A strong explosion occurred on the night of March 15 to 16 on the Bezymianny volcano, causing an ash plume nine kilometers high! If it largely destroyed the remains of the lava dome formed in 2020 at the top of the building, this explosion may mark the beginning of a new phase of effusive activity at this level…
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Located in the peninsula of Kamchatka, in the far east of Russia, the Bezymianny is part of the Klyuchevskoy volcanic group which includes several imposing volcanoes including Kamen, Tolbachik or Klyuchevskoy, to name only the best known. Although in Russian, Bezymianny means “without a name”, this volcano is very active and has been erupting since 2010 officially. He alternates phases of activity, with sometimes intense paroxysms, and calmer periods with no apparent activity on the webcams which allow the monitoring of this volcano located about forty kilometers from the nearest villages. The powerful explosive activity of October 22, 2020 was for example followed by the establishment of a new lava dome at the top of the volcano in November. Then, the anomalies thermals spotted on satellite images became more modest and less frequent during 2021, a sign of the reduction inextrusion summit…
The overflowing lava dome of the summit crater in late October 2020.
On March 12, 2022, the organization in charge of monitoring this volcano noticed an increase in seismicity, followed by rockslides in the summit area. The alert level of the volcano changed to orange and on the night of March 14 to 15, a modest explosive activity began at the top of the volcano, causing a episode of ashes about two kilometers high, stretched by the winds west for more than 90 kilometres. Then, during the day of March 15, avalanches and short pyroclastic flows were observed, a sign of the probable internal thrust of a magma arriving on the surface and coming to destabilize the slopes of the volcano.
Pyroclastic flow on the eastern slope of the volcano on March 15.
The summit of the volcano modified by the paroxysm
On March 16, at 12:53 a.m. local time, a much more powerful explosive phase began and generated a column of ash that reached 12 kilometers in altitude: 9 kilometers high! the cloud of ash stretched north and browned the snowy peninsula for more than 400 kilometres.
Time-lapse of eruptive activity during part of the night from March 15 to 16 (the paroxysm begins at the thirty-eighth second). Lightning bolts can be spotted in the eruptive plume!
The ash from this eruption is easy to notice on this white desert. The entire Kamchatka Peninsula seen in this image is over 1,000 kilometers long.
Since this paroxysm, even if some avalanches persist, calm has returned to the volcano. This makes it possible to distinctly observe the summit zone which appears seriously modified following the paroxysm : a good part of the dome built since October 2020 has been destroyed and the summit is now about twenty meters lower! The question now is whether this magma which is probably responsible for this episode will form a new dome at the top of the volcano in the days to come…
An unnamed volcano, certainly, but with a certain panache!
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