A small plume rose from the summit of Ulawun Volcano on Papua New Guinea’s island of New Britain in early June 2010. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image on June 10.
Midway down the slopes of Ulawun, vegetation predominates, but bare volcanic rock coats the slopes near the summit, appearing in charcoal-brown streaks. A white plume blows from the summit toward the west. The plume’s pale color suggests that, of the visible components in the plume, steam (rather than volcanic ash) predominates.
Ulawun is a symmetrical stratovolcano and one of the most active in Papua New Guinea. The volcano has experienced multiple large eruptions and lava flows since 1970.
References & Resources
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team and the United States Geological Survey. Caption by Michon Scott.
