Volcanoes Erupt Side by Side in New Satellite Picture

In a satellite image released today by NASA, two neighboring Russian volcanoes are seen erupting at the same time.

Surprising as the picture may be, the simultaneous eruptions of the Kamchatka Peninsula's Klyuchevskaya and Bezymianny volcanoes isn't all that shocking, according to geologist James Quick of Southern Methodist University in Texas.

"Kamkatcha [map] volcanoes are very active, so it's not uncommon for more than one of these volcanoes to be erupting at the same time," Quick said.

In fact, the volcanoes' close proximity makes it more, not less, likely that they'd explode in unison, he said.

Though there's no "great pool or pipe of lava connecting them," he said, the volcanoes lie above the same active subduction zone, an area where one tectonic plate is diving under another. So if the gnashing of the plates sends heat, lava, gas, or ash up through the earth toward one of the volcanoes, chances are the other might get it too.

Among the Most Active Volcanoes on Earth

The recent simultaneous eruption began on February 11, when 4,835-metre-tall Klyuchevskaya erupted.

Scorching lumps of rock shot more than 300 metres into the air, and tall plumes of gas and steam billowed up to 6 kilometres above sea level.

Around the same time 2,882-metre-tall Bezymianny was sending up plumes that were smaller and thinner than its neighbor's but still dangerous to low-flying aircraft.


Twenty Volcanoes Erupting Right Now?

On a global scale, simultaneous volcanic eruption is a constant.

According to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, there are about 20 volcanic eruptions happening at any given moment. Some, like Italy's Stromboli volcano, have been erupting continuously for more than a thousand years.

"At one point in 2005, there were five eruptions within the United States all happening at the same time," Quick said.

"We had one in Hawaii, one in the Marianas, Mount St. Helens, and two in Alaska. You could have pointed at any one of them, and they were erupting."

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