Eruptions Newsletter #10 for May 15, 2025

Activity News

Kanlaon, Philippines

The activity at Kanlaon in the Philippines got the most media attention this week, mainly because a webcam pointed at the volcano caught some impressive video of explosions. This footage was captured at night with a thermal camera, so those factors clearly enhanced the spectacle, with incandescent clouds of volcanic debris flying up into the sky and down the slopes of the volcano. The latter suggests pyroclastic flows being generated by these explosions.

I’m not sure if the stuff falling in front of the webcam in part of the footage is ash or rain. The report of the activity in the Smithsonian/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report mentions ash plumes reaching as high as 7.9 kilometers (26,000 feet), so ash was being distributed widely across the area. Philippine officials have set a 4 kilometer exclusion zone around the volcano.

Volcano Word of the Week

I wrote about lava fountains over on Discover this week. I wanted to add some images that didn’t make it into the final post (long story), so I thought I’d put them here.

First, we have a night-time shot of fountaining and lava flows from Kīlauea. What the night-time shot really enhances is the sinuous lava flows fed by the fountain.

Even this counts as lava fountains even though it is so small — sometimes it is called a “dome fountain”.

This short is a braided system of lava flows, some being fed by the lava fountains along a fissure in the left-center of the image. Others are being fed by more fissure fountains off the image to the left. This image does a great job showing off how lava flows can breach their banks to create small lava deltas, like the one in the center-bottom of the image.

Finally, this image shows the lava bombs created by lava fountaining. This comes from the eruption on Kīlauea’s Southwest Rift Zone during June 2024.

Odds & Ends

Ok, so, volcano in Florida? Yeah, not so much.

An article from a Florida TV station revived the legend of the “Wakulla Swamp Volcano”. Wakulla County is located on the northern Gulf of Mexico shores of the state, but the supposed volcano is in neighboring Jefferson County. In either case, it is exactly where you wouldn’t expect any volcanic activity.

The entire eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico are parts of a passive margin, tectonically speaking. This means that little tectonic activity is occur — no subduction, no big transform faults, no mid-ocean ridges. It is pretty quite save for the occasional earthquake from long-lived fault systems related to tectonics of the distant (and I mean distant) past. There really aren’t any geologic reasons to have a volcano in this part of Florida.

The “Wakulla Swamp Volcano” is based on sightings since at least the early 1800s of “smoke” rising from the swamps in the county. Now, smoke does not a volcano make, so that is the first sign of this, of course, not being a volcano. Instead, all evidence points towards fires starting by lightning (or people) in the abundant peat. Peat is partially decomposed organic material that burns well and long. This smoke seen over the centuries could easily be of a very much non-volcanic source.

Sounds of the Week

In honor of the Wakulla Swamp Volcano, here are some songs from Florida bands or about the Sunshine State. I’m going to have to admit, there are a lot of bad bands/acts from Florida (Creed, Matchbox 20, Seven Mary Three, Marilyn Manson, Limp Bizkit to name a few … sorry, folks!)

Not only is Tool originally from Florida, this song mentions plate tectonic processes!

Quite honestly, I love KC & the Sunshine Band who hail from Miami.

Dashboard Confessional are from Boca Raton. They were hot stuff in the early 2000s to the point where they could pull Michael Stipe (not from Florida) for the MTV2 performance.

In my opinion, likely the best Florida band … ever? Against Me! was from Gainesville. These days the band is on a permanent(?) hiatus but Laura Jane Grace has her own solo career.

I imagine many folks reading this would say that Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (also from Gainesville!) are the top of the heap for Florida. I’d say it is pretty close and in terms of a long-term, consistent discography combined with commercial success, they likely are. And boy, do I love Full Moon Fever … but that’s more of California album.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Feel free to send me a note or follow me on Bluesky (@erikklemetti.bsky.social).