Tavurvur Volcano Eruption of August 29, 2014
October 30, 2014
Photographer: Tony Morley; Tony's Web site
Summary Author: Tony Morley
Tavurvur Volcano on the island of East New Britain in Papua New Guinea erupted on August 29, 2014. This stratovolcano, located about 4 degrees south of the equator, was re-shaped by the recent eruption -- the right hand flank (background in top photo) was rendered significantly steeper with a looser rock load. Because of the now steeper grade, I was unable to solo scale the 732 ft (223 m) summit on my expedition to Tavurvur on October 17 (2014). The force of the August eruption has scattered lava bombs the size of cars (bottom photo) hundreds of meters from the vent. I noted a number of cases where the ejecta impacted and bounced up to 40 ft (over 12 m) in the air, leaving huge impact craters in its wake (inset at left).