From: New rumbling from Chilean volcano worries experts

SANTIAGO, May 15, 2008 (Reuters) — Chile's Chaiten volcano groaned, rumbled and shuddered on Thursday, raising new concerns among authorities, as lightning bolts pierced the huge clouds of hot ash hovering ominously above its crater.

Chile's National Emergency Office, ONEMI, said heavy ash kept shooting from the volcano in southern Chile as it generated small tremors.

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The Chaiten volcano, 760 miles south of the capital Santiago, started erupting on May 2 for the first time in thousands of years, spewing ash, gas and molten rock into the air.

From: New Zealand volcano more unsettled: scientists

WELLINGTON, May 12, 2008 (Reuters) — Volcanic activity at New Zealand's Mount Ruapehu is increasing and an eruption could occur at any time, scientists warned on Tuesday. The volcano in central North Island, famed as a location in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, last erupted on September 25 2007, spitting 2 meter (6 feet) boulders distances of up to 2 km (1.5 miles).

Ruapehu's elevated alert level has not been changed, but scientists said on Tuesday that activity within the mountain was greater, with high levels of gas spewing out, a warmer than average crater lake and ongoing volcanic tremors.

From: After Quake, Attention Grows On Early-Warning Systems

Early in May, NASA earth scientists monitoring infrared images of the earth noticed unusual patterns in southwestern China. One sent an email to colleagues, noting: Something is happening in Sichuan province. For Friedemann Freund, a chemist-turned-NASA geophysics researcher, it was more support for his simple, though hotly contested theory: Earthquakes are the culmination of drawn-out physical processes that can be tracked sometimes more than a week ahead of the main event.

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"There are hundreds of problems that need to be addressed vigorously," he acknowledges. But he is confident they will be resolved. "I know and, well, I have bet almost everything I own to carry this through."