Possible eruption of Mount Michael in April?

During the second half of April while I was browsing satellite images of the South Sandwich Islands in the rare clear skies, I noticed a plume extending from Saunders Island's Mount Michael volcano. The image from 23rd April showed what appeared to be likely a gas plume extending to the northwest, and the image from 24th April showed a little greyish plume originating from the summit area of Mount Michael.

Upon studying the images from those days and other days, I could not find any evidence of a blackened area and plus the images on the EOSDIS Worldview website are not clear enough as there's only so much you can zoom in. When looking at images from the Earthexplorer website (you can download better resolution pics and zoom in), I found what appeared to be a plume with slight ash content on an image from 17th April plus what appeared to be some slight incandescence in the crater area. However, it was partially cloudy in that image so it was overall not easy to determine whether an eruption took place or not.

So I would deem this event inconclusive.

What appears to be a gas plume extending northwest from Saunders Island in the image from 23rd April. SOURCE: NASA.

What appears to be a greyish plume rising from the summit area in the image from 24th April. Was it dense degassing? was it an ash plume? SOURCE: NASA.

Not easy to tell when it's partially cloudy. SOURCE: Landsat 8/USGS/NASA.

Some quick info

I won't go in depth, but here is some quick information about each island in the South Sandwich Islands from north to south. I will also list the most recent eruptions of each volcano in the chain.

ZAVODOVSKI

Highest point: Mount Curry (aka Mount Asphyxia) 551m

LESKOV

Highest point: Rudder Point 190m

VISOKOI

Highest point: Mount Hodson 835m

CANDLEMAS

Highest point: Mount Andromeda 550m

VINDICATION

Highest point: Quadrant Peak 430m

SAUNDERS

Highest point: Mount Michael 990m

MONTAGU

Highest point: Mount Belinda 1370m

BRISTOL

Highest point: Mount Darnley 1100m

BELLINGSHAUSEN

Highest point: Basilisk Peak 255m

COOK

Highest point: Mount Harmer 1115m

THULE

Highest point: Mount Larsen 710m

The most recent eruptions at the time of this writing on each volcano within the island chain (this does not include possible eruptions):

PROTECTOR SHOAL 1962

MOUNT CURRY (AKA MOUNT ASPHYXIA) 1819

LUCIFER HILL 1911

MOUNT MICHAEL 2006

MOUNT BELINDA 2007

TURMOIL POINT-MOUNT SOURABAYA 1956

BASILISK PEAK 1975

Introduction

As the South Sandwich Islands are very rarely covered, I thought I'd create a blog covering the volcanic activity of these South Atlantic islands. Due to the remote location of the South Sandwich Islands and the fact that they're uninhabited, it is often hard to get observations of them so one has to rely on satellite images to determine what events are occurring. But I do not expect to be posting a lot on here.

I will be posting mainly about any satellite observations I may find no matter how small the volcanic activity is, and also about any earthquakes above the magnitude of 6 which may occur. Also will post other material about the South Sandwich Islands and even South Georgia Island if I feel it's worth posting.

As for the earthquakes, I won't bother writing about them should the magnitude be below 6. The reason for this is because the South Sandwich Islands are uninhabited islands so it wouldn't be worth writing about weaker earthquakes. The source of the earthquake data will come from USGS.