Colima Fieldwork
Volcan de Colima, looking north-west, with the active lava dome on the summit and Volcancito on the east flank (taken 3rd June 2014). Since my last blog post I have been lucky enough to head out to Colima, Mexico, for fieldwork. The state boasts long pacific beaches, beautiful river gorges, friendly locals, delicious food, and one very big, very active volcano. Volcan de Colima has been erupting near-continuously since 1998 and is one of the volcanoes that I am investigating as part of my project (see my introduction to the volcanoes ). On a clear day, its hard to not notice the volcano which completely dominates the generally low-lying landscape around it; this is nicely shown by this photo taken from the ISS last year. The latest phase of it's eruption has been going since January 2013, and is producing a new lava dome accompanied by many small pyroclastic flows, rockfalls, and explosions (over 4000 in total as of the start of May 2014). The lava dome at the summit o