Floating Pumice near Puyehue-Cordón Caulle

The violent explosions at Chile’s Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex have thrown volcanic rocks more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the center of the eruption. This natural-color satellite image was taken on June 14, 2011, and shows pumice floating on a mountain lake east of Puyehue. Parts of the lake not covered with pumice are colored aqua by the fine ash suspended in the water. Along the southern edge of the image is the ash plume, evidence of the continuing eruption which started on June 4, 2011.

This image was acquired by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite. The top image shows a detail of floating pumice. The lower image shows the ash plume extending from Chile over the border into Argentina.

References & Resources

NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data. Caption by Robert Simmon.

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