Eruption on Mount Soputan.

The Badan Nacional Penanggulangan Bencana (the Indonesian agency charged with monitoring Earthquakes, volcanoes and other geohazards) has reported an eruption on Mount Soputan on northern Sulawesi. The eruption began at about 2.45 pm local time on Wednesday 6 January, resulting in an ash plume rising 6.5 km above the summit and lava flows reaching 2 km from the crater of the volcano on its southwest flank. The Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre later reported ash reaching a height of 8.2 km in the area.

The approximate location of Mount Soputan. Google Maps.

Soputan is a small stratovolcano (cone-shaped volcano) in the Tondano Caldera located near the eastern tip of the northern arm of Sulawesi. The volcanoes of the northern arm of Sulawesi are located at the southern end of the Sangihe Volcanic arc, where an extension Molucca Sea Plate is being subducted beneath an extension of the Eurasian Plate, sometimes called the Sangihe Plate. As this happens part of the subducting plate is melted by the heat of the Earth's interior, and rises up through the overlying plate as liquid magma, forming volcanoes at the surface. 320(ish) km to the east the Molucca Plate is also being subducted beneath an extension of the Philippine Plate, sometimes called the Halmahera Plate, producing a second chain of volcanoes in the Halmahera Islands. At some point in the future the Molucca Plate will vanish and the two volcanic arcs will meet.

See also...

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