S-part of Grand Brûlí. Lava fountaining to 100 m was observed at the point of emission during 4-6 April.

During this eruption satellite measurements show that large amounts of SO2 were released into the atmosphere and that this SO2 was transported both eastward and westward of Réunion Island, which is located in the default region 408. For the days 6-11 April the SO2 concentrations detected by SCIAMACHY satisfied the criteria for "SO2 event" alerts.

Below images of the SO2 vertical column (VCD) are given for a 50 by 30 degree region covering the area where SO2 peak values between 5 and 11 April are found, based on measurements from the three satellite instruments available: SCIAMACHY, GOME-2 and OMI. The location of Piton de la Fournaise is indicated by an open triangle on the maps. Below each SO2 map, there is a link to the corresponding cloud cover map. Due to its poor geographic coverage, SCIAMACHY misses most of the SO2 plume. Unfortunately data is missing for both SCIAMACHY and GOME-2 on several days.

SCIAMACHY	GOME-2	OMI
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
03 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
04 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
05 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
06 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
07 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
08 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
09 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
10 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
11 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
12 April 2007
cloud cover	cloud cover	cloud cover
13 April 2007

 

Links to more info

More information on the eruption of Piton de la Fournaise and the volcano in general can be found here:

• Activity reports for April 2007 of the Global Volcanism Program (GVP)

• Observatoire Volcanologique du Piton de La Fournaise [French]

• Info on the eruption at the "Natural Hazards" new list of NASA's Earth Observatory

• Description of the volcano (GVP)

• Toulouse VAAC

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