Australian volcano about to erupt?

[link to www.australiangeographic.com.au]


A volcano on the Australian sub-Antarctic territory of Heard Island is showing signs of eruption.

ONE OF ONLY TWO active volcanoes in Australian territory is showing possible signs of eruption.

Satellite thermal imagery collected by NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) during the past month indicates volcanic activity is occurring at Big Ben, a volcano located on remote Heard Island, about 4100km southwest of Perth, in the sub-Antarctic.

Thermal anomalies at Mawson's Peak, the 2745m summit of Big Ben, were documented this year on 21 and 24 September, and 10 and 19 October using infrared data provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), a key instrument aboard each of the two EOS satellites.

An image taken by one of the satellite's Advanced Land Imagers (ALI) on October 13 also shows a snow- and ice-free area at Mawson's Peak, indicating a possible hotspot in the volcano's crater