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Alert level raised at Cerro Machín (Volcano) in Colombia
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Original Message
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Alert level raised at Cerro Machín 7 December 2009
A seismic swarm on Saturday has provoked the Colombian state geological service INGEOMINAS to raise the alert level for Machín volcano in western central Colombia to Yellow (III), ‘ changes in the behaviour of the volcanic activity’.
According to a report in El Espectador, ‘54 minor [earth] movements took place over the weekend at El Machín volcano. The largest of these was at 1.3 on the Richter scale. The seismic swarm took place from 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, and although small, is the largest to have occurred in 2009, after strong activity in 2008′. No bulletin on developments at Machín has yet been published on the Manizales Volcanological Observatory web site.
Any reactivation of Machín would pose a substantial threat to a populous area of Colombia, including the large city of Ibagué (approximate population 500,000).
Not much is known about Machín, located only 22 km / 14 miles from the city of Ibagué (pop. ~500,000). The last known eruption (well, dateable eruption) was in ~1180 A.D. (+/- 150 years) and over the last 4,000 years, the volcano has produced at least seven eruptions. Typically they are explosive events, producing ash falls, pyroclastic flows and lahars - par for the course for the Colombian volcanoes.
[link to scienceblogs.com]
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