MONITORING AND REPORTING OF KAMCHATKAN VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS

The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) has provided notices and reports of volcanic activity since 1993. Kamchatka is part of a Pacific ring of volcanoes with 29 active volcanoes. These volcanoes produce explosive volcanic ash clouds every 2 or 3 years that spread across major international air routes between North America and Asia. The staff of KVERT, in collaboration with Kamchatkan Experimental and Methodical Seismological Department (KEMSD) of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (IVS), monitors active volcanoes of Kamchatka seismically. This is done by visual observations and video, utilizing satellite images for ash cloud detection and tracking of thermal anomalies. As of 2003, there were 28 remote seismic stations operating at 11 of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka and the North Kurile Islands. Three volcanoes, Bezymyanny, Sheveluch and Kyuchevskoy are being monitored by a video-camera system. Real-time images of these three volcanoes are available on the Internet, at http://emsd.iks.ru. Seismic observations are used universally to discover the start of volcano unrest and to recognize volcanic blasts of volcanoes obscured by weather. KVET examines data from U.S. and Japanese meteorological satellites, in cooperation with the Alaska Volcano Observatory. A number of times a day, images from GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites), GMS (Geostationary Meteorological Satellite) and polar-orbiting satellites carrying AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) are examined for volcanic activity.