FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi, just wanted to share this with you guys. Maybe some of you know how volcanic is Costa Rica, we have 9 active volcanoes in 51000 square kilometers of our country, more than 300 extint volcanoes, and 4 in activity at the moment. The famous Arenal volcano, the second very famous and touristic Poás, another not so known Rincón de la Vieja, and the one on top of my town, Turrialba volcano.
Turrialba is a what I say a composite volcano, it shares its base with Irazú volcano, only separated by a couple of kilometers from each other, both getting as high as 3400m of altitude (11300feet) they have a very nice slow slope going up, so both have been traditional agricultural and cheese industry locations, where we get Turrialba cheese (I say the very best cheese in the world), onions, potatoes, and any other "cold" climate vegetables all year long, making them the production site for ALL our vegetables. Up there temperatures get to about -5ºC in winter nights and 25ºC at mid-day on a sunny day.
Now, after a brief description of the importance of the volcanoes to our people, food, tourism, and many more, there comes the bad part. Irazú made an eruption in 1963, when president John F. Kennedy came to our country, ash fell all over the capital city and nearby areas. After the eruption a flood came down and buried almost half of a town here in Cartago, cows did not have what to eat, coffee was not produced. Well, a big disaster.
Now, my volcano, Turrialba, has come to an active period. Since 1868 there has been no eruptions from the crater, even so, when I was 10 years old, I went down into the very crater of the volcano, see all the sulfur and rocks as a very nice field trip. The other time I went, was when I was about 14, but now going down was prohibited, you could only walk around it. Then, in 2007, some vapor started to make a really big column going upward from the crater, ever since, any day you look up (if it has not been really dry climate) you may see it as a really nice looking steam chimney. Of course, then access to the area was banned. And all the people, as expected, beleived there was going to make lava streams that would even come to the town (10km in straight line)... thanks hollywood movies... the steam then started to slowly grow until one day, some old material fell down into the hole and was ejected, making 2 mini craters and some ash rains, it was 2010 by then, january. After this events (2007, and increased in 2010), security measures were increased with speeches, evacuation plans and many more activities. Then the topic became non important, people continued their lives and the volcano continued to be a really nice sight, until today. for 2 hours, ash was expelled from the crater and brought the attention for a while on people around.
As so, then, as I like this as many other topics, wanted to share with you a link on a camera. A live camera mounted on the very summit of the volcano, where when at any moment of the day you may see the volcano and its emanations. at day the columns, at night the bright molten sulfur.
http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/index.php ... &Itemid=74



Visit the link, made by the volcanologic institute OVSICORI to view our volcano, enjoy!

Volcano as seen from my house (date around 2010), I took a photo almost every day we could see the summit.


PD: as I am noticing, the second photo of this post automatically updates!! every time you refresh the forum topic the new photo of the volcano may be seen, right now it is night time, but in 11 hours you may start to see the volcano in daylight.