Guatemala Field Excursion, January 2005

MTU Representatives: Dr. Gregg Bluth, Jeremy Shannon, Lizzette Rodriguez, and myself. We traveled to Guatemala primarily to look at gas (SO₂) emissions from Volcan Santiaguito, Volcan Fuego, and Volcan Pacaya. Jeremy was field testing a new high-resolution digital camera that he is developing for his Ph.D. Lizzette was taking  SO₂ measurements with a DOAS ( Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) mini spectrometer and assisting two scientists from the University of Hawaii, Dr. Rob Wright and Steve Sahetapy-Engel, who were taking FLIR (forward-looking infrared radiometry) digital thermal images of eruptions.  Gregg was collecting digital video of eruption plumes and leading the crew.  We were all greatly assisted by Guatemalan geologists Otto Matias and Gustavo Chigna (from INSIVUMEH) who were also conducting COSPEC SO₂ measurements.  Rudy Escobar, a Guatemalan geologist from CONRED, also helped the group and safely led us up Santa Maria (at night!). I was learning the methods of the above mentioned remote sensing techniques, getting to know the Guatemalan geologists, meeting with Peace Corps-Guatemala, and seeing the country for the first time. A BIG thanks goes out to Dr. Bill Rose for funding my portion of the trip.

Volcan Santa Maria.  It looks like a nice, green hill, but it is 3772 m (~12,372') tall and the trail goes
straight up the side.  The climb was just over 5000 vertical feet, oh and we did it at night so as
to get better thermal images.  We "slept" on the summit, it was cold.

This is the view that awaited us in the morning!  I have some sunrise shots, but I was so cold that I couldn't
hold the camera steady. We are looking down on the Santiaguito dacite dome complex that has been forming
since 1922. Santiaguito resides in a giant crater on the southern flank of Santa Maria that formed in the 1902
plinian eruption.

Boom! The beginning of a Vulcanian eruption at Santiaguito.  I think this is the only place in the world
where you can look right down on an erupting volcano. The eruptions sound like a jet taking off.



Santiaguito plume in full bloom. Maybe ~800m above the Caliente Vent?  There have been four active
vents at Santiaguito, you can sort of see them in a row here. Although the eruption location has migrated
the composition of the dacite has remained the same.



Plume at full height ~1100-1300m.




Stunning chain of volcanoes and mountains looking southeast. Volcan Fuego is the prominent, steep-sided
mountain, three back on the right side. Can you see the town in the valley?



 
Me and an eruption (I'm the taller one).

Jeremy Shannon, office mate and fellow volcanologist.

Good view of the cupola dome of Santiaguito. Check out the 1999-2004 dacite flow in the background.
It has some of the nicest levees that I have ever seen.  There is also a robust tornado-like fumarole in the
front-right portion of the dome.



Below us clouds were pouring into the surrounding valleys.




Me and our Guatemalan Police escorts.  They smiled a lot more when we weren't taking pictures with them.




Almost the whole group, back row, left-right: Rob, Rudy, Jeremy, Gregg, me, Steve.
Front row: policia (that's an AK-47).




We relocated to the Santa Maria / Santiaguito Volcano Observatory to take more measurements from
below Santiaguito.  It made us appreciate the size of Santa Maria.




Gustavo, the COSPEC wizard, and myself.  Gustavo has worked for INSIVUMEH for over twenty years
and knows volumes about Guatemalan geology.




We heard and saw regular rock falls from the cupola dome and the new dacitic lava flow.  The dust to the
 left of the cone marks the approximate location of the new lava flow, which began late in 2004.  Notice the
morphology of the last flow spilling down the front-center portion of the cone.  This is a portion of the same
flow that was visible from above.




Picture perfect.




The remote sensing team setting up the gear beneath Santiaguito.




The Observitorio sits on a coffee finca (plantation) by the good graces of the owners.  It is a bit like a
gated community.  There are armed guards, a school, una tienda, and a recycling center.  It appeared
much nicer than the surrounding communities. The vegetation was abundant and often beautiful.




More nice flowers.











After collecting lots of data at Santiaguito, we parted with Lizzette, Rob, and Steve and headed south-east
with Gustavo to Fuego. This is our first good look at  nice eruption at Fuego.




There are many small communities around Fuego that are in danger from pyroclastic flows, lahars, lava flows
and ash fall in the event of larger eruptions.  Notice the large channel in the center of the picture cutting
the forest.  Pyroclastic flows and lahars have utilized this channel in the recent past.




The crew collecting data from a location ~3 km from Fuego and just up the road from INSIVUMEH's
Fuego observatory in pueblo Panimache.




Volcan Fuego with Yepocapa, an old volcanic center, to the left.




Jeremy at Fuego. The plume initially comes out in small bursts, or puffs.
These eruptions sounded like a steam locomotive chugging along.




Me at Fuego.  As the eruptive column would evolve from puffs to a sustained
column, the sound would change from train-like to jet-like.

Running the COSPEC at Fuego.



We staged our work on Fuego and Pacaya from Antigua, Guatemala.  Antigua was the capitol of
Guatemala prior to Guatemala City, but it was wiped out (twice?) by lahars from Volcan Agua so they
wisely moved the capitol. Antigua has many old palaces that are quite nice, and lots of gringos.  

Fountain in the city center.



View from the hotel balcony.



Another old palace.



Next up: Volcan Pacaya.  Pacaya is one of the most youthful volcanoes in Guatemala and has built-up on the
side of an older crater.  Cerro Chino, an older vent, is the cone to the left with all the TV and radio repeater
towers.  A new lava flow has recently begun at Pacaya. It is the fresh, black material between the two
patches of red, oxidized cinders/lava in the right side of the picture.



The wind hampered our data collection the first day we went to Pacaya.  The 40 km/hr+  viento pushed
the plume down the flank of Pacaya and was stripping dust from older deposits.



This is one of my favorite pictures.



An extreme close-up of the new lava flow at Pacaya.  This shot was taken through a pair of
binoculars and it turned out surprisingly well.



Me and the DOAS. The DOAS is a little easier to transport than the COSPEC.



Moon.



When we had finished collecting data, we decided to hike up Cerro Chino to get a better look at the new
activity on Pacaya.


Pacaya and me.



Gregg had a stowaway on board.



Basaltic spatter from Pacaya's vent - cool.



The view of Volcan Agua (foreground) and Volcan Fuego (background) from the Pacaya observatory.



Hydrothermal power plant situated below Pacaya.  Guatemala City  is in the background haze.



The view from the balcony of our hotel in Guatemala City on our last night.  Agua is at the far left and you
can just make out the plume from Fuego just to the right of center.  I can't wait to go back!

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