Russian Volcano Shows Signs Of Impending Eruption

By Mark Dunphy - Fri Aug 05

Kamchatka Peninsula marked on GOOGLE EARTH

The Kamchatka Peninsula, along Russia's Pacific coast, is currently the most volcanically active area in the world: four volcanoes are erupting simultaneously, and a fifth is showing signs of an impending eruption.

Ash plumes from two of these volcanoes are visible in this natural-colour satellite image.Along the northern (top) edge of the image Shiveluch emits a broad gray plume from the lava dome growing on its southern flank. 90 kilometres (60 miles) to the southwest a much smaller plume escapes from Bezymianny.

This image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on August 3, 2011. Bright green vegetation covers the river floodplains and mountainsides, which gives way to bare rock and eventually snow at higher elevations.