Pagan Volcano! How cool of a name is that!?
Pagan Island is one of the islands in the in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (US) and it is actually the 4th largest of the Northern Marianas. The island is comprised of two stratovolcanoes (Think Mt Fuji and Mt St Helens, cones and tend to erupt more violently then shield volcanoes like the ones that make up the Hawaiian Islands). The volcanoes are named North and South Pagan. (Guess which one is the northern one and the southern one….)
While both Northern and Southern Pagan have been active, the majority of historic eruptions (since 17th century) have come from North Pagan Volcano. Thanks to the numerous eruptions from North Pagan Volcano, Pagan Island is one of the most active of the Mariana islands. The largest historical eruption from North Pagan occurred in 1981 and led to the evacuation of the island.
North Pagan Volcano is currently at aviation color code yellow and is monitored by the USGS.
(Yellow: Volcano is exhibiting signs of elevated unrest above known background level or, after a change from a higher level, volcanic activity has decreased significantly but continues to be closely monitored for possible renewed increase.)
According to the most recent weekly report there was a small low altitude ash cloud on the 10th of July, and drifted around 50Km NW and reached a high of around 1.5km or 5,000 ft above sea level.
References used and other useful links
1) Pagan (Island) wikipedia page
2) Pagan (volcano) page from Global Volcanism Program
3) Current volcanic activity report from Global Volcanism Program
4) USGS monitoring page on Pagan (and current report on activity)
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