Nabro, a stratovolcano in the northeast African nation of Eritrea, rumbled to life late in the evening on June 12, 2011, following a series of earthquakes. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image the next day.
Initial reports from news agencies and the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Toulouse, France, proclaimed the eruption to be occurring at Dubbi, a volcano further south. But later reports from volcanologists, field scientists, and the satellite image above appear to confirm the eruption at Nabro. There are no historical reports of eruptions at Nabro before today.
The volcano is part of a larger complex with several nested calderas nearby. It is part of the East African Rift, where the African continent is slowly pulling apart due to tectonic plate movements.
NASA images courtesy of Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michael Carlowicz.
