Activity increases as Nicaragua’s Masaya volcano

From the Extinction Protocol: Activity increases as Nicaragua’s Masaya volcano

January 10, 2012 – NICARAGUA – There is no incandescence currently as part of the wall near the vent collapsed into it. Local people are expecting an eruption to clear it. One can hear churning and avalanches and there is quite a bit of gas; you better put the mask on or you can only stay 10-15 min on lookout. The dormant crater next door looks like has a small lava dome in it which is slowly rising. The trees and plants don’t grow properly maybe because of CO2 in this crater? –Volcano Discovery

Restless large caldera: Masaya is a shield volcano located 20 km south of Managua, Nicaragua. It is Nicaragua’s first and largest National Park, and one of 78 protected areas of Nicaragua. The volcanic complex is composed of a nested set of calderas and craters, the largest of which is Las Sierras shield volcano and caldera. Within this caldera lies Masaya Volcano sensu stricto, a shallow shield volcano composed of basaltic lavas and tephras. This hosts Masaya caldera, formed 2500 years ago by an 8-km³ basaltic ignimbrite eruption. Inside this caldera a new basaltic complex has grown from eruptions mainly on a semi-circular set of vents that include the Masaya and Nindiri cones. Although the recent activity of Masaya has largely been dominated by continuous degassing from an occasionally lava-filled pit crater, a number of discrete explosive events have occurred in the last 50 years. Masaya’s last eruption occurred in 2008. –Wikipedia