An ash and steam plume from Kizimen Volcano streams over the icy waters of Kamchatskiy Zaliv (the Gulf of Kamchatka) on the afternoon of February 1, 2011. At the time, the U.S. Air Force weather service reported ash at an altitude of 11,000 feet (3,400 meters). The current eruption of Kizimen is both explosive—violent emissions of ash and rock—and effusive—lava flows spilling from the volcano’s summit onto its upper flanks. This natural-color image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite.
NASA image courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Robert Simmon.
