Friday Flotsam: Caribou versus the volcano, watching Marianas volcanoes and the plume at Kilauea

Good to see you are feeling better Erik! Hummmm...."the disaster-types" I guess that would be me;) I actually don't sweat the little stuff or the ones I don't know about...I do bite my nails about the biggest ones which I do know about. There are relatively few volcanoes out there that have the potential to kill millions, if not billions and completely alter civilization....those are the ones I keep an eye on;)

Hey Erik I was wondering if you had ever posted these links in the forum before:

http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=4624
http://www.nps.gov/yell/parknews/09066.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO5Qeigvxyg&feature=player_embedded

Sorry but I saw all the posts in the last thread about everyone else's volcanic nightmare in their backyards so I thought it would be OK for me to post more about mine....I do have to stand up for our good old USA mega volcanoes, even though I think New Zealand leads the world in per capita mega volcanoes or would you say Chile?

Also after listening to Boris and reading a few papers I would have to put my money on a really big sub glacial volcano or volcanoes going off in Iceland before Alaska....There now that ought to stir the pot on a Friday:)

Hey Erik it is holding my posts again...I had 3 links in them maybe that is why...could you look at it for me? Thanks and glad you are feeling better.

Glad you are back and feeling better, Erik!

That is something about the caribou. I didn't know about the volcano the article was talking about. For a group of caribou to be unrelated to the other populations is quite the annomaly and it could be something that has happened elsewhere, too, with other species. I wonder if that eruption had any affect on the genetics of polar bears or Kodiaks, birds, moose, deer, fox, etc. Maybe not as much on some because birds can fly away, but still be affected by the ash and many would have died in a blast like that. It just goes to show what we don't know and what we can discover.

Glad you're feeling better!

minor edit - the caribou herds were actually in the Yukon. The volcano was in Alaska. But a cool study nonetheless!

The WRT tephra is now thought to be from Mt. Churchill in eastern Alaska. See here. I investigated this when I saw the same article about the caribou population.

@Randall, I think the link you gave to that erupting pool the geologists saw was mentioned before. The other two I have not seen, but that doesn't mean they have not been mentioned here before.

You like Yellowstone, don't you?! I went there in '89 and have been there since a couple of times and it was great to see the new trees coming up and how much they grew in just ten years or so after the fires of '88. It is a beautiful place. I checked out some other videos from that site with the ranger and boy some people are so dumb around wild animals! Especially grizzlies. They can seem calm, but they can attack for no reason to us.

I know I got close to an elk once to take a good picture, but I was at least 1/4 mile away and crouched in the grass. Yellowstone was the only place I have seen a wild wolf. Bears? Oh ,yes! Many times when I was young with my family. We would always get into what was then called a "bear jam". Now it will be more likely to see a "bison jam." Wild animals are just that...WILD.

So are the geysers, eh? And the magma plume! :-)

Glad You are feeling better.......
Up the vit D.

And here's more stuff about Churchill
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/volcanoes/volcinfo.php?volcname=Churchill, Mt

Best!motsfo

i'm sorry ...... the link i posted doesn't seem to give the info yet i can get to it thu AVO Alaska Volcano Observatory.
So if anyone is interested, You can follow it thu their alphabetical list of volcanoes.
They also have a wonderful collection of pictures of the Aleutian Volcanoes, if You just want to armchair travel.
(mots, afraid to post anymore links)
Best!

The Bobs is right: White River ash is from Churchill, and Churchill is a volcano. Richter, Preece, McGimsey, and Westgate make a pretty good argument: Richter, D. H., Preece, S. J., McGimsey, R. G., and Westgate, J. A., 1995, Mount Churchill, Alaska: source of the late Holocene White River Ash: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences [Journal Canadien des Sciences de la Terre], v. 32, n. 6, p. 741-748.

Magnitude 7.0 - RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN
2010 February 26 20:31:27 UTC
Versión en Español
DetailsSummaryMapsScientific & TechnicalTsunami Earthquake Details
Magnitude 7.0
Date-Time Friday, February 26, 2010 at 20:31:27 UTC
Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 05:31:27 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 25.951°N, 128.401°E
Depth 22 km (13.7 miles) set by location program
Region RYUKYU ISLANDS, JAPAN
Distances 75 km (50 miles) ESE of Naha, Okinawa, Japan
455 km (285 miles) ENE of Ishigaki-jima, Ryukyu Islands, Japan
660 km (410 miles) SSW of Kagoshima, Kyushu, Japan
1530 km (950 miles) SW of TOKYO, Japan

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 4 km (2.5 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters NST=284, Nph=284, Dmin=98.5 km, Rmss=1.04 sec, Gp= 14°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=8
Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID us2010teb2

Diane Yes I do keep a close eye on anything having to do with Yellowstone....For me the word "like" is a relative term when it comes to Yellowstone. I think respect would be a better way of putting it. I also think the hydrothermal explosion witnessed by the geophysicist's shows that the Deity (whomever it may be) has a wonderful sense of humor;)

Always wondered about Churchill; two large-volume Plinian events only a few hundred years apart seems unusual, I'd have thought that the magma chamber would need a much longer time to, as it were, recharge

BTW good to see you back on your feet, Erik; 'flu can be nasty!

Glad you are feeling better. Just in time for another weekend of flu-related partying! Whooo-Hooo!

No need to line-thru the Glacier in my opinion. They know about where the caldera is, but have yet to actually "discover it" since it really is deep under ice.

http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/volcanoes/cat/images/a26_e.jpg

Randall Nx - send me a email sometime, us Disaster Types have to stick together. rfitzpatrick6 @ cox.net

Fitz I just sent it to you. I really do see myself as more of a "enjoy every day because it's a gift" type;) We are all just Fiddler's On The Roof...some of us already know it...and some of us would rather not think about it. When you have to ride out a 12 hour hurricane on a 30ft sailboat....you do tend to see things differently;)

Hummmmm....7.0....I wonder if that could be big enough to shake up a few magma chambers in that area....ehhhhh say within around 400km maybe?

The suggestion that caribou evolution was influenced by a volcanic event is very interesting. At a smaller scale, you can see how this might happen on Mountserrat. The Soufrier hills volcano, from the photograph, appears to have isolated the south east portion of the island from the rest with bands of ash and dust that are probably a significant barrier to some small animals. If the eruption continues to refresh this barrier, keeping it from growing over, that part of the island might remain isolated for a long enough period of time for the genetic make-up of some species to diverge from their relatives on the north side of the island

@Randall, I figured you would like the Yellowstone area just because of the beauty of it. Respect it? Absolutley! It is capable of doing just about anything, though a major eruption is not so likely. I bet the geologists got an education there. Sort of scary, but a thrill, too, since no one was injured by it.

I checked Mammoth again since the 7.0 quake and so far there isn't a swarm there other than maybe one or two more quakes added to what is already listed there. I just like to see if it gets a swarm like it did an hour after that 7.6 last year off Sumatra. I don't suppose it will do that all the time, but it was an interesting phenomenon that time.

I guess we will see if it has affected any volcanoes in the area, but I doubt it. It did not seem to be the thrust kind of quake and there can be that kind or the strike/slip kind there. The report said it was difficult to determine what kind of faulting occurred. They probably know more about it now. The area to watch is Indonesia and the Phillipines. And Sakura-jima. We will see if it sets off anything.

Gijs, I saw your picture and I am posting here because I don't remember where we had posted before. LOL

Your rock Is cool and looks simular to some of the porphory (sp?) we find at the river. We have found a lot of volcanic bombs of various sizes there, too, and a rock we call Chinese writing rock. We have a lot of limestone, serpentine, and volcanic stuff in the area. We never know what we will find in the river. Hopefully some of that yellow stuff. I am speaking of AU. :-) Some of the large rock at the river has large inclusions in it and some has small stuff. It varies. And a lot of clay depending on where you are. In the gold fields, they did so much hydrolic mining that the river was flowing like peanut butter and the farmers complained so they stopped the hydrolic mining in 1886. There are places were you can see the tertiary layers were they stopped and also the hydrolic pits themselves. One pit has some interesting rock that is a composite of quartz and other river type rock cemented together and it looks like it was molten at one time. In fact, it looks to me like lava that didn't melt the quartz and other stuff in it. It could have been very hot pyroclatic stuff, but it is hard to say. There is a lot of large milky quartz in that area and some people have used it for building a rock wall. Nice to have for decoration if you want it for that. There is so much of it around.

Well, that is all for now. Maybe I will send Erik a picture of that stuff so he or someone can identify it.

Diane I really do see the beauty of Yellowstone and I marvel at the geologic forces that make it so beautiful. I see the beauty of the ocean too but I also know what it can do, it took almost everything from me in just a matter of hours during Hurricane Ivan. I still marvel at the metrological forces that can create and sustain a hurricane. Really to see one coming in the distance is amazing...to see one from inside the eye is nothing short of awe inspiring...I can honestly say that hurricanes are both breathtaking and terrifying but in a strange way they are also beautiful. Hurricanes and those Jimmy Buffett paradise scenes are all part of the beautiful ocean I see everyday. When I look at Yellowstone I see the beauty but I see it's beauty much like the 300 year old oak trees that used to hang like canopies over the old streets of Pensacola...I see the beauty of Yellowstone as merely transient.

On the caribou paper: I requested, downloaded and read the paper, carefully. The finding that completely unrelated herds had moved back into the tephra-fall area at some point after the two events. The herd that had occupied the area, pre-eruption, supposedly left and went elsewhere.

This is 1000 BP, the Medieval Warming Period (MWP).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warming

A bit on caribou ecology
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/ecology/111832

Also see this abstract for a bit on sedentary (American) vs migratory (Beringian-Eurasian) lineages and population interactions.
http://esameetings.allenpress.com/2009/Paper16453.html

The missing herd was migratory; the replacement founder herd was sedentary - probably drifted northward after the MWP from Washington/Idaho/Montana.

Bottom of page 1 slips in an important fact: lichens are low in proteins. Sulfur amino acids in proteins are *the* major source of antioxidant precursors.

Volcanic debris creates a highly oxidizing environment. Remember this.

Fig 3, a Bayesian reconstruction of phylogenic tree of caribou, using mtDNA and satellites (modern caribou herds only), suggests that the new 'sedentary' herd is totally unrelated to any of the other area 'migratory' caribou. In fact, it's surrounded with related subpopulations that match pre-eruption ancestors. Now this is curious, because if the 'missing' herd had been driven off due to ecological disturbance, you would expect them to eventually return (we are talking hundreds of miles at most). But they don't.

The MWP would have changed the ecology of the woodland in the tephra affected area, as the ashfall was quite deep and probably very acidic. No remains were found of the herd that vanished. Presumably, they were driven off by lack of food and sickness from attempted forage in the eruption disturbed forest. They drifted off and eventually died out, after their herd population 'bottlenecked' and crashed.

Caribou eat lichens. Lichens also happen to be sensitive indicators of heavy metal contamination. The original intent of the caribou study authors was a heavy metal recon study in the ashfall area, presumably the focus of another paper yet to come.

Arboreal lichens will bind deposited heavy metals. The Mt Churchill eruption was rhyolitic, with a heavy dose of magnetite (iron oxide). More interestingly, a paper that looks at Pb deposition in the Yukon, Ice Core Record of Rising Lead in the North Pacific Atmosphere (2008), shows a hefty pre-industrial spike at about 1450AD before the giant peak in the modern industrial era. Remember this, too.

Mercury toxicity involves the formation of methylated intermediates before it's released to urine by kidneys. That reaction also uses up antioxidants. Caribou are, by their diet, oxidant-sensitive.

Metal (lead, mercury) deposition is attributed to a combination of crustal and volcanic activity (matched roughly against isotopic SO4 2- peaks). However, this is also a period of reknown metal smelting in Japan, Korea and China, and a map in the lead paper clearly shows the major wind flow paths, originating in China, Japan and Korea and moving in a cross pacific to southern Alaska and British Columbia.

Mercury deposition is also spiked by major volcanic eruptions. The importance of volcanic emissions for the global atmospheric mercury cycle (Pyle, 2003).

Anyway, metal toxicity may be be added to the list of usual suspects for tephra toxicity - silicosis, fluorosis, and soil acidification - as major animal health and ecological disturbances that, in combination with temperature distances from the MWP, may have driven off the missing herd to a new, distant location.

The caribou herds in the Yukon used to be vast. Competition for forage space and susceptibility of the woodland species, requiring undisturbed boreal forest for maintenance, to sequential ecology upset from major climate fluctuations, volcanic eruption and maybe metal deposition.

A last work: if you are looking for a cause of the MWP, look no farther than aerosols arising from massive soil disturbance and weather induced erosion from Eurasian expansion of agriculture (Han migration and settlement before 1000AD in China and deforestation and peat fires in northern Europe, circa 900-1100AD) that affected weather in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

This is consistent with anthropogenic aerosol forcing of the 20th century.

On the earthqakes.

If you are watching the USGS earthquake maps from day to day, for years, as I have, you will see patterns emerge that suggest evidence of regional- and global-scale processes.

Earth tides from lunar and Martian gravitational effects are examples of contributing forces that may catalyze many small shallow quakes and increase the probability of larger magnitude shallow quakes in active regions around the Pacific Rim and along the Alpenide Front.

The Earth and Mars do a very neat 'dance' en passage, describing an intricate cardioid shape. Every time we see these looping retrograde movements, about a month apart, four times in a cycle that occurs every eight years, we have an uptick in earthquake and eruption events.

These forces aren't the cause of major geological events, but may be considered as additive failure-event catalysts, contributing to cumulative deformation stress in a thin, brittle surficial mantle layer. This is additive to seasonal (hydrological) cycles of compressive effects resulting in an increase in volcanic eruption and earthquake probability in winter months.

We are also seeing action promoted by exceptional precip patterns this year across the Northern Hemisphere, and some in the Southern Hemisphere, too - like a rare summer snow event in southern Australia at relatively low altitude (3,000 ft) in January and unusually severe floods in Peru and North Africa.

Huge 8.3 quake just off Chile.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010tfan.ph…
I hope people in the area are safe how ever with a quake this size it seems not everyone will be unscathed.

The quake is so big it is showing up at all the webcorders in the western USA and probably will the whole world.
Yellowstone Page Bottom
http://quake.utah.edu/helicorder/ymr_webi_1d.htm..Bottom of page.
Redoubt bottom of page again.
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webicorders/Redoubt/RSO_EHZ_AV.php

Passerby What you are describing is something like the Jupiter Effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Effect
Even John Gribbin the guy who came up with it later said it was a mistake. There might be an effect from the electromagnetic influences of the sun on earthquakes but no one has found a way to quantify it yet...so for now it also only exists in the realm of science fiction.
The exceptional precipitation in the Northern Hemisphere is from El Nino, the -NAO and the AMO. The cold in the Northern Hemisphere is from the -PDO and the -AO. The Seasonal seismicity thing may be real but I got to ask ya passerby where did you get the snow in Australia in January thing...man it's still hot down there;)

Ahhh I will agree there is something in the air Passerby:

Magnitude 8.8 - OFFSHORE MAULE, CHILE
2010 February 27 06:34:14 UTC
Versión en Español
DetailsSummaryMapsScientific & TechnicalTsunami Earthquake Details
Magnitude 8.8
Date-Time Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 06:34:14 UTC
Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 03:34:14 AM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 35.846°S, 72.719°W
Depth 35 km (21.7 miles) set by location program
Region OFFSHORE MAULE, CHILE
Distances 100 km (60 miles) NNW of Chillan, Chile
105 km (65 miles) WSW of Talca, Chile
115 km (70 miles) NNE of Concepcion, Chile
325 km (200 miles) SW of SANTIAGO, Chile

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 7.2 km (4.5 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters NST=255, Nph=255, Dmin=988 km, Rmss=1.12 sec, Gp= 36°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=7
Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

Event ID us2010tfan

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010tfan.php

WOW you should see the yellowstone webicorders.....man I am saving that page....Wow I wonder what it looks like on a closer station....WOW!!!!

TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 002
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 0745Z 27 FEB 2010

THIS BULLETIN APPLIES TO AREAS WITHIN AND BORDERING THE PACIFIC
OCEAN AND ADJACENT SEAS...EXCEPT ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...
WASHINGTON...OREGON AND CALIFORNIA.

... A TSUNAMI WARNING AND WATCH ARE IN EFFECT ...

A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR

CHILE / PERU

A TSUNAMI WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR

ECUADOR / COLOMBIA / ANTARCTICA / PANAMA / COSTA RICA

FOR ALL OTHER AREAS COVERED BY THIS BULLETIN... IT IS FOR
INFORMATION ONLY AT THIS TIME.

THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY
NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE
DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND
ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 0634Z 27 FEB 2010
COORDINATES - 36.1 SOUTH 72.6 WEST
DEPTH - 55 KM
LOCATION - NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL CHILE
MAGNITUDE - 8.6

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY

GAUGE LOCATION LAT LON TIME AMPL PER
------------------- ----- ------ ----- --------------- -----
VALPARAISO CL 33.0S 71.6W 0708Z 1.29M / 4.2FT 20MIN
TALCAHUANO CL 36.7S 73.4W 0652Z 1.15M / 3.8FT 46MIN

LAT - LATITUDE (N-NORTH, S-SOUTH)
LON - LONGITUDE (E-EAST, W-WEST)
TIME - TIME OF THE MEASUREMENT (Z IS UTC IS GREENWICH TIME)
AMPL - TSUNAMI AMPLITUDE MEASURED RELATIVE TO NORMAL SEA LEVEL.
IT IS ...NOT... CREST-TO-TROUGH WAVE HEIGHT.
VALUES ARE GIVEN IN BOTH METERS(M) AND FEET(FT).
PER - PERIOD OF TIME IN MINUTES(MIN) FROM ONE WAVE TO THE NEXT.

EVALUATION

SEA LEVEL READINGS INDICATE A TSUNAMI WAS GENERATED. IT MAY HAVE
BEEN DESTRUCTIVE ALONG COASTS NEAR THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER AND
COULD ALSO BE A THREAT TO MORE DISTANT COASTS. AUTHORITIES SHOULD
TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THIS POSSIBILITY. THIS
CENTER WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR SEA LEVEL DATA TO DETERMINE THE
EXTENT AND SEVERITY OF THE THREAT.

FOR ALL AREAS - WHEN NO MAJOR WAVES ARE OBSERVED FOR TWO HOURS
AFTER THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OR DAMAGING WAVES HAVE NOT
OCCURRED FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS THEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME
THE THREAT IS PASSED. DANGER TO BOATS AND COASTAL STRUCTURES CAN
CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS DUE TO RAPID CURRENTS. AS LOCAL
CONDITIONS CAN CAUSE A WIDE VARIATION IN TSUNAMI WAVE ACTION THE
ALL CLEAR DETERMINATION MUST BE MADE BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.

ESTIMATED INITIAL TSUNAMI WAVE ARRIVAL TIMES AT FORECAST POINTS
WITHIN THE WARNING AND WATCH AREAS ARE GIVEN BELOW. ACTUAL
ARRIVAL TIMES MAY DIFFER AND THE INITIAL WAVE MAY NOT BE THE
LARGEST. A TSUNAMI IS A SERIES OF WAVES AND THE TIME BETWEEN
SUCCESSIVE WAVES CAN BE FIVE MINUTES TO ONE HOUR.

LOCATION FORECAST POINT COORDINATES ARRIVAL TIME
-------------------------------- ------------ ------------
CHILE TALCAHUANO 36.7S 73.1W 0729Z 27 FEB
VALPARAISO 33.0S 71.6W 0739Z 27 FEB
COQUIMBO 29.9S 71.3W 0801Z 27 FEB
CORRAL 39.8S 73.5W 0810Z 27 FEB
CALDERA 27.1S 70.8W 0821Z 27 FEB
ANTOFAGASTA 23.3S 70.4W 0844Z 27 FEB
IQUIQUE 20.2S 70.1W 0911Z 27 FEB
ARICA 18.5S 70.3W 0929Z 27 FEB
GOLFO DE PENAS 47.1S 74.9W 0934Z 27 FEB
PUERTO MONTT 41.5S 73.0W 1052Z 27 FEB
EASTER IS. 27.1S 109.4W 1205Z 27 FEB
PUNTA ARENAS 53.2S 70.9W 1213Z 27 FEB
PERU MOLLENDO 17.1S 72.0W 0936Z 27 FEB
SAN JUAN 15.3S 75.2W 0952Z 27 FEB
LA PUNTA 12.1S 77.2W 1045Z 27 FEB
PIMENTAL 6.9S 80.0W 1114Z 27 FEB
TALARA 4.6S 81.5W 1127Z 27 FEB
CHIMBOTE 9.0S 78.8W 1132Z 27 FEB
ECUADOR LA LIBERTAD 2.2S 81.2W 1202Z 27 FEB
ESMERELDAS 1.2N 79.8W 1234Z 27 FEB
BALTRA IS. 0.5S 90.3W 1313Z 27 FEB
COLOMBIA TUMACO 1.8N 78.9W 1253Z 27 FEB
BAHIA SOLANO 6.3N 77.4W 1327Z 27 FEB
BUENAVENTURA 3.8N 77.2W 1340Z 27 FEB
ANTARCTICA THURSTON IS. 72.0S 100.0W 1312Z 27 FEB
PANAMA PUERTO PINA 7.4N 78.1W 1331Z 27 FEB
PUNTA MALA 7.5N 79.9W 1334Z 27 FEB
PUNTA BURICA 8.0N 82.8W 1340Z 27 FEB
COSTA RICA CABO MATAPALO 8.4N 83.3W 1344Z 27 FEB

BULLETINS WILL BE ISSUED HOURLY OR SOONER IF CONDITIONS WARRANT.
THE TSUNAMI WARNING AND WATCH WILL REMAIN IN EFFECT UNTIL
FURTHER NOTICE.

THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE PRODUCTS
FOR ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...WASHINGTON...OREGON...CALIFORNIA.

Thinking about all the people in Chile now:(

I see that the deformation map of Kilauea seems to be showing some sort of quake at the moment.

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/deformation.html

Wondering if this related to the great earthquake.

David B

Medium-to-large earthquakes have long been seen as indicators of impending volcanic eruptions, Vesuvius AD62 and 79 being the archetype. Could it work in reverse? A large enough eruption would relieve pressure all the way down and this might translate to the subduction zone. Pure speculation on my part, but if interpreted in the "traditional" way, this M8.8 might spell "interesting times" (in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse) ahead in Chile.

Check out the webicorder right now at Old Faithful:
http://quake.utah.edu/helicorder/yft_webi.htm
Yeah I sure hope those people are ok....not too many reports coming out of there now.

Well, that's the point I tried to make some time ago ... we're completely unaware of all those things that may happen, while we're fixed on maybe one or two specific places (like Yellowstone, or for Italians, Campi Flegrei), which in all likelihood will do nothing serious for millennia to come.
There's Chile now. Last time it had a quite devastating earthquake was nearly exactly 25 years ago, on 3 March 1985, that was a M 7.7 and killed about 200 people. This time it's M 8.8, so that sounds like it has a pretty cataclysmic destructive potential. I have friends who live in the area. It's no fun at all hearing of this. The only encouraging thing is that they do apply pretty serious building codes in that country, so that even that incredible M 9.5 earthquake in 1960 killed "only" a few thousand in Chile (compared to the about 230,000 killed by the M 7 quake in Haiti last month, this is a rather minor toll).
However, let's wait for the news to get through from Chile, currently there's no way connecting to any internet sites in the country.
For a look at seismic stations much closer to Chile, here's the bunch of seismographs on Colombian volcanoes, and they do show it well:
http://intranet.ingeominas.gov.co/huila/ew/heli/5min/welcome.html

Boris No doubt it is no fun hearing about this so please don't think I enjoy it...I just happened to look at the webicorders at Yellowstone and knew there had been a really bad one somewhere.

@Randall, I would never dare believe you could have fun seeing this. I guess I have the same curiosity looking at the seismographs - I usually look up those we have here on Etna, because they show all large earthquakes, but for some reason they're not available via my home connection. So first thing I did was look up .. the Yellowstone webicorders. And I do hope that the way Chileans have applied a lot of measures to render their buildings more resistant will have helped to prevent this from being a major disaster. If an earthquake as powerful as this had happened here in Italy it would have caused one of the worst disasters humanity has ever gone through. Luckily our faults here are not long enough to produce a rupture long enough for anything stronger than M 7.5 (still way too strong for comfort, though).

Boris...That is cool...An 8.8 is sure nothing to laugh at...My girlfriend is in Costa Rica right now...I hope she isn't staying close to the ocean....I think I will try to call her.

The webicorders at Yellowstone are still going bonkers:
http://quake.utah.edu/helicorder/yft_webi.htm
I don't ever remember them going quite that crazy before.

TSUNAMI MESSAGE NUMBER 4
NWS PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER EWA BEACH HI
1051 PM HST FRI FEB 26 2010

TO - CIVIL DEFENSE IN THE STATE OF HAWAII

SUBJECT - TSUNAMI ADVISORY SUPPLEMENT

A TSUNAMI ADVISORY CONTINUES IN EFFECT FOR THE STATE OF HAWAII.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 0834 PM HST 26 FEB 2010
COORDINATES - 36.1 SOUTH 72.6 WEST
LOCATION - NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL CHILE
MAGNITUDE - 8.8 MOMENT
MAGNITUDE - 8.4 RICHTER (MS)

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY

GAUGE LOCATION LAT LON TIME AMPL PER
------------------- ----- ------ ----- --------------- -----
CORRAL CL 39.9S 73.4W 0739Z 0.90M / 2.9FT 16MIN
SAN FELIX CL 26.3S 80.1W 0815Z 0.53M / 1.7FT 08MIN
VALPARAISO CL 33.0S 71.6W 0708Z 1.29M / 4.2FT 20MIN
TALCAHUANO CL 36.7S 73.4W 0652Z 1.15M / 3.8FT 46MIN

LAT - LATITUDE (N-NORTH, S-SOUTH)
LON - LONGITUDE (E-EAST, W-WEST)
TIME - TIME OF THE MEASUREMENT (Z IS UTC IS GREENWICH TIME)
AMPL - TSUNAMI AMPLITUDE MEASURED RELATIVE TO NORMAL SEA LEVEL.
IT IS ...NOT... CREST-TO-TROUGH WAVE HEIGHT.
VALUES ARE GIVEN IN BOTH METERS(M) AND FEET(FT).
PER - PERIOD OF TIME IN MINUTES(MIN) FROM ONE WAVE TO THE NEXT.

EVALUATION

THE PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER HAS ISSUED AN EXPANDING
REGIONAL TSUNAMI WARNING AND WATCH FOR PARTS OF THE PACIFIC
LOCATED CLOSER TO THE EARTHQUAKE. AN EVALUATION OF THE PACIFIC
WIDE TSUNAMI THREAT IS UNDERWAY AND THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT
HAWAII COULD BE ELEVATED TO A WATCH OR WARNING STATUS.

IF TSUNAMI WAVES IMPACT HAWAII THEIR ESTIMATED EARLIEST ARRIVAL
TIME IS

1119 AM HST SAT 27 FEB 2010

MESSAGES WILL BE ISSUED HOURLY OR SOONER AS CONDITIONS WARRANT.

The latest Tsunami warning has TALCAHUANO CL waves at 7.7FT.

That's some earthquake that hit Chile. Was it the late 1950s or late 1960s that they had another enormous quake? It will be interesting to watch the long-period traces to see how many times the shock travels around the globe.

Never claimed this was *anything* like the Jupiter effect.

There are numerous technical reports and papers describing temporal event modeling of volcanoes and earthquakes; they follow a statistical distribution common to many natural systems having complex layers of processes acting on them.

Snow in December 2009, Australian summer. A month later, they had a record heat wave.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/12/13/global-warming-sno…

Oh Chiuaua!!!! I check the quake record every morning for the world and CA. I saw a lot of quakes for Chile and then I saw they had the 8.8. This was a big one and I know seizmometers all over were going nutso. I have a feeling Hawaii will get a tsunami about 11am their time. I also expect some kind of wave action along the CA coast, though they don't seem to be predicting that at the moment. Still, I bet there will be some.

The Yellowstone seizmometers will be going nuts for a while because of all the aftershocks. There have been some strong ones.

A bit of an interesting note, at for CA quakes, there is an area near the Owens Valley that has had a 4+ and a 3+ that occurred at about the same time as the Chilian quake. I will check on that a bit more and see how close in time they were and in the last hour there have been a couple of what I would call aftershocks of the 4+. All very shallow, 1mile except for the 3+ which was 5miles.

It will be interesting to see what effect this quake has on the rest of the world.

@Boris, I hope your friends are ok. I know you are concerned about them and wonder what is going on where they are. Hang in there. Hope for them to be ok.

@Randall, I know the beauty of areas are transient, I just enjoy it while it is there. The fires of Yellowstone in '88 did a lot of damage, but it is recovering and a lot of the beauty is back. And it opened up a lot more feeding areas for the animals there.

I guess you had a "Forrest Gump" experience on your boat. Definitely scary! Ivan was not Camille, but bad enough. I have not gone though anything like that and I hope I never have to. Of course, I live near enough to volcanoes that anything can happen. Lassen may not do much, but Shasta sure could and then there is the Medicine Lake caldera which was responsible for the lava flows at Lava Beds National Monument near Tule Lake. It is not dead by any means! No one thinks they will do anything, but I know they can at any time. Just no signals yet. I don't even think they have any seizmic equipment on Shasta. They do somewhere near Lassen.

We wait and watch, and hope for the best.

Hi,

@ Diane: if You're interested in quakes: did You see that there was another big one today on the other side of the Pacific: Okinawa (Japan) got one with a magnitude of 7. Epicentre was in the ocean off the coast, though quite shallow (depth only 10km / 6.5miles). Lukily it produced only minor damages and only a very small Tsunami (< 1 foot).

Busy quake-day today. Wishing everyone the best!
CK

@CK, yes, I saw the one off Okanawa yesterday and right now I am wondering if there is any connection. There could be. The CA quakes I mentioned above did happen after the Chilian quake. When that 7.6 occurred off Sumatra last year, there was a swarm at Mammoth Mt. an hour later. So there could be a connection and it just may be coincidence. I belive if conditions are right and a fault is ready to move anyway, a far away quake may set it off.

There has been a strong quake in Argentina this morning, too, a 6.3 near Salta and since that one, there have been four aftershocks in Chile all 5+. They will be shaking a while there and that is the really bad part because the aftershocks do more damage. One good thing going for Chile is they have infrastructure and that will help a lot.

Passerby, You come up with some cool stuff sometimes but saying that Mars has an effect on earthquakes here on earth is....well...not really your best stuff. Also the snow in Jan in Australia thing that supposedly happened in 2009...well I got to tell you I couldn't find anything about it in the Met records. That site you gave me isn't exactly a paragon of science. Please understand that I am a absolute liberal who doesn't really believe manmade global warming has as big of an effect on climate as the Sun and other natural cycles such as the PDO, AO, NAO and AMO. I base those beliefs on science not something I read on any right wing conspiracy site and you really should too.

I did a search for snow in January on the Australian Met site and this is what it has:

Cold and snow
On the other hand, Australia is largely spared the extremes of cold that afflict many northern hemisphere countries. Outside the highland areas of southeastern Australia, snow is something of a noteworthy event. Occasionally, however, snow will fall to near sea-level, or a northward-moving pool will bring snow along the Great Divide as far north as southern Queensland. A typical weather situation producing low level snow is when south to southwesterly winds rapidly transport very cold air northward from far southern latitudes.

Low overnight temperatures in Canberra during July 1994, combined with a malfunctioning automatic sprinkler, produced this display of icicles on play equipment at a Canberra pre-school centre (courtesy of Gary Schafer, Canberra Times).

At the higher elevations of southeastern Australia snow often persists for weeks or months at a time. However the amount of snow that falls can vary substantially from year to year. In some years, such as 1973 (when it was too warm) and 1982 (too little precipitation), the ski season fails. On the other hand, some years (such as 1981) have abundant snow and a "bumper" ski season. In recent years, snow-making equipment has reduced somewhat this uncertainty for the ski industry.
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/temp.htm
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/temp4.htm

The Phd guys here like to paint all of us non-Phd types as apocalyptic, pseudo scientists who get their information from a lot of unsubstantiated sources....so some of the off wall stuff you are talking about really makes the rest of us look bad. As for "temporal event modeling of volcanoes and earthquakes"....no peer reviewed scientific papers talk about the influence of Mars or any other planets on earthquakes or volcanoes here on earth. There are some papers talking about the possible gravitational influences of the sun and the moon on tidal forces which may have an influence on some earthquake faults but nothing about the gravitational influence of Mars causing earthquakes or volcanoes. The other planets are just too far away or too small to influence earthquakes or volcanoes here on earth.

When I talk about things like Yellowstone I try to base it on real scientific papers or real recent events without resorting to science fiction or pseudoscientific studies...That being said it is still an uphill battle with these guys....but I expect that because I know that if I make a statement here then the burden of proof lies with me. I also know that if I ever want to prove anything to anyone here then I better have some real scientific info to back it up....otherwise they are never going to take anything I say seriously.

Passerby, I tried this once with links but it didn't post so I am trying it again without them but you can go to the Australian Met site to check my info.

Passerby you come up with some cool stuff sometimes but saying that Mars has an effect on earthquakes here on earth is....well...not really your best stuff. Also the snow in Jan in Australia thing that supposedly happened in 2009...well I got to tell you I couldn't find anything about it in the Met records. That site you gave me isn't exactly a paragon of science. Please understand that I am a absolute liberal who doesn't really believe manmade global warming has as big of an effect on climate as the Sun and other natural cycles such as the PDO, AO, NAO and AMO. I base those beliefs on science not something I read on any right wing conspiracy site and you really should too.

I did a search for snow in January on the Australian Met site and this is what it has:

"Cold and snow
On the other hand, Australia is largely spared the extremes of cold that afflict many northern hemisphere countries. Outside the highland areas of southeastern Australia, snow is something of a noteworthy event. Occasionally, however, snow will fall to near sea-level, or a northward-moving pool will bring snow along the Great Divide as far north as southern Queensland. A typical weather situation producing low level snow is when south to southwesterly winds rapidly transport very cold air northward from far southern latitudes.

Low overnight temperatures in Canberra during July 1994, combined with a malfunctioning automatic sprinkler, produced this display of icicles on play equipment at a Canberra pre-school centre (courtesy of Gary Schafer, Canberra Times)."

"At the higher elevations of southeastern Australia snow often persists for weeks or months at a time. However the amount of snow that falls can vary substantially from year to year. In some years, such as 1973 (when it was too warm) and 1982 (too little precipitation), the ski season fails. On the other hand, some years (such as 1981) have abundant snow and a "bumper" ski season. In recent years, snow-making equipment has reduced somewhat this uncertainty for the ski industry."

The Phd guys here like to paint all of us non-Phd types as apocalyptic, pseudo scientists who get their information from a lot of unsubstantiated sources....so some of the off wall stuff you are talking about really makes the rest of us look bad. As for "temporal event modeling of volcanoes and earthquakes"....no peer reviewed scientific papers talk about the influence of Mars or any other planets on earthquakes or volcanoes here on earth. There are some papers talking about the possible gravitational influences of the sun and the moon on tidal forces which may have an influence on some earthquake faults but nothing about the gravitational influence of Mars causing earthquakes or volcanoes. The other planets are just too far away or too small to influence earthquakes or volcanoes here on earth.

When I talk about things like Yellowstone I try to base it on real scientific papers or real recent events without resorting to science fiction or pseudoscientific studies...That being said it is still an uphill battle with these guys....but I expect that because I know that if I make a statement here then the burden of proof lies with me. I also know that if I ever want to prove anything to anyone here then I better have some real scientific info to back it up....otherwise they are never going to take anything I say seriously.

Diane Yeah it was Hurricane Georges and at 80-90mph for 12 hours it was like being inside a washing machine for 12 hours. After Georges I knew better than to be on my boat during Ivan...I rode that one out about a mile inland and I gotta tell you it is a whole lot easier on land....I actually slept through part of Ivan;) God help those people in Chile right now and everyone else in the path of the Tsunami.

Has anyone seen any reaction from the quake in any volcanic system other than webicorders going nuts? I bet Lliama and Chaiten sure felt it. What is the closest Holocene active volcano to the epicenter ?

Dasnowskier I just did a news search for any recent volcanic unrest and found none. Have you checked out the webcams at any volcanoes?

Earthquake swarm at Coso field:
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/118-36_frames.htm

There's lots of rhyolite domes in the area, but no caldera... yet.

@Matt, the 4.1 quake near Coso was only a mile deep. I have been keeping watch on that and the quake activity has picked up since I checked it about an hour ago. I have not been to that area, but my DH has and knows about a lot of things over there, such as mines. I am also watching Mammoth Mt. So far, I haven't seen a swarm other than was there already. There just may be a connection here. Hard to prove, but could be. I will have to check Mammoth again. It has been a couple of hours.

I expect in a short time, the tsunami will reach Pt Reyes. It is expected to reach Hawaii in about 1 1/2 hours. We will see how large it gets for them. I hope not much of a problem. It is going Pacific wide, north and south so New Zealand and Austrailia will get it as will Alaska and Japan. Chile is getting one aftershock after another and they are fairly strong. One was 6.9. Most are 5+. I really feel for those people. They need our thoughts and prayers.

@Dasnowskier, I would not expect volcanic "reactions" on the same day of the earthquake. After the 1960 earthquake in Chile, Puyehue volcano awoke two days later. In Sumatra, after the 2004 earthquake, I think some volcanoes showed unrest after days to weeks. And, in any case, all the eruptions following those very large earthquakes were not exceptional events. Just eruptions that were waiting to occur but happened a bit earlier due to the earthquakes.

The Chile earthquake is a good occasion for some reflections.
This is a magnitude (M) 8.8 earthquake, whose death toll will eventually be a few hundred. Compare this to the more than 230,000 dead after the M 7.0 Haiti earthquake little more than a month ago, and you see that the way buildings are constructed is maybe the most crucial factor in determining how disastrous an earthquake will be. So, what we learn from this is that Chile has learned its lessons quite a while ago, considering that already the M 9.5 earthquake of May 1960 in Chile caused at best a few thousand fatalities.
I live in Sicily, the southernmost region of Italy, and one of the least developed of that country. Remember that earthquake in Abruzzo in April 2009, which killed about 300 people? That was a M 6.3; the death toll of the latest M 8.8 Chile earthquake might remain well below the L'Aquila figure. L'Aquila is in central Italy and one might believe it's a bit less stricken by corruption especially in the construction and real estate sector than Sicily. So the conclusion is that here in Sicily we're on the Haiti side of the spectrum as far as preparedness is concerned - in spite of thousands of years of historical records of devastating earthquakes.

@Boris, I understand some of the political situation in Italy. The buildings there are not that strong. I have a feeling, though, and that is all it is, a feeling, that there will be more fatalities than what you are predicting. I have seen some of the pics coming out of Chile and they still have some buildings that are brick and such. The thing they have going for them is infrastructure. I am hoping you are right, though.

Any one have an opinion of the Coso swarm in CA? It isn't that much of one, but it is making some noise.

Boris and Dasnowskier It looks like the site that hosts the The Chaiten caldera webcam that Boris posted a link to the other day is down.
http://www2.sernageomin.cl/ovdas/ovdas7/webcam_chaiten.html

There is an image at:
http://www.coolwebcams.net/live/cam981-1225534655-chaiten_volcano_webca…
Not sure if it is up to date or not.
The Llaima isn't coming up either.
http://www.povi.cl/llaima/webcam.html
Most sites in Chile seem to be down or cant be reached maybe due to traffic overloading the system as much as the earthquake.

I tried to post these with the links but it wouldn't let me.

Boris and Dasnowskier It looks like the site that hosts the The Chaiten caldera webcam that Boris posted a link to the other day is down.
sernageomin.cl

There is an image at:
coolwebcams.net
Not sure if it is up to date or not.

The Llaima isn't coming up either.
povi.cl
Most sites in Chile seem to be down or cant be reached maybe due to traffic overloading the system as much as the earthquake.

Yes that's true Randall, much of Chile's internet seems to be down or overloaded. Tried to contact my friend who's maintaining the Povi web site but no response so far. Onemi is back online but has relatively meagre info so far - which I understand, their job in first place is to aid the stricken and coordinate rescue and aid efforts, and then care about updating the web site.
Obviously, Diane, my suggestions of the Chile death toll may be to some degree wishful thinking. But I am certain it will be just a few hundred, from the way the number is being updated throughout the day. Usually when it's really cataclysmic they speak of thousands of victims already on the first day. And what I am convinced of is that, they may have some brick buildings over there in Chile, the problem here in Sicily is that we have thousands of multistorey concrete buildings made in the 1960s to 1980s that are disintegrating even without earthquakes, and a few times per year you hear of one collapsing just like that, killing a few people; it just happened a couple weeks ago in Sicily. I don't want to imagine what impact a magnitude 7 to 7.3 will have over here - last time we had that (in 1908 in Messina) there were about 100,000 deaths.

Boris; maybe the difference between Chile and Italy is mostly that they don't have the Mafia in Chile

@mike don, that might be a bit of a factor, with all the secondary effects this implies (including bad construction). Plus, they don't have Berlusconi, whose government has recently condoned all illegally made constructions to gain popularity because in Italy, the HOUSE (earthquake-resistant or not) is the most sacred thing after the Holy Virgin and the Mamma.
I just came across an interesting publication yesterday, regarding the risk from earthquakes in big cities. It says that in terms of corruption in the construction sector, Italy is sixth worldwide, after Russia, Mexico, Pakistan, India, and China. By the way, all these nations do have extremely high-risk seismic areas.
The link to the full-text pdf of this article is
http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/MalletMilneOnline.pdf
The author, Roger Bilham, has a web page heavily packed with earthquake information plus links to the pdfs of most of his publications, and many of them are extremely thought-provoking.
Just take a look around: http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/

I really hope you are right Boris but if that quake had happened in LA or Frisco, it would still kill thousands...My dad is an architect so I called to asked him if they design buildings to withstand an 8.0 and he said that few if any buildings were ever designed to withstand anything in the 8.0 or higher range...He said that maybe a base isolated steel reinforced concrete box will withstand something like that but few people live in something like that....Maybe the fact that it was offshore and not directly under a major city will make a difference but I am afraid the death toll will grow a lot larger as the days go by and more information gets out. I sure hope your friends are ok.

MSNBC has a guy on the phone at Waikiki Beach saying the water has already starting to noticeably draw back from the beach....if there is a Tsunami it should be hitting Hawaii anytime now....and some real stupid people are still surfing...Oh well Kowabunga I guess but if it does hit...those guys may be in for the ride of their lives.

Thank God MSNBC just said the video of people surfing was a file video....I really didn't think anyone would try that but you never know...here in Pensacola we have people who go out and try to surf hurricanes.

http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/chile/chileem.jpg

Thanks Boris and Randal.
This will give me 1 more reason to monitor Pacific rim volcanoes
At this time it looks like no big Hawaiian tsunami thank goodness.
Mahalo.

apropos of nothing, that Turrialba webcam must be one of the most beautiful webcams on the net.

@Boris. So we should not be surprised if over the next week we hear of renewed activity at Llaima or signs of new activity in some of the 18 or so Chilean volcanoes closer to the epicentre?

Let's hope now that this tremor won't set off something massive at Chaitén.

Could this sort of shaking initiate massive gas bubble nucleation (kinda like an uncorked shaken Coke bottle) into the magma chamber of an already erupting volcano?

Hopefully, the earthquake hasn't sloshed all that stuff enough to make it go Champagne-style...

This is the historic Chilean quake I had in mind:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/events/1960_05_22.php

It was quite amazing to see the same pattern repeat on the long period trace every few hours (with smaller displacement each time of course).

Eduardo Avaroa Caldera Complex and the Central Volcanic Zone are not that far away either.
http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/06-13.htm

Erik - the Volcano Watch piece on Kilauea gases seems to have moved, your hyperlink is giving a 404.

This seems to be the new link:
http://www.hawaii247.org/2010/02/26/volcano-watch-kilauea%e2%80%99s-eve…

As an aside I once stuck my (well protected) head into a sulfur trioxide absorption tower, I can well attest that the aerosol is pretty opaque. I couldn't see my gloves more than a few cm away from my faceshield.

Gallantly close and drunkenly slurring active bad karma

I wonder exactly what Kara says about that :)

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