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Bagana Volcano, Papua New Guinea
Steam clouds rise from a spectacular, but very slow-moving andesitic lava flow descending the NW flank of Bagana on April 26, 1988.
The flow at that time had been moving for about 3 or 4 years, and is typical of the long-term lava effusion that began in 1972.
The massive symmetrical lava cone, one of the most active volcanoes in Papua New Guinea, was largely constructed by an accumulation of viscous andesitic lava flows.
At its present rate of effusion, the volcano could have been constructed in about 300 years.
Bagana volcano, occupying a remote portion of central Bougainville Island, is one of Melanesia's youngest and most active volcanoes.
Bagana is a massive symmetrical, roughly 1750-m-high lava cone largely constructed by an accumulation of viscous andesitic lava flows.
The entire lava cone could have been constructed in about 300 years at its present rate of lava production.
Eruptive activity at Bagana is frequent and is characterized by non-explosive effusion of viscous lava that maintains a small lava dome in the summit crater, although explosive activity occasionally producing pyroclastic flows also occurs.
Lava flows form dramatic, freshly preserved tongue-shaped lobes up to 50-m-thick with prominent levees that descend the volcano's flanks on all sides.
PHOTO SOURCE: Wally Johnson, 1988 (Australia Bureau of Mineral Resources), courtesy of the Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, used with permission.
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