A. MOS/MESSR Images of Volcanoes and Ash Clouds in Kyushu, Japan
Format of images
Natural color images here are composed of the bands 1, 2 and 4 assigned to blue, red and green, respectively, so as to describe forests and grassland as green color because of their strong reflection of near-infra-red radiation. In this composition, bare lands such as towns and rocky/sandy areas have trends to become pinky or reddish.
North direction is 10 degrees inclined to the left.
The pixel size of most detailed images is 50m*50m. For the thin out images the rates nX or the sizes (width*length) are indicated.
As for the detailed informations of the MOS/MESSR sensor, see the home page of EOC/NASDA.
A1. Aso Volcano

Aso Volcano in central Kyushu is characterized by a large caldera with the scales 18 km from east to west and 24 km from north to south, which is clearly seen in the following images. At its center stand central cones, among which Mt. Nakadake has an active crater constantly emitting high-temperature volcanic gas and sometimes ejecting ash clouds. One can look inside the crater when it is relatively dormant.

A2. Volcano Mt. Unzen

Mt. Unzen is the central peak of Shimabara Peninsula in western Kyushu. This region with hot springs is a famous resort nominated as the first national park in Japan. However, the volcano is now well known with its pyroclastic activities during May/91- Feb/95, after about 200 years of dormancy.

A3. Volcanic Clouds from Mt. Sakurajima

The daily activity of Mt. Sakurajima since 1972 is to eject volcanic clouds almost continuously from the crater wall(height 1040 m), mixed with occasional eruptions with varying strengthes, exhibiting quite different patterns of the dispersion of the clouds. The altitudes of the continuously ejected plumes are around 1000-2000 m, which depends on the ejection strength and the wind velocity, with the vertical thickness 200-800 m. Therefore, the dispersion phenomena may be regarded as a tracer experiment in a gigantic scale, providing precious informations on the atmospheric dynamics of upper and boundary layers (see K.K. in Atmos. Env. 30, 2831-2837, 1996). The following images are typical samples selected from MOS/MESSR data.


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NASDA retains ownership of the source data of MOS-1/MESSR.

The images in Series A are provided by K. Kinoshita, Faculty of Education, Kagoshima University, based on his paper, "Satellite Observation of Volcanoes and Ash Clouds in South-West Japan", presented at Japan-US ASTER Team Meeting Workshop, Kagoshima, Japan, Nov. 1994.
See also K.Kinoshita, S.Ikebe and K.Isogai, Satellite Observation of Volcanic Phenomena, Bull. Fac. Ed., Kagoshima Univ., Natural Sci.,48, (in press).