An incandescent pyroclastic flow (lower right) travels down the flanks of El Chichón with lightning produced in the ash plume (left) on 3 April 1982. Minutes later this plume reached an altitude of about 24 km. The eruption of large amounts of tephra and pyroclastic flows and surges caused extensive damage and fatalities. Explosive removal of the summit lava dome created a new 1-km-wide, 300-m-deep crater.

Photo by Servando De la Cruz-Reyna, 1982 (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license terms.

Galleries: Explosive Eruptions

Keywords: volcanic lightning | explosive eruption | ash plume | ash | eruption | pyroclastic flow | pyroclastic density current (PDC)

El Chichón