pyroclastic flow

We're in Pompeii and today is "Volcano Day"

eklemetti — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:16:18 +0000

We're in Pompeii and today is "Volcano Day"

The Doctor fights off a magma creature in Pompeii.

Now, most of the time I talk about why I started this blog, I talk about the eruption of Chaiten in Chile as the catalyst. However, if you look back at my archives, you'll see that one of my first posts was on the Doctor Who episode "The Fires of Pompeii" - so that might also be a good marker to point to on why I started this blog. Why do I bring this up? Well, Pompeii gets mentioned a couple times in the first few seasons of the revived Doctor Who. First off, when the Doctor meets Capt. Jack Harkness (a time-traveling huckster), Capt. Jack mentions that one of this favorite scams is to sell some alien a faked object and asks them to meet in Pompeii on the morning of the day that Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. - "volcano day" as he calls it. That way, the fake is buried in the eruption before the scammed buyer can figure it out, and Capt. Jack is long gone. However, later in the episode, one of Capt. Jack's scams (this one set in WWII London) backfires badly and the Doctor says something to the effect of "we're in Pompeii, and today is volcano day!"

Well, sure enough, today is "Volcano Day"! The eruption of Vesuvius that buried Pompeii - and lead Pliny to write his Letters that birthed volcanology occurred (at least we think) on August 24, 79 A.D. So, eat some olives in memory of those who perished over 1,900 years ago - and hope that Naples is prepared the next time Vesuvius rumbles so that we don't repeat "Volcano Day".

Ash casts of the victims of the 79 A.D. of Vesuvius.

UPDATE: While we're at it, here are a few articles about the anniversary. I'll add any more I run across (and feel free to add your own in the comments).
- CBS News: Not much content, but some decent images (real and fake).
- Jerusalem Post: Pompeii as God's retribution.

eklemetti Tue, 08/24/2010 - 04:16

Tuesday Tidbits: EyjafjallajÃ¶kull, Yasur, mud on Mars and more

eklemetti — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:12:24 +0000

Tuesday Tidbits: EyjafjallajÃ¶kull, Yasur, mud on Mars and more

Finally, a chance to catch up a bit ... !

Yasur erupting in May of 2010.

Some news from the world of volcanoes:

The BBC has a series of videos one the fallout from the EyjafjallajÃ¶kull eruption - including a look at the area around the volcano and how the economy has been affected by the eruption. However, things seem pretty quiet at the summit of the EyjafjallajÃ¶kull summit where snow can begun to settle without melting - and the Icelandic Met Office appears to think that the eruption is more or less (but not officially) over. And take this press release as you will, but a recent study by a UK moving company (UniBaggage.com) claims that parents moving their children off to university each fall release twice as much CO₂ than the EyjafjallajÃ¶kull eruption.
Most people think of volcanoes being bad for the economy, but in places like Vanuatu, volcanoes are vital to the local economy, thanks to a consistently active volcano. Yasur on Tanna Island is visited by tourists regularly - along with providing a source for fertile soil. The description of the visits are a bit, well, harrowing, but those are the risks if you're going to visit an erupting volcano.
There were some great new shots from space from the NASA Earth Observatory of two active volcanoes. The first is an image of the intensified activity at Sakurajima in Japan - complete with an impressive ash plume and ~~a pyroclastic flow heading to the south~~ steam-and-ash plume from a lower vent on the south flank. The second is an image of the new dome complex on Chaiten in Chile - and it looks pretty calm compared to when it started back in 2008 (when this blog got its start too). However, this is still a lot of the area covered with what looks like fresh ash, so the domes continue to intermittently coat the area with ash.
There was also an article on MSNBC that wasn't about magmatic volcanoes, but rather mud volcanoes ... on Mars no less. The region on the northern hemisphere called Acidalia Planitia appears to have a high concentration of features that look like terrestrial mud volcanoes. The article in Icarus suggests that there are potentially 40,000 mud volcanoes in the area that likely formed in early Amazonian times on Mars (over 1 billion years ago).

eklemetti Mon, 08/23/2010 - 22:12

The pic of Sakurajima may be mislabeled. The ash plume looks like it is emerging from the main crater while the so-called "pyroclastic flow" looks to me like steam emerging from the smaller Showa crater. That is my impression anyway.

It's interesting the fact that ChaitÃ©n is covered by snow, indicating a cooling of the dome. In the OVDAS site, Caldera camera (frozen for a long time), you can see the base of the dome with snow.

@Guillermo
Before the eruption, did ChaitÃ©n show a perennial icecap, or it just forms in winter (when not erupting)? Could melting mean an eruption at sight?

MÃla's cams showing a significant steam plume for the first time in days. Could that be related to recent EQ activity?
Wednesday
25.08.201003:32:2163.694-19.5581.1 km2.190.014.2 km WNW of BÃ¡sar
Wednesday
25.08.201003:32:2063.639-19.3661.1 km1.690.025.7 km W of GoÃ°abunga

just checked the ÃÃ³rÃ³lfsfelli cams. FLIR is back in action, and yes there is a steam plume again.

@Alastair:
FLIR is back, I forgot to mention. Have you tried the cam from Ãorvaldseyri? Contrast is now too sharp, but earlier you could neatly see the rising plume. Maybe the crater lake is boiling now.

All this recurring steaming would suggest (to me anyway) that water is not just sitting in the crater bowl but penetrates deeper and deeper into the mountain. Her next eruption could prove to be, erm..., "interesting".

Hello

After the strong earthquakes in recent days, the Galeras volcano erupted this morning in Columbia.

http://intranet.ingeominas.gov.co/pasto/P%C3%A1gina_Principal

Thanks, @Sherine:
I got this from El tiempo, Colombia:
"The eruptive event occurred in the early hours of Wednesday, after which the alert level was raised from orange to red indicating that another eruption could be recorded in minutes, therefore she reiterated the call for residents to attend to shelters. According to Dr. Martha Calvache, deputy director of Ingeominas, the incident happened around 4:00 am and the organization and the state is monitoring the volcano.
The signal of the Galeras has lasted for nearly an hour, one of the largest that have occurred in the area, as added Calvache."
www.eltiempo.com

They say that although weather conditions at the site are good, yet they don't know the kind of material extruded from the volcano.
www.elespectador.com

#8 Link for the Galeras web cam:
http://intranet.ingeominas.gov.co/pasto/Imagen_en_l%C3%ADnea

Thanks, @Renato for the link

I found another interesting link

http://www.vulkaner.no/v/volcan/galeras-e.html

I get the feeling that Galeras could turn nasty since the residents flat out refuse to go to shelters with the words "nothing will ever happen"...

Erik just opened a thread for Galeras. I'll paste your comments over there.

Light from the moon makes the steam plume visible during the night tonight.

April 18 photos of Eyja. I found while looking for photos of glacier Ok. The photographer just happened to be on the spot, shooting clothing company ads. Is the second photo (looking down into the snow-coated cone) a photo of Eyja.?
http://www.partytow.com/e/?p=7922

Hello
Last news from Galeras, but I do not see this report on the site Ingeominas :
August 26th, 2010
This morning the alert-level was reduced to ORANGE.
Seismic activity went on for about 12 hours after the eruptive at 4 AM local time, but intensity
was redused during the day. However, another seismic event happended again late afternoon, similar
to the one at 4 AM. Ashfall is reported within 30 km from the crater, and there are possiblilities
that a new crater has opened up. Up to 3.000 tonns sulfur dioxide up to 400m above the top was partly
visible duringthe day. Of the 8.000 inhabitants to be evacuated, most of them refuse to live their homes
so far. Magma is still floating near the opening, and therefore reason to be prepared for new intensity.
Source : http://www.vulkaner.no/v/volcan/galeras-e.html

I read this at RÃV News, but not quite sure of what it means:
"New cracks were found in some of Sprengisandur up, but they are believed to have formed in the spring. PÃ¡ll Einarsson, mineral physicists believe cracked delayed by attacks by the eruption under VatnajÃ¶kull GjÃ¡lp in 1996. " (Google translated)
http://www.ruv.is/frettaskyringar/innlendar-frettir/nyjar-sprungur-a-sp…

Two of the Mila cams are down now, so I went exploring and found that Weather Underground has a satellite view that might be useful, if Eyja. becomes active again. I had to zoom and drag the map to find the glacier with Eyja.
http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=64.12999725&lon=-21.89999962…

Below the map is a slider that will give you animation if moved to the right, for more frames. Unfortunately, I didn't think of using this site during the eruption, and I'm not sure how useful it would be. I do use the radar images when a storm is predicted for my location, to see how fast it's approaching. The image refreshes perhaps twice an hour.

Looking at Wunderground for Catania Italy, I can see many small craters after zooming and dragging to Mt. Etna. Some craters have black around them (ash?).
http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=37.47000122&lon=15.05000019&…

Erik: Just saw the Nasa image of Chaiten, too bad the Chilean webcam has been inoperative since 6/20. I started reading about volcanoes when your blog started (and Chaiten erupted). Congrats on the great work.

I love your site lol

Etna Week (Part 3) - Etna's Volcanic Hazards

eklemetti — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 02:05:36 +0000

Etna Week (Part 3) - Etna's Volcanic Hazards

The final part of Etna Week, brought to us by guest blogger Dr. Boris Behncke. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 as well!

Etna Volcanic hazards
By guest blogger Dr. Boris Behncke.

Etna is one of the most active volcanoes on Earth, and a population of nearly one million people dwell on its flanks, many in areas that have been repeatedly invaded by lava flows during the historical period. A few villages have been constructed very close to the vents of eruptions only a few hundred years old.

Top: Residential areas surrounding numerous pyroclastic cones on the lower southeast flank of Etna, seen from Monte Arso, a cone that erupted in the late Middle Ages looking toward the metropolitan areas of Acireale and Catania. The cones seen in this image are all prehistoric but just outside the field of view are a few cones that erupted during the past 2000 years. Photo taken in 2000 by Boris Behncke. Bottom: A volcanologist's dream and nightmare - one day, a new crater will open and grow into a new cone in our backyard, like shown in this apocalyptic photomontage (the big cone formed during the 2001 south flank eruption projected onto a photograph of my hometown Trecastagni on the southeast flank of Etna). Both original photos by Boris Behncke

As mentioned before, few people are known to have lost their lives due to eruptions of Etna. During the last century, three deadly incidents are known, in 1929 (two deaths), 1979 (nine deaths), and 1987 (two deaths); in all cases the victims were visitors to the summit crater who were surprised by sudden steam-blast (phreatic) explosions. Amazingly, many people have escaped unscathed during a number of much more violent explosive magmatic eruptions, which, however, always showed a conspicuous buildup for some time before culminating. In contrast, phreatic explosions occur virtually without warning, as has been tragically demonstrated at Galeras volcano (Colombia) in 1993, when nine people, including six volcanologists, were surprised and killed by a relatively small explosion - they happened to be near the very crater (some were even within the crater taking gas samples). [For further detail on the Galeras incident, there are two rather gripping and contrasting stories, "Surviving Galeras" written by one of the survivors, Stan Williams (in collaboration with Fen Montaigne), and "No Apparent Danger" by former-geologist-turned-into-reporter Victoria Bruce'. I recommend to read Williams first and then Bruce, after which you may be having some sort of a balanced view of things.]

Volcanic hazards at Etna are: (1) lava flows, (2) tephra falls (and volcanic ash plumes endangering air traffic), (3) earthquakes related to eruptive activity and magma movement, (4) volcanic sector collapse, (5) tsunami, (6) pyroclastic flows.

Lava flows are by far the most common hazard at Etna. About half of Etna's historically recorded eruptions have caused damage to human property due to lava flow invasion. In most cases the losses have been cultivated land, but on a number of occasions buildings have been destroyed. More rarely have population centers been impacted and partly or completely destroyed - during the past 400 years this has happened only three times, in 1651-1653, 1669, and 1928.

Etna eating towns and villages - luckily this happens quite rarely. Top image is a reproduction of a fresco exposed in the sacristy of the cathedral of Catania, which neatly shows the erupting vent (Monti Rossi) low on the south flank of Etna and the lava flow being diverted around the city of Catania by its city walls; people can furthermore be seen fleeing on boats, others holding processions, and a few housewives hanging their laundry next to the hot lava to make it dry faster.

In a recent study, Behncke et al. (2005) for the first time tried to quantify the risk posed by lava flows, diving the Etnean area into six different zones of increasing hazard, from the coastal areas to Etna's summit. This work revealed a moderately high risk of lava flow invasion in a densely populated area on the southeast flank of Etna, including Trecastagni where I and my family are living. However, such hazard zonation is of relatively limited use for land use planners and civil defense, since the boundaries of different hazard zones are relatively vague and do not reflect the morphological variations of the terrain on a scale of a few tens to a few hundreds of meters.

Mapping the lava flow hazard at Etna. Top image shows the rough subdivision by Behncke et al. (2005) into six hazard zones, bottom image renders a much refined impression of the vulnerability to lava flow invasion based on the SCIARA lava flow simulation model (Crisci et al., 2010).

A much more sophisticated effort was thus launched in recent years, which involved several groups of scientists from various universities in Italy and abroad, and the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia. I participated in some of this work, and the results are encouraging. The main means of defining the hazard from lava flow invasion, and fine-tuning the hazard zonation and the vulnerability of the Etnean area at very high resolution, is computer simulation of lava flows. Different models have been applied at Etna for the simulation of lava flows, which are described in much detail in publications by Crisci et al. (2010), Favalli et al. (2009), and Herault et al. (2009).

It is now possible to recognize those areas that would be impacted first - obviously those lying in morphologically low areas - and where to concentrate rescue efforts and salvage operations once the location of an imminent or starting eruption is known. The tens of thousands of computer simulations carried out during the project have not only served to produce very detailed hazard maps for Etna, they also produced virtually all possible eruption (lava flow) scenarios for any location on this volcano. These scenarios can be extracted with a few mouse clicks on demand, so that simulating new scenarios causing loss of precious time will not be necessary.

The risk of damage and disruptions caused by tephra fall has been seriously underestimated at Etna until recently, mainly due to the (false) notion of Etna being a non-explosive volcano. During the about 150 episodes of lava fountaining during the 1995-2001 "Millennium Fireworks" at the summit craters, heavy showers of ash and scoria (very porous, black, centimeter-sized fragments of lava) occurred frequently on the flanks of Etna, causing damage to crops, and sometimes breaking car windshields and disrupting road traffic. During one of these episodes, on 26 April 2000, a passenger airplane starting from Catania airport with more than 100 passengers on board encountered the tephra plume and falling scoria cracked its windshield, whereupon the airplane had to return for an emergency landing in Catania. Since that incident, air traffic is severely restricted during explosive eruptions at Etna.

This became a particularly biting issue during the prolonged ash falls from the 2001 and 2002-2003 flank eruptions, and again during the 2006 summit eruption. For periods of days to weeks, the airport of Catania remained closed, sometimes even the airport of Reggio Calabria, on the Italian mainland about 70 km northeast of Etna, had to be closed as well. For this reason, people in Sicily were not particularly shocked when Iceland's EyjafjalljÃ¶kull brought all air traffic in Europe to a grinding halt in the spring of 2010 for a few days, including northern Italy.

The revelation that ash-producing flank eruptions are far more common at Etna than previously thought indicates that the population around Etna and people travelling from and to Sicily in airplanes will experience further disruptions due to ash falls about once every 10-20 years. Obviously, tephra falls will be locally devastating if a flank eruption occurs close to the populated areas, as in 1669. A similar event would bury the villages to the east and southeast - including Pedara, my home town Trecastagni, Mascalucia, Tremestieri, and a few more - under up to several meters of tephra. In this moment, I know of no preparations for such a case, and educating the public (administrators and inhabitants) to create an awareness of this and other hazards is overdue.

Earthquakes accompanying the movement of magma or caused by magma-induced flank displacement are frequent on the eastern, southeastern, and southern flanks of Etna, and often cause significant material damage and occasionally kill people. Such events cannot be predicted, and prevention such as earthquake-resistant construction is essential. Building codes are applied for new constructions since the 1980s, but an amazing quantity of residential buildings as well as hospitals and school buildings were constructed during the 1960s to 1980s without applying any codes, so that a tremendous number of such buildings are vulnerable. This is an issue of unimaginable proportions, and extends far beyond Etna's magma-related seismic activity, because all of eastern Sicily is a high-risk seismic zone due to the presence of several major regional tectonic fault systems, and a number of large population centers such as Catania and Messina lie in this area, having a building stock of which maybe 20 per cent would resist (not collapse) during a major earthquake.

Volcanic sector collapse is known to have occurred at least once during the history of Etna, about 9000 years ago, forming the Valle del Bove. This event is believed by some researchers to have caused a massive tsunami, which ravaged the coasts around the eastern Mediterranean (Pareschi et al., 2006). Although the flanks of Etna continue to be severely affected by instability, the risk of a major sector collapse and related tsunami is currently considered low.

Pyroclastic flows are a fairly new discovery at Etna, although this volcano has proved more inventive in different mechanisms to generate such flows than any other volcano. I have had the doubtful privilege to witness small pyroclastic flows in the summit area of Etna on two occasions, in 1999 and 2006, and at very close range (less than 1 km), and a few colleagues have made similar experiences. These flows were showing nearly all the characteristics of pyroclastic flows on other, generally more explosive volcanoes, but were - luckily - very small and some apparently were much cooler than their more common counterparts.

Pyroclastic flow caused by the collapse of an oblique eruption column from the Southeast Crater, on 16 April 2000. Note the numerous people near the building in the left foreground, immediately after this photo was taken they fled downslope, and no one was touched by the flow. Note the large pyroclastic fragments in the air above the pyroclastic flow. Building is Torre del Filosofo, which was buried under tephra during the flank eruption of 2002-2003. Photo courtesy of Jean-Claude Tanguy, published in Behncke (2009).

During the past 25 years, small pyroclastic flows have occurred on at least 10 occasions in the summit area and on the upper flanks of Etna. A few were caused by collapse of eruption columns, which is one of the most common mechanisms of pyroclastic flows worldwide. A fine example of this type occurred on 16 April 2000 at the Southeast Crater, when a heavily charged pyroclastic jet shot out obliquely from an opening flank vent, the heavy downpour of gas-charged fragments developing into a pyroclastic flow that passed a few hundred meters from dozens of spectators, luckily without reaching any of them. Similar events occurred in 1986 at the Northeast Crater, repeatedly during the numerous lava fountaining episodes from the Southeast Crater in 2000 (and possibly also during similar events in early 1999), and more recently, on 10 May 2008 and on 8 April 2010.

A very different scenario was the one we encountered on 25 October 1999, during the one-month-long eruption that filled the Bocca Nuova to overflowing (Behncke et al., 2003). On that day, magma pushing through hot, though largely solid material filling the crater, uplifted a portion of that material, raising it like a lava dome and thrust it over the crater rim onto the steep outer flank of the central summit cone. The flank of this dome-like mass steepened, becoming unstable and collapsing like the flanks of a growing silicic lava dome, much the same way as the lava domes of SoufriÃ¨re Hills on Montserrat or Merapi in Indonesia. The collapsing masses of hot, gas-charged rock transformed into small pyroclastic flows that traveled at a speed of about 70 km per hour, and some of us were just a few hundred meters away from these flows.

Ground and aerial views of the small pyroclastic flows that formed during the Bocca Nuova eruption on 25 October 1999. These flows were generated by the collapse of a mass of hot lava, which was pushed from inside the crater over its western rim. Note the vigorous Hawaiian-style lava fountains in both images. Photos by Marco Fulle (top) and Marco Neri (bottom)

The most impressive pyroclastic flows seen in recent years at Etna were those of November 2006, and they were also the most enigmatic in terms of the mechanisms which generated them. On 16 November, during one of many eruptive episodes at the Southeast Crater between July and December 2006, lava issuing from the summit of the cone interacted explosively with wet, hydrothermally altered rocks into which it was eroding, causing numerous small and two larger (up to 1.5 km long) pyroclastic flows (Behncke et al., 2008). Different interpretations of the causes of the larger flows were proposed by Norini et al. (2009) and Ferlito et al. (2010), the earlier proposing a purely gravitationally induced collapse of the cone (the pyroclastic flow was in fact described as a debris avalanche by Norini et al., 2009), the latter envisaging a sudden decompression of shallow magma when the cone's flank collapsed. These scenarios fail to take into account that removal of a significant portion of the cone was not an instantaneous event but occurred over more than 6 hours at a rather slow speed, a process that I and numerous colleagues had observed since early on that day. But whatever the details of the causes, the pyroclastic flows were large enough to engulf people had they travelled southward rather than southeastward. The temperature was probably low, because plastic-coated wooden signs placed along a tourist path had not suffered any heat effects, but the mechanical impact might have been deadly for any living being in the path of the pyroclastic flows.

Dramatic sequence of photos showing development of a large pyroclastic flow from the southeastern base of the Southeast Crater cone on 16 November 2006, photographed from about 1.5 km to the south. The first photo (upper left) shows the initial explosive jets that generated the flow, consisting entirely of ash, blocks, and water vapor, but little incandescent material. The abundance of water vapor indicates involvement of a large volume of wet, hydrothermal-fluid-soaked rock, which mixed and interacted explosively with hot lava flows. Building visible in the first three frames is what remains of Torre del Filosofo, largely buried under 2002-2003 tephra. Photos courtesy of M. La Rosa

Similar pyroclastic flows occurred on 24 November and were again observed at close range by a geologist (Robin Campion from Belgium), but no study of the deposits and on the triggering mechanisms was carried out in this case.

Finally, a fourth mechanism producing pyroclastic flows was discovered during an episode of lava fountaining and emission of voluminous, fast-moving lava flows from the Southeast Crater on 29 March 2007. In this case, a large lava flow encountered deep snow on a steep slope, and apparently disintegrated as snow melted and failed under the moving lava; this caused powerful explosions which in turn produced pyroclastic flows and mudflows that advanced for about 1 km downslope into uninhabited areas.

As far as can be understood from current knowledge, pyroclastic flows as those observed in the past few decades are a severe hazard for visitors to the summit area, but do not threaten the lives and property of the people living on the slopes of Etna. However, larger pyroclastic flows were generated during the cataclysmic eruptions at the end of the Ellittico stage about 15,000 years ago, and during the 122 B.C. Plinian eruption. Chances of an Ellittico-style event are extremely remote, because the magma composition is different today, but an event like in 122 B.C. cannot be fully excluded to occur even in the short term.

Much, much more could be told about Etna - such as the relationship of the volcano with the people who live next to it, and the various monitoring techniques now being applied by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia of Catania, as well as a number of groundbreaking research efforts. It would be well worth to indicate how Etna can be discovered by volcano and nature lovers without beating the common tourist paths. All this may come in a future guest blog - and, obviously, one day there will be a new eruption to inform you of. We are all waiting for it - hoping that we will still have a peaceful summer and maybe a peaceful Christmas, and a peaceful next year. One day time will run out, and be certain that you'll receive the news firsthand here on this blog.

References
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Behncke, B., Neri, M., Nagay, A. (2005) Lava flow hazard at Mount Etna (Italy): new data from a GIS-based study. In: Manga, M., Ventura, G. (Eds), Kinematics and Dynamics of Lava Flows. Geological Society of America Special Paper, 396: 189-209, doi: 10.1130/2005.2396(13)

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Behncke, B., Calvari, S., Giammanco, S., Neri, M., Pinkerton, H. (2008) Pyroclastic density currents resulting from the interaction of basaltic magma with hydrothermally altered rock: an example from the 2006 summit eruptions of Mount Etna, Italy. Bulletin of Volcanology, 70: 1249-1268, doi: 10.1007/s00445-008-0200-7.

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Branca S. (2003) Geological and geomorphologic evolution of the Etna volcano NE flank and relationships between lava flow invasions and erosional processes in the Alcantara Valley (Italy). Geomorphology, 53, 247-261, doi: 10.1016/S0169-555X(02)00315-X

Branca, S., Del Carlo, P. (2005) Types of eruptions of Etna volcano AD 1670-2003: implications for short-term eruptive behaviour. Bulletin of Volcanology, 67: 732-742, doi: 10.1007/s00445-005-0412-z

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eklemetti Thu, 08/19/2010 - 22:05

Dome collapse at Karangetang in Indonesia

eklemetti — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:36:01 +0000

Dome collapse at Karangetang in Indonesia

Karangetang in Indonesia erupting in June of 2007.

This year we haven't had a lot of news about volcanic activity in Indonesia. This is not to say that eruptions haven't been happening, rather they just haven't been in the news. If you check out the current status of the volcanoes of Indonesia, you'll see that no less than six volcanoes are on orange (Level 2) status and another fourteen are on yellow (Level 1 - and there is a Level 0 as well). So, it is a active arc as arcs go (compare that to the Aleutians or Cascades).

This means that it should come as little surprise that Karangetang on the island of Sulawesi erupted overnight. Based on the reports, it seems that the volcano had a partial dome collapse (possibly aided by heavy rains) that caused a block-and-ash flow to be generated along with potentially a minor explosive column. This eruption was not expected and the collapse happened so rapidly that there were no evacuations and at least four people are dead and more are missing. The local government is now evacuating the nearby villages.

Karangetang is a very active volcano, with frequent small eruptions over the last 10 years, mostly in the VEI 1-2 range. However, just because most eruptions are small doesn't mean you should be lulled into a sense that the volcano is "safe". You can see images of the region around the volcano and some of the small Strombolian explosions that occur frequently at the volcano over on Stromboli Online along with video of an eruption in 2009 (video) from an Indonesian newscast.

eklemetti Fri, 08/06/2010 - 03:36

Tags

Well, this is a gruesome, unexpected, surprise.
Volcanoes are capable of catching people totally unaware of their imminent danger.
This reminds me of jÃ¶kulhlaups in HuaskarÃ¡n, Huila and Iceland. Also landslides and mudflows that may occur even when volcano is dormant. Another example was the sudden lava lake collapse in Nyiragongo, all deadly events.
That this may serve as an alert to people living near volcanoes, specially if they have an icecap on it.
Thanks for the post, Erik.

How sad that some were caught off guard. I hope that everyone in danger is able to get away before anyone else is hurt.

I have a question about all the earthquakes happening near Yellowstone. My guess is that there should be no concern since there aren't that many quakes happening and they are all quite small.

I was just wondering if there was a good site to monitor the activity other than usgs.gov?

I am a volcano novice that just really got interested in volcanoes with the EyjafjallajÃ¶kull eruption. So I'm learning as I go along.

Thanks in advance for any info!

@Janet - Have you looked at the webicorders from the Univ. of Utah: http://www.quake.utah.edu/helicorder/yell_webi.htm

Also, maybe I'm missing something, but things look pretty quite on the Yellowstone webicorders. Maybe a few jolts from aftershocks from Wednesday's Teton earthquake, but not much else?

Hey Janet, I'm new at this too but I have found some really good sites both on my own and from this excellent site.

For Iceland go to: http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/

A great site for Yellowstone is: http://www.quake.utah.edu/helicorder/imw_webi.htm

For all events from weather to volcanoes try: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php?area=&lang=eng or

http://www.hewsweb.org/home_page/default.asp

And last but not least http://www.volcanolive.com/news.html is a great site for Volcano updates.

I hope that these help.

Rob

Janet: You can watch the webicorders on the University of Utah site. The ones to watch for this sequence are in the Tetons, especially the MOOW station.

You can see a lot of activity that is too small to be on the earthquake map.

http://quake.utah.edu/helicorder/teton_webi.htm

Thanks so much Erik and Jen. I will check out the Utah webicorders.

I agree that it's nothing to worry about. I just like watching the activity on different volcanoes. Heck, I get a kick out of watching the Old Faithful webcam! :o)

If you look at the YMR station is this activity normal?

@Janet -
If you like to watch geyser activity, here's Geysir http://eldgos.mila.is/geysir/ - yes, the one that gave the name to the rest, although it got mangled in the process.

Watching the activity of volcanoes in real time is fascinating, and is clearly not a new phenomenon! If you get the chance to visit the exhibition in Compton Verney, near Stratford on Avon in England, there are some amazing paintings of historical eruptions, including of Vesuvius, painted in the 18th and 19th centuries - I hadn't realised how often Vesuvius had erupted - and images from Iceland, of volcanoes and their impact on people and the landscape. The exhibition was 3 years in the planning and has borrowed pieces from a wide range of different exhibitions.

Typical news media work: as they have no footage of the latest Karangetang eruption, they are linking in the 2009 eruption video.

@Kultsi ~

Thanks! That's a nice one. I just love watching those. There is something about watching the earth in action. My family thinks I'm such a nut...hehe! They call me a "volcanotard". I've collected a folder full of videos of eruptions, both on land and under water. I like seeing "new real estate" being made. If I was younger I would no doubt be going to college again to study all of this.

Thanks to Erik and this blog I have learned a lot. Lot's of nice people here have answered so many of my dumb questions over the months too.

http://www.quake.utah.edu/helicorder/ymr_webi.htm

@Kultsi (#9), I guess that's because Karangetang lies on an extremely remote little island where you can hardly expect any cameramen to wait for a dome collapse, which is a very sudden, unpredictable, and short-lived volcanic event. News will over and over again feature archived footage of volcanoes, because some eruptions will occur during bad weather, others will be over before any camera is aimed at them, so there will be not always be some exclusive footage of a new eruption available.

In any case this event illustrates what my point about Katla being an "overrated" volcano was in a previous entry here. While all the world looks at one volcano (like Katla or Yellowstone), or one determined area (Iceland), other volcanoes will erupt elsewhere and spread death and destruction without anybody having thought about them. I do consider Katla potentially a very hazardous volcano but it's intensely monitored and a new eruption will not come as a surprise. There's not much more that can be done about it in this moment than wait and see if signs of an imminent eruption become clear - and hope the lessons from EyjafjallajÃ¶kull have been learned. But there are numerous volcanoes elsewhere that are not properly monitored, where communication is relatively limited and logistics are far from perfect, that's where people are likely to die.

@Boris, being a non-seismographer can you explain the helicorder I posted earlier today at no. 11? Are these movements due to outside effects or seismological events?

@Janet TX. I too love to watch old faithful. Have you ever seen the double blow? Old faithful and some other geyser in the background. Really cool.

@11: YMR station at Yellowstone picks up much human activity (mainly cars, etc). That's why, if you haven't noticed yet, there's an increase in signal during day/work hours, especially in summers. During night time all goes quite again.

@parclair ~

Yes, I have seen the double. Awesome stuff! I hope one day to get out there to see it in person. Till then the internet will have to be my travel provider. :)

Another beautiful thing I've enjoyed the last couple of days....all the beautiful aurora pics that have been coming in. There were some splendid ones in Iowa!

http://spaceweather.com/aurora/images2010/04aug10c/Mike-Hollingshead1.j…

And in Minnesota!

http://spaceweather.com/aurora/images2010/04aug10c/Tom-Pinkerton3.jpg

@9 Geysir doesn't erupt, Strokkur does though

Speaking of Yellowstone.

12 years of quakes

http://i33.tinypic.com/ih87c8.png

I haven't worked up a background map for it, but I was able to get all the data into a sheet to fiddle with.

@lurking. Are the xy on your chart lat/long? Thnks for the chart

Yes. If I fiddle with the longitude to reverse the sign, I label it as west longitude. I didn't on this one so I didn't label it.

I had enough of a problem trying to get the 4D aspect working right to color them by year. I'm still new at 4D.

@parclair

Heads up on that plot. For 2007, there is a big arse hole in the data. About 71.8% of them are missing... everything from 03/31/07 Until the end of the year.

According to www.quake.utah.edu/EQCENTER/LISTINGS/OTHER/yellowregion.htm there are 947 quakes there, but only 267 in the actual file.

No, I don't know why. Could be a DB glitch on their server. Everytime I pull it down I get the same file.

@Lurking ~

Very nice chart. Without the background map it's a nice little piece of art! :)

@Janet TX

There's an app for that.

Same plot, sans lines.

http://i34.tinypic.com/2aew740.png

Amaze your cohorts, print it up on a color printer and hang it on the wall... wait until someone asks you what it is.

thanks Lurking great plots again.

Blame Canada,
photo of the mud
www.calgaryherald.com/news/people+evacuation+alert+after+melting+glacie…

http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/volcanoes/cat/feature_meager_e.php
This is on Mt. Meager, near Pemberton, which is in the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt

Earthquake Data
http://earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/index-eng.php

Thanks to all of you for the wonderfull comments, all well said.
Thanks for your story Jon!
"The answer is blowing in the wind."
Im one of the trolls, but you really dont feed them bad.
You all listen, explain, help and guide us through all this stuff.

A raving question:

Is the recent Mt. Meager mudslide a jÃ¶kulhlaup?

http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/volcanoes/haz_e.php

@Raving -
Ice as such does not carry sediments the way water mixture does, as the case has clearly been here. So I say: there must have been water dammed within the glacier and the collapse released that water: a jÃ¶kulhlaup; on the way down the slope the water-ice mixture gathered sediments, filled the first valley with highly-fluid stuff that proceeded down the valley in a huge lahar wave, denuding the slopes of any loose stuff and gathering more ammunition that way. When the lahar reached more level ground, the debris sank and was left there, blocking the other waterways.

Currently, the danger is in the damming/dam breaking of the rivers and subsequent flash floods downriver.

Anyone more knowledgeable of these things shoot me down.

This is the ause of the no reconstruction of ChaitÃ©n, a volcano that is fully active, although the fire could destroy the city before an eruption.

Grrr.... responded in the wrong thread.

My Post[168] from the other thread:

Whoahhh....

A TV station picture gallery of it is located here:
www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/gallery/html/bc_mudslide_100806/photo_6.html

I linked to what appears to be the (or a) scarp face. This was not a small slide based on the amount of tree cover scoured off the valley walls.

Reporter Leah Hendry: "...it's made out of this kind of volcanic rock, almost like the kind of feeling of a pumice stone, so when the water ends up getting in there and ah it's been warm and the waters melting and it ends up breaking that rock right off, which is why they're concerned about the rain..."

Well, she's excited and on scene. At least she wasn't seen dragging a fallen limb into position set up a more exciting camera shot like Geraldo did here in Pensacola.

And just in case the TV station changes the content around (which many tend to do), here's that scarp photo squirreled away for safekeeping:

http://tinypic.com/?t=postupload

Umm... okay, this one, that's an upload link.

http://i34.tinypic.com/osh5yc.jpg

Pic number two in the series here http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/gallery/html/bc_mudslide_100806/photo_6.html shows the jÃ¶kulhlaup evidence in the glacier: immense meltwater holes and canyons.

But that's not a glacier. It's looks more like loosely consolidated material that the water pushed through... similar but different.

I think the reported had it right.

"it's been warm and the waters melting and it ends up breaking that rock right off"

It's a mass wasting event of... well, surreal proportions.

According to RUV news, there was an avalanche downslope EyjafjallaÃ¶kull.
In Icelandic:
http://www.ruv.is/frett/aurskrida-vid-eyjafjallajokul

BTW: What happened to RUV cams?

#32 There's an image posted with the news showing huge blocks (of ice?). If anyone could take a look and explain what are those circular marks on all the blocks I would be glad to hear. :)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Meager

Highly erodible volcanic soils.
Steep hillsides at elevation.
Glacier recession.
Last 6 years, record warmth.

Glacier tongue failure? Possibly. July is the warmest month in the region. More precip falls in summer as rains than in winter as snowfall.

Geologists sent in to evaluate the cause should be posting a report in the next few days.

@24 Dennis - Did a quick search of scienceblogs for 'Meager' and only noticed your post after I had posted my question. I apologize for not noticing it beforehand.

When is a mudslide not just a mudslide?

a) When the mud comprises volcanic sediment, it is called a 'lahar'.

b) When the retaining moraine wall of a subglacial reservoir fails it called a 'jÃ¶kulhlaup'.

Can it be assumed that 'jÃ¶kulhlaup' might occur independent of geothermal activity?

What is the likelihood that geothermal heating played a role in this event?

#35: Geothermal activity is present. Affected river valley area is known for it's hot springs.

@33: Mudslide, after heavy rains, not avalanche (snow). Note farmers field of hay stubble. I think your 'Stones' are hay ricks, tarp-covered to keep them from rotting.

Aside: Google *really* must do something about their Icelandic-to-English web translator.

@33 Renato -
Those white things are round hay bales, wrapped in plastic - the "cow eggs" we discussed earlier.

@35 Raving -
Yes, jÃ¶kulhlaups may occur without geothermal activity, in the summer when enough seasonal meltwater gets dammed and then breaks loose.

@36 Passerby -
I quite agree with you about the Google translator and Icelandic. However, they would need somebody from Iceland to help in a big way.

#37 @Kultsi: How come I have not learned my lesson! Tricked again by the cow eggs. Shame on me. Thank you!

OT:

"In a new article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by David Wake of the University of California, Berkley detailed how four different waves of divergence among frog species -- the point when new species are created from a common ancestor -- can be explained by four major tectonic events in the region.

The uplift caused by India slamming into the Eurasia tectonic plate created natural barriers that isolated the frogs and led to a diversification in species over time.

...first split in frog lineage occurred around 27 million years ago: Nanorana frogs evolved north and northeast of the Himalaya-Tibetan plateau, and Quasipaa amphibians evolved east and southeast of the plateau...

Further [splits] occurred around 23, 19, and 9 million years ago as new episodes of geologic chaos played out..."

Hirji , Zahra. "Tiny Frogs Reveal Big Secrets of Plate Tectonics". Discovery News. 7 August 2010
http://news.discovery.com/earth/tiny-frogs-reveal-big-secrets-of-plate-…

#39 @Lurking
Another link on the same subject:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100805173008.htm

@Renato Rio
RE Post by: Renato Rio | August 7, 2010 2:48 PM

Google Translate version in English ... sort of, lol ...

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layou…

:>)

There is an interesting shift from quakes at Eyja to Katla, but nothing too unusual, as compared to last year, when the occurance of frequent quakes at Katla was also a pattern.

For example, it is hard to be excited about the 6 quakes at Katla in the past 48 hours (Aug 6th pm). Four of them were less than 1.0 magnitude. And more food energy is obtained by a human from a McDonalds Big Mac Sandwich (2.25 mega-joules) than is released in a 1.0 magnitude earthquake (2.0 mega-joules)! Haha, that's a good fact to keep in mind ... keeps things in perspective.

William Boston

The ground around Katla appears, to me, to be rising and spreading outward.

I have been observing the three Eyja-Katla GPS stations which are closest to Katla: FIM2, SOHO, and GOLA.

Here are the stations on a map:
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/eyja.png

Here are the GPS Stations' data plots:
FIM2: http://notendur.hi.is/runa/FIM2.png
SOHO: http://notendur.hi.is/runa/SOHO.png
GOLA: http://notendur.hi.is/runa/GOLA.png

Here's how I see it:

FIM2: Clearly rising trend the past two weeks. Moving south the past 2 weeks (consistent with Katla swelling).

SOHO: Rising slowly ever since Eyja eruption; rising a tad faster the past week. Possibly. new southward movement (consistent with Katla swelling).

GOLA: Rising in past two weeks. Possible sleight change of E-W movement toward the west (consistent with Katla swelling)?

Very preliminary ... but the links are good to have for keeping tabs on the ground action (or lack thereof) at Katla.

Also OT, but useful to bookmark.

Global Map of Seismicity, 1975-1995.

www.ruf.rice.edu/~leeman/seis_world.gif

Useful reference when you are wondering if a particular EQ location is unusual, also for discerning larger patterns of ridges, subduction zones, back-arcs and continental tectonics.

$40: Very cool article, with an unusually detailed article summary in Science Daily.

@passerby, is that last bit missing a link? The .gif didn't seem to have an article attached...neat graphic, tho.

#41 @WIlliam No wonder I got confused by the "whale tongues". :)
#44 @birdseyeUSA works for me... thank you @passerby

@Katla Seismicity

Hmm... that would put the Mag 7.2 Mexicali quake right at the 1.59 GigaMac range

"...great deeds equipment are working in medical channels that creeps filled..."

Oh. Dear.

Evidently the slopes of the range that Meager Mt is in (where the mondo slide was) have a tendency to just fall off. Even on the imagery in Google maps you can see slide scars all over the place.

50Â°37'54.00"N 123Â°30'16.00"W

What a beautiful site. Difficult to believe that it could do so much damage.

@29 Lurking
That scarp shows in the Google Earth images that predate the latest slide, and it's on Mt Meager's main peak - I suspect that damage is from the smaller slide last year. This latest slide is said to have come off the adjacent Capricorn glacier just to the left of that scene.

As an aside, the initial report on the slide referred to Meager as the "latest large volcano to erupt in BC", but in later reports that was twisted to "largest, latest volcano to erupt in BC" which I believe is incorrect on both counts. The gsc.nrc.gc.can/volcanoes website lists several that have erupted more recently and some that are larger...

@Lurking #46

Actually, I calculate it as 1.9 GigaMacs. An order of magnitude increase is ~32x increase in energy, and 0.2 increase in magnitude is ~2x increase in energy. So 6.2 orders of magnitude increase from 2.0 MJ of a 1.0 quake expressed in Big Macs is (2 MJ x 32^6 x 2)/2.25 MJ/mac = 1.9x10^9 Macs.

Of course, this is an approximation...the real value would also be influenced by whether we're talking Richter Magnitude or Moment Magnitude, which determines how closely the rule of 32 applies to the actual logarithmic energy curve (although Moment Magnitude was designed with a correction factor to align it closely to the Richter Scale, there are differences that increase as the magnitude increases).

Hmm...now I'm going to start referring to earthquakes by their Big Mac magnitude...if earthquakes weren't so damned deadly this might even become an internet meme. :p

It's been a busy morning for seismic news about Mexico and Chile, here are the links for the stories.

Mexico: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-258

Chile: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10822259

It certainly looks like things are starting to really wake up now, from Mount Karangetang's sudden eruption in Indonesia to the huge glacier that broke off in Greenland http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10900235.

The one thing that has been at the back of my mind are the series of EQ's in the Philippines that happened at 650km deep, the main reason for that is a lot of the quakes were measured at a magnitude of 6 or higher, for a quake that high on the surface it would have to be huge 650km's in order to travel to the surface.

Amazing!
The BigMac Quakes,
nice perspective for a Mag. 1.0

Thanks for all the links, still i dont get the whole story behind the "less-accepted geologic theory", but it sounds interesting.

@ #42, 46 & 51. To continue the pythonesque - let's update the VEI in the same way! Using the BMEI, BigMacEruptiveIndex, the 1.7 x 10^12 MJ released by Mt St Helens in 1980 should correspond to 755 GigaMacs. What next? Free USGS updates with your take-away order?

Mad (crazy for AmE speakers) as it seems, it might actually be a way to provide funding for adequate volcano monitoring. With the USA alone eating some 30,000 million hamburgers per year, even 0.1 cent per burger (in return for the scientific community using the term "(Giga) Macs" to lighten up their reports) should result in some $30 million for volcano monitoring. Could it be jacked up to a staggering 1 cent per burger?

Every day, especially in summer the park opens in Yellowstone at about 6 a.m. and the YMR sensor goes crazy. Trucks and buses, cars, people start to position for the race in. The main drag into the park from the west is right next to YMR and the next favorite place is Old Faithful. The sensor picks it up and it looks like a swarm of quakes per Jacob Lowenstern of USGS

Wonder what it would look like if there was one parked next to Indy when the gates open 3 hours before a race, even more so during a race?

@12 hi like the one in Germany which is classed as a VE7 volcanic explosive 7 a super volcano Rhineland-Palatinate
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/read/index.php?pageid=svolcano_index&svid=…
Last eruption as-12,900yrs ago lastest activity was on the 30/07/10....Scientists believe that a new eruption could happen at any time,which today would be a disaster beyond all description according to this. well if thats the case dont you think people need to know more of this and more research should be done...

@leon [54] -
No, not suddenly like Karangetang, which had a lava dome, ie. solidified cover over the still fluid magma - an unstable system, if you ask me. At Karangetang, the heavy rains are said to be the cause of the lava dome collapse; whether thermal stress of sheer weight of the water, I cannot say. That kind of collapse needs not give any forewarning, as there need not be any EQs or other indicators.

In Germany, OTOH, EQ swarms and ground deformation are to be expected before an eruption. Four EQs this year do not a swarm make.

@ 53 M. Randolph K - the things we don't think about! Wonder what all our ground transportation, airport runways, subways, cars etc around major cities do - do you suppose we ever set off some sort of surface harmonics? Idle non-scientific minds.....

@56 birdseye. Wouldn't it be something if all the traffic in the LA basin was actually relieving stress on the faults in the area? Heh;-)

www.cartoonstock.com/directory/v/volcano.asp

www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF135-Volcano_Snails.jpg

/www.funnytimes.com/playground/gallery.php?tag=volcano

offthemark.com/search-results/key/volcano/

@58 passerby. teehee. I liked off the mark's "inactive volcanos" Perfect for a sunday.

@VolcanoMan [51]

I used log E = 1.5 M + 4.8 and did the comparison of the two values.

@57: ? How can mass loading from dense urbanization relieve either vertical or horizontal stress on a fault system??

Human-induced seismicity includes: Mining, oil and gas drilling, hydrofracking, and liquid injection (deep-well injection of wastewater, ASR (aquifer storage and recovery of reclaimed water) and geothermal field development).

Dense urbanization in highly-faulted coastal environments has been studied as a potential source of stress loading on faults, but geophyicists are very cautious about causal mechanics, as it's doubtful that these stresses propagate deep enough to set off an earthquake in a loaded fault segment.

For a giggle, nip over on YouTube and search for "Katla volcano". From the descriptions attached to the most popular videos, you will "learn" the following:

"Scientists are worried about an eruption at the Katla Volcano, which is overdue for an eruption and has increased its activity by more than 200% over the past days. Katla is a super volcano, more than 100 times as powerful as (EyjafjallajÃ¶kull)."

One of the video contributors, who has the tell-tale "2012" attached to his user name, responds to a comment to his video with the following words: "Without honest information from scientests we are in the dark" and "I feel justified in my public warning." To make matters worse, this is filed under the tag "Education".

Alas, people WILL believe what they WANT to believe and unfortunately, "honest information from scientists" is not only infinitely less exciting than scaremongering, but also requires that the consumer educates her- or himself to some extent.

This is why I love Eruptions, thank you Erik & all!

@Passerby [61]

Given enough cheeseburgers, the mass of a given population will increase at a rate inverse to the loss of mass over the regions that produced the material going into the cheeseburger...

#58 - #62 Hey, guys! Funny Sunday mood, uh?
@passerby loved the cartoons, specially the snails and the sloth.

One last volcano cartoon.

Now you know how a vent feels...
www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF076-Mountain_Dad.jpg

Speaking of snails, postings been kinda slow this weekend.

www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF082-Snail_Harassment.jpg

(may as well makeup for months of science-only comments)

My faves: "Inactive Volcanoes" and "Earth Dates Venus"

Thanks Passerby!

@Princess Frito - me too - @passerby, liked all the offthemark ones. Never thought of looking for cartoons on the web, let alone by subject ...you learn all kinds of things here! Anyone know any volcaano-related songs??? Must be some Hawaiian ones for/about Madam Pele, but others?

@Parclair #14 I have seen the double geyser blow at Old Faithful when I was there. One thing about that: the geyser in the background didn't used to be there! Old Faithful used to do its thing in three stages. It would start up, drop a bit, then go up further, then drop a bit than the really roar. It doesn't go as high as it used to and my guess is because of the one that goes off at the same time in the background. A lot of things changed after the quake in 1959. We had just left Yellowstone before it hit and my DH was parked about half a mile from the Madison Canyon slide when it hit. He was able to turn around and go back to West Yellowstone. Old Faithful is still predictable, but not as much as it used to be before that quake.

The ground around Katla appears, to me, to be rising and spreading outward.

I have been observing the three Eyja-Katla GPS stations which are closest to Katla: FIM2, SOHO, and GOLA.

Here are the stations on a map:
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/eyja.png

Here are the GPS Stations' data plots:
FIM2: http://notendur.hi.is/runa/FIM2.png
SOHO: http://notendur.hi.is/runa/SOHO.png
GOLA: http://notendur.hi.is/runa/GOLA.png

Here's how I see it:

FIM2: Clearly rising trend the past two weeks. Moving south the past 2 weeks (consistent with Katla swelling).

SOHO: Rising slowly ever since Eyja eruption; rising a tad faster the past week. Possibly. new southward movement (consistent with Katla swelling).

GOLA: Rising in past two weeks. Possible sleight change of E-W movement toward the west (consistent with Katla swelling)?

Very preliminary ... but the links are good to have for keeping tabs on the ground action (or lack thereof) at Katla.

William M, Boston

My level:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNKsGjGFQpo&feature=related

Ok everyone put your hands up in the air for this one!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcFtpWjZwlE

Best seriously, the best one was written at Calgary airport by Allen Andrew when he was trying to get to Europe when Lady Eyja erupted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRu3JFg_p08

Enjoy!

@54 Leon.

Actually Erik posted a very nice post on this blog regarding the Laacher See volcano a while back.
http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2010/02/laacher_see_the_caldera_in_th…

Quite interesting to read about it especially since there are some CO2 emissions on the south-east end of the lake indicating some activity. However the "Can erupt at any time" comment by some scientist somewhere is something that can be said about any given active volcano I assume. There was a few (unconfirmed) EQÂ´s in the area this year but iris.edu has not recorded this on http://www.iris.edu/seismon/zoom/?view=eveday&lon=11&lat=49 so I am not too sure about that.

But lets hope that this one does not erupt any time soon. That would be a catastrophy beyond comprehension. A VEI7 in such a populated area would be unimaginable. I cant imagine anyone would want this.

There is quite an interesting pattern in the latest three earthquakes on myrdalsjÃ¶kull, a fine line of three :)

http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myrdalsjokull/

Monday
09.08.201003:25:0363.602-19.1095.7 km1.630.782.5 km N of HÃ¡bunga
Monday
09.08.201003:14:5263.665-19.4075.7 km0.433.23.9 km ESE of BÃ¡sar
Monday
09.08.201003:12:4963.631-19.2594.8 km1.490.021.1 km SSW of GoÃ°abunga

Anyone that could explain this?

HolmsÃ¡ has a Normal waterflow 33,1 m3/sec
Eldvatn has a High waterflow 176,5 m3/sec

HolmsÃ¡ station is between MyrdalsjÃ¶kull and Eldvatn station.
Shouldnt this station record higher waterflows also?

Or is it two separate rivers?

And at 00.00 the night between 08.08.2010 and 09.08.2010 there was a dramatic increase in waterflow.

HolmsÃ¡ has a Normal waterflow 56 m3/sec
Eldvatn has a High waterflow 198 m3/sec

What could cause this? Dammed up water which was released?

@ Daniel

I think ...vatn means lake in english, so there is probably only an increase of water because of rain or so. if you consider to display the 1 month data package, this looks, in my opinion, just like a normal increase, because the waterlevel of the lake has been higher some times ago.

so just normal fluctuations in my understanding

@Daniel @Stefan -
Different rivers; here's HÃ³lmsÃ¡ http://en.ja.is/kort#x=514036&y=359278&z=7&q=h%C3%B3lms%C3%A1&services=…

and here Eldvatn http://en.ja.is/kort#x=528095&y=352921&z=7&q=h%C3%B3lms%C3%A1rfoss&serv… on the map.

I haven't located HÃ³lmsÃ¡'s measuring station, HÃ³lmsÃ¡rfoss, but the one with high flow, in Eystri Ãsar, is on the map.

Depending on context, 'vatn' does mean 'lake', but the basic meaning is 'water'...

Idea: Use many months of Eyja tremor amplitude data as input into a music synthrsizer or an audio synthesizer program in order to "hear the music of Eyja".

Maybe she is trying to communicate. O,o

Something soon going to happen at Kodiak island in Alaska? Lots column activity action there for a while now.

Here are Eyja-Katla GPS stations on a map:
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/eyja.png

Here is FIM2 GPS data plots:
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/FIM2.png

As I see it, FIM2 is clearly in a rising trend the past two weeks. Also moving south the past 2 weeks (consistent with Katla swelling).

Something to keep an eye on!

William,

a poster called Shirakawa (vaguely remember him using a different name here.. memory, memory,..) did that for the Yellowstone swarm last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=139lircZH4o&feature=player_embedded

Is Katla rising?

Now looking at GOLA GPS data.

Here is GOLA GPS stations on a map:
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/eyja.png

Here is GOLA GPS data ploted:
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/GOLA.png

It appears GOLA has been rising in the past two weeks. Possibly a sleight change of E-W movement toward the west (consistent with Katla swelling)?

Something to keep an eye on!

William M Boston

@William H Boston:

Beat you to it:-)
At least in a sense. I took the tremor chart from JÃ³ns helicorders and inputed it into motion-actuating servos in my recliner. Gave a fairly spectacular feeling sitting in the recliner, watching the cam-show on the video-projector and burping like a bat out of hell from the beer-atoms being split in the stomach when the tremors racked the body.

Beer-atoms = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEL_BT_Z6Yg

Is Katla rising? (part 3 of 3)

Now looking at SOHO GPS data.

Here is SOHO GPS stations on a map:
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/eyja.png

Here is SOHO GPS data ploted (a big graphic, scroll down):
http://notendur.hi.is/runa/SOHO.png

It appears SOHO has been rising slowly ever since Eyja eruption; rising a tad faster the past week. Possibly new southward movement (consistent with Katla swelling).

Something to keep an eye on!

William M Boston

William H Boston (On Katla):

Sorry, you should take a new look on the plots you have presented, most of the values are falling or steady and the two that I saw that are rising have done so in such a minimal way that they are within error-limits. No signs of Katla bopping:)

@bruce stout #77

Hearing & Visualizing GOD?

Yes, thanks for link. That was in my mind. The problem with "regular" seismic data though is that it is just a series of isolated, single-valued events, which gives rise to rather boring pings and pops when synthesized.

But the rather unique islandic "tremor plots" record a continuous waveform, which has the same form as audio waveforms, so something more like real music (or voice even?) would be expected when months of the tremor plot data are combined in a continuous stream and then highly compressed to match audio frequencies, and then played back via synthesizer.

Many audio players, such as Windows Media Player, will also give great animated visualizations based on the waveforms.

Wouldn't it be fun to hear and see a visualization of a tremor plot from GOD? :>)
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/oroi/god.gif
or, less noisy:
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/stodvaplott.html

And to hear how the music changed when Eyja erupted.

William M Boston

Interesting cool idea. Use cool edit pro? Or maybe use the free open source Audacity to play with the waveform.

@Carl #81

RE: Is Katla rising?

Yes, the movements are just barely noticeable at this time, and made subjectively, so additional observation is required before being considered conclusive.

That is why I famed the observations as a question: "Is Katla Rising?"

I hope we are talking about the same data plots. There are three plots in the graphic for each station. N-S plot, E-W plot and UP-Down plot. Since the graphics are huge, scrolling is required, or better yet, copying and pasting into a graphic file viewer program.

Anyway, I see it exactly as I stated in the posts above:

FIM2: Clearly rising trend the past two weeks. Moving south the past 2 weeks (consistent with Katla swelling).

SOHO: Rising slowly ever since Eyja eruption; rising a tad faster the past week. Possibly. new southward movement (consistent with Katla swelling).

GOLA: Rising in past two weeks. Possible sleight change of E-W movement toward the west (consistent with Katla swelling)?

Some of the movements stated are quite clear as I see it; but one week or a few weeks of a sleight trend does not constitute a significant event ... but it bears watching.

Many believe that Katla will soon be swelling with magma then erupting, so the data plots from those three GPS stations should be high priority for close scrutiny over the coming weeks and months, looking for evidence of ground rise and movement in a direction away from Katla.

William M Boston

as Jon stated

there is smoething going on under MyrdalsjÃ¶kull, from 30 km and up, so there is somthing stirring under there. but when or what will happen, is yet to be told,.

-There will be no surprice if "Katla the dragon" flies, but I recon that she will just keep on moving about,and stirr and in a few months or years she will tell us exactly what she are doing..

but there is something going on under that Icecap, and its not just icemovement thats for sure,.

#74 #77 Yes, Shirakawa is his nickname. He also made a very interesting edition on Redoubt's harmonic tremors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3AAWo2lUBE

I was tending to think that Katla had worn out her energy in last year's small eruption, and since it had been so quiet all through Eyjaf's event, I was not expecting much. But JÃ³n's statements changed my mind and present activity gives enough reason to say there's something there that wasn't there before. So, I think we must consider she will erupt any day in a near future, and this will keep us going with the good discussions here. Maybe Etna will come first, and then again we have Boris to lead us.
I only regret that RUV's cameras aren't working for me (Katla's and Hekla's).

Just checked, RUV's cams are back. Thank you RUV people!

Okay.... Eyj/Katla area 1 Aug - 9 Aug

View North

http://i34.tinypic.com/2qwot3c.png

View East

http://i37.tinypic.com/10dgzz4.png

Perspective View (copy paste the link, the forum software will jump all over me if I make it a real link)

i38.tinypic.com/23hxc2o.png

Thank you Lurking. In my layman opinion, there might be something rising there, but still too scattered to consider an eruption imminent.

Since we are furtively in prognostication mode...

A comparison of this month's quakes to a set back during the height of the Eyj love fest.

At about 10 to 15 km depth, the trends of the quakes tend to come together.

http://i33.tinypic.com/2jfyudv.png

@87: You are confused; there was no eruption last year. The last minor (subglacial) activity was 1999, followed by an inflation period thereafter, thought to be due to magma intrusion.

The period 1998-2004 was unusually warm, with extended and severe drought in many areas. We are in another drought period (they are common in LaNina-like periods), it's unusually warm for the first half of this year and we have historic fires ongoing in the Northern Hemisphere.

The resulting aerosol maps of late July-early August are worrisome. Smoke/carbon black from extensive biomass burning events over large continental land masses generates a super stable layer of heat-trapping aerosol. While the climate science folk are correct that these dense smoke layers prevent surface warming, anyone who has lived in an area inundated with smoke during the hot summer knows that near ground level air temperatures also do not cool at night. The heat is effectively trapped and grows for as long as the overlying air mass remains steady.

This is *precisely* why Moscow is now experiencing it's worst heat wave ever (the head of the Russian Meteorological ministry claimed this morning that it was 1000 years, but that would seem to be a slight exaggeration).

Smoke aerosols can be acidic; the chemistry effectively prevents water droplet formation, creating a dry area downwind.

Month-long heatwave and intense forest and peat-fires have exacerbated drought conditions across Russia, with new fires arising in the Volga valley and Siberia. On Sunday, as many new fires sprang up, as were put out by Federal emergency fire management teams.

Russia is one of the top suppliers of wheat; the wheat crops will be less than half of normal yield this year.
Egypt, Syria and Turkey are major importers of Russian wheat. They will have to look elsewhere for their purchases this fall and winter.

China has also had record agricultural burning in the East, adding to the smoke haze wafting through eastern Asia, and out in the Pacific. These brown clouds affect low altitude cloud formation and alter precipitation patterns over the open ocean. This affects SST (ocean surface temperatures) and in turn, may perturb seasonal weather patterns over North and Central America.

Meanwhile, Canada is facing an extended dry period and for a second summer, an early and exceptional fire season. In fact, the fires in central prairies are also breaking 130+ year old records.

Fires in the US are more moderate, but are adding to the smoke haze from Canada being carried on the Jet Stream...up and over the North Atlantic.

In other words, aerosol haze is building up in northern latitudes from multiple sources over major continental land masses.

NASA AIRS image of Aug 1, from UMBC, discussed on the JPL website (situation is much worse now, 8 days later)
www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-261

Most recent global SST Map
www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/contour/global100.cf.gif

You can see the heat-eddy propagation to the maritime coast of Iceland. The waters remain warm.

I wonder what that will lead to,. warm oceans means stronger storms during storm season, that kicks of in november-january..
In january 1st, 1992 Norway was hit by a hurricane with winds up 77 m/s(277 km ph), that year the atlantic ocean was very warm before the storm hit, and we had no winter..

this winter 2010, we had 2 meter of snow and really cold weather until mid of may, and the summer has been a disaster we have had 2 days with temps over 20,the rest well, lets say it has rained and rained, and rained..

I wonder what effect all that smoke and dust from all the fires and EyjafjÃ¶ll will have,and El Nino(La NiÃ±a) will surprice us with this season?

@92 also Spain has declared wildfires/wildfire risks in6 regions. and then Asia floods caused by the jet stream being to far south. http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?cid=27335

And this climate change Event 07/08/10
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?cid=27310

@passerby
You're right, I mixed the years, it was 1999 indeed. I was just reading this interesting article on Eyjaf-Katlia (posted sometime ago) and just noticed my mistake.
http://www.earthice.hi.is/Apps/WebObjects/HI.woa/swdocument/1015721/Stu…
It mentions EQ activity under MyrdÃ¡lsjÃ¶kull: "It has been suggested that the Godabunga cluster is an expression of a rising cryptodome" and relates seismicity to "seasonal ice load change and resulting pore pressure change at the base of the ice"
This heatwave is worrisome. Wonder what consequences would it have on future volcanic activity over Icelandic "jÃ¶kulls".
If you don't mind, I would be most thankful if you could provide any links to articles describing volcanism not caused either by subduction or mantle plumes (if there is such a thing).
And @passerby, we can never thank you enough for the illuminating content of your posts, always supported by solid references, which contribute to the general interest and seriousness of this blog.

if i remember back when Europe bake in a heat wave following spring summer Uk had the same problem with a heatwave. same this year i notice its slowly moving westwards but cant break through the north/west cool flow,A blocking effect know were for the high pressure to go so its stuck in the same area, so the Northpole is now getting colder and the rest will follow.will 2010/11 be worst than 09/10 with a even colder winter highly likely.global cooling has already begun! oh yeah thanks for the links @55 @69

Good lord, Renato, you're asking for a books worth of references.

I can't give you what you're asking for, because volcanoes form for obvious geological reasons. However, other factors can modulate or influence eruption activity periodicity. One of them is an extended period of large icecap presence, followed by rapid recession.

There was an enormous jump in continental volcanism in response to ice sheet recession, in several major syncopated postglacial rebound periods after the last Ice Age (over the last 12,000 years) and to a lesser extent, in major interglacial periods before then.

Thank-you for the kind words. Sometimes, I post here for necessary tintinnabulation, meant to...inform certain public officials. We're seeing interesting extremes at present, in record droughts, historic fires and rains in adjacent regions on the same continents.

The largest firestorm in US history occurred in 1902, in a period of record global heat and drought - records that in some places, would not be broken for the next 100+ years.

It was the end of the Little Ice Age in the far Northern latitudes. It was also the year Bardarbunga erupted.

And it was not coincidental, but there is much more to the cause than meets the eye.

Couple new papers from the IES on the topic of your inquiry.
www.earthice.hi.is/

Climate effects on volcanism: influence on magmatic systems of loading and unloading from ice mass variations, with examples from Iceland. (April 2010)

rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/368/1919/2519

Influence of surface load variations on eruption likelihood: application to two Icelandic subglacial volcanoes, GrÃmsvÃ¶tn and Katla. (April 2010)
www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/gji/2010/00000181/00000003/art00022

And lastly, PÃ¡ll Einarsson, of IES, apparently is tired of us posting about 'Eyja'.

"EyjafjallajÃ¶kull is not a difficult word"
www.evropusamvinna.is/page/ies_EYJO2010_word

Great, seismic grammar nazis.

I abbreviate it as Eyj typically when I am too lazy to cut-n-paste, which I tend to do from time to time. I also don't get bent out of shape when someone abbreviates a US state which I am sure happens quite a bit more than an abbreviation of a volcano. I don't usually abbreviate Katla or Hekla, mainly since it's just two more letters and pretty easy to toss in there on the fly. GrÃmsvÃ¶tn has a cool abbreviation as Grim, but it sounds pretty cool when fully pronounced... which is likely inaccurate, but the English pronunciation just sounds good. Sort of like a bad guy from a movie.

I realize that twits texting tweets has mangled most languages, but come on, I've managed to actually pronounce it correctly twice... and shortly after that gave up when I saw another native speaker pronounce it differently.

7.3 Earthquake in Vanuatu. According to John Seach http://www.volcanolive.com/news.html a small tsunami was generated. Next volcano is Kumae about 100 km NNE.
Vanuatu is very active this year.

#98 @passerby "Good lord, Renato, you're asking for a books worth of references."
Yes, I know, this is my endless curiosity. Don't take me serious, I'm sorry. But thank you for the tolerance and the links, I'll keep on asking things, so get prepared. There's still a lot of homework to do.

#17 Hazards of Geysir:
(Translated by Google with some help)
"Tourists at Geysir
Two years girl burned on the face, hands and chest when she fell into hot "Regression" of Geysir area on the afternoon. She was traveling with her parents when the accident occurred, but they are foreign tourists. She was brought in an ambulance to Reykjavik.
http://www.ruv.is/frett/telpa-brenndist-vid-geysi
Who said Geysir doesn't erupt? I have just seen a couple of eruptions reaching 18 - 20 m. I don't know if they were "induced" by powder detergents but they were neatly visible. Wonder there are no fences protecting people form accidents.
http://eldgos.mila.is/geysir/

A captured pic from Geyser erupting (~20 m)
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/s1Ky15d8J4Vmq85gSFKPDQ?feat=direct…

#103 -
Renato, some places are not 'nanny states' - they even assume parents looking after their offspring, not because the state shifts responsibility, but because that's the local way of things: they cannot imagine it being otherwise.

Likewise, the locals know the water shooting out is boiling hot, so they don't go too close, especially on the downwind side. Fences would be a sure way to get some a*ole going under or climbing over; getting your toes uncomfortably warm is a better warning sign, and taking a step back without a fence behind you is much faster.

Two steam plumes at Lady E today. The interesting one is the one on the east side of the summit crater (Thorolfsfelli cam) and seen to the south of the "eruption crater" in the Hvolsvelli cam.

Good morning everyone, there was a a strange tremor at Yellowstone at 23:00 hrs, there was some activity that was followed by long sine-wave measurements wich continued for some time and into today.

http://quake.utah.edu/helicorder/moow_webi_1d.htm

I checked some more locations and they showed the same thing on a different scale at the same time.

Does anyone have a idea what could cause this?

@107 Same goes for http://www.quake.utah.edu/helicorder/lkwy_webi_1d.htm

Strange sine-waves but it seems to me it is in a too regular pattern. Is there any one that could explain this? The time of day makes it a bit more strange...

#105 @Kultsi, thank you. I think I finally got the exact meaning of the word "nanny state". It's been often used in this site, but never knew exactly the meaning. I don't know how it is in Iceland, but in Yellowstone, for what I know, people often get seriously injured by stepping on fragile soil covers lying over superheated water around the geysers. As it seems, that's not the case in Iceland. So, let them children learn their lessons the hard way!
#107 Robert, good morning. Did you read the recent posts regarding noise interference in Yellowstone plots? We should always take it into consideration until we think something is really happen.

Hey Renato, what struck me as interesting was the time of day and the wide range of the sine-waves at multiple stations throughout the Yellowstone and Teton seismic measurement stations. The strangest thing is what Daniel noted was the same pattern throughout the region. The reading at the north-end for Pikes Peak http://www.quake.utah.edu/helicorder/ypk_webi_1d.htm shows the waves at 23:00, all the way to the southern end at Snow King Mountain http://www.quake.utah.edu/helicorder/snow_webi_1d.htm. It's just really odd.

@Robert Hurst and Daniel_swe (#107, 108, 110) - that's the Vanuatu Magnitude 7.6 earthquake earlier today that you can also see on the Etna seismograms
www.ct.ingv.it/Dati/Helicorders/ESVO_HHZ_IT/20100810/ESVO_HHZ_IT.0001.g…
Those long waves are typical of a large "teleseism" (that is, an earthquake at great distance)

@Boris Behncke, Catalina, Italy #111, Thank you Boris, it's amazing that a quake so far away can show up, it makes you wonder how much power is stored in the earths many plates.

@Renato (#103, 104): I think you saw Strokkur erupt. Geysir is the one in the front, and has no frequent eruptions. Strokkur goes every 4 to 8 minutes.

Are there other similar events picked up by Yellowstone recorders to suggest that this sin wave pattern is indeed from an earthquake on the opposite side of the world?

Re Katla: Relevant GPS sites are AUST and ENTA

See Fig 2.6 in Sturkell et al, Katla and EyjafjallajÃ¶kull Volcanoes

http://www.evropusamvinna.is/Apps/WebObjects/HI.woa/swdocument/1015721/…

Dec 25 2003 earthquake in Sumatra should show us a similar event if that sine wave is indeed from the Vanuatu earthquake, shouldn't the recorders in Yellowstone also have picked up the large Sumatra quake? Can someone check that out?

If not then we indeed have something else at work here.

@115 Raving

Before getting excited about AUST also consider ENTA and have a look at the historical data in the link provided.

GFUN has been getting taller.

@Raving [115] -
I'd love to get data from AUST & ENTA, but haven't found it this far, so I have to do with GOLA, FIMM & SOHO, from here: http://notendur.hi.is/runa/eyja_gps.html - the fast-orbit plots are old; the rest is up to Aug 4.

@RR 103:

Certainly Geysir erupts, very regularly - when I was there last month it was erupting every ten minutes or so, and this seems to be a very reliable pattern.

I can't understand who would let a child that age run free in such an obviously dangerous area; I'll be back there next week with my two year old girl, but she'll be strapped firmly in her stroller!

@Boris, #111

It certainly makes one feel like a tiny spec in the whole. :) Thank you for the explanation. I had no idea that it could have such an effect. Although it was a pretty big quake..

@Chris #116 - the big Sumatra earthquake was 26 December 2004 (there was a devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran, exactly one year before), and yes that was EXTREMELY evident on seismographs all over the world. There had been already a magnitude 8.1 the day before not far from Antarctica and looking up the Etna seismic graphs I thought "wow, that's a big one", luckily it struck a remote area, but the next day the world's luck ran out. Seeing the huge waves on the Etna seismic graphs I was struck with awe, then the news came in of the size of the disaster, the tsunami and all, and later it became evident that it had been a magnitude 9.1 (or maybe even 9.3). Unfortunately the graphs of the big Sumatra quake have long since gone from our archives, and I don't really wish you to see something similar anytime soon because it means really really EVIL stuff going down ...

@Kultsi, #118

It seems that there is a small (very small) uplift at SOHO and GOLA during the last week or so. Would this be an effect of a melting icecap? Reason would suggest that less pressure from the ice would result in a small inflation that is not nescessary due to magmatic pressure right?

Just taking a stab at a theory here..;)

@Kultsi [118]

hraun.vedur.is/ja/gps/predorb/aust_enu_p.png
hraun.vedur.is/ja/gps/predorb/enta_enu_p.png
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/gps/predorb/allar_pred.html

The time code on the x-axis had me fooled for the longest time.

(It is in the format "decimal year" :D )

@Boris and @Chris

If there WAS something else at work wouldnt the sine waves look a bit different? These seems to be too..long..(in lack of a better word) More like drop a pebble in a pond and the further away the waves go the more spread out they get.

Correction: GFUM ( not GFUN )

http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/gps/predorb/gfum_enu_p.png

@Daniel_swe, @Raving -

Thanks! Where is that GFUM thingy?

When looking at MÃ½rdalsjÃ¶kull, I'd never leave out the ones that I mentioned (GOLA, FIMM & SOHO). The data I use for them is from the IES site and is said to be "detrended" for annual & semiannual changes.

The text Raving gave in [115] also explains the EQs around GOLA.

There is actualy a small fence around Strokkur. I think the parents were just not looking good enough after they'r child. but bad things can happen, i for myself hope that the girl gets well soon. something like that should't happen to a girl that age.

@126 Kultsi. No biggie

That GFUM thingy is on top of VatnajÃ¶kull

http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/gps/predorb/

#128 - very good link: lots of GPS data and a useful map!

#87 Posted by: Renato Rio

RE: "Shirakawa ..edition on Redoubt's harmonic tremors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3AAWo2lUBE "

No telling from the video or comments there that there was harmonic tremor recorded. Harmonic tremor would be awesome to record though, because it seems almost like a pure sine wave, and may therefore sound like a single musical note or tone.

Also, Love or Rayleigh waves, which are the slowly transmitted vibational waves from an earthquake, as recorded at distant sensors are very like sinewaves, so they too should be interesting to record as audio. Yellowstone, for example, picked up some of these slow waves from today's (UTC time) Mag 7.3 quake in VANUATU:
http://yellowstonecaldera.net/Yellowstone/wrapper.php?file=YFT_SHZ_WY_0… (bottom of recording)

#130 @William I'm sorry. I thought I saw harmonic tremors edited on Shirakawa's Youtube Homepage. But maybe I'm wrong.

I haven't taken time to look for an Icelandic project extrapolation, but the University of Alaska Museum of the North has an on-going installation (since 2006) of environmental-sensor derived ambient music.

The Place Where You Go to Listen.
http://www.uaf.edu/museum/exhibits/

News story can be found at:
www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00016&segmentID=5

Excerpt:
'Alaska's state seismologist, Roger Hansen, also collaborated with Adams (composer who created the installation). Real-time seismic data continuously flows in from five stations around Fairbanks. Hansen says geologists have for decades sped up sounds of tectonic movements so humans could hear them. The low-toned drum sounds Adams developed to represent earthquakes are more artistic, but you can only hear them if you visit The Place since the low frequencies won't reproduce over the radio. Hansen says he enjoys the intersection of music and science. We have the fidelity of seismic data. It comes with different frequencies and amplitudes and harmonics â and those are all the same physics issues that you have in music, you know, whether it's piano strings or organ pipes.'

The Aurora Borealis is represented as bells. You can imagine how glorious it must be at present, with auroral displays adding their ringing tones to this ambient music project, after a prolonged Solar Minimum Quiet-time.

#132 That must be amazing!

I've been trying to get the museum to provide overnight live streaming from the display, via their WWW streaming audio link patched to the campus NRP station.

It would be very cool to listen to while working. There is another sensor driven environmental ambient 'machine', out of the UK, that streams space telescope radiowave-based music.

I like the idea of using ground-based (the UA installation picks up weather data and translates it, as well as natural sounds of nature, light levels, seismic, gravitational and others) sensor data feeds and synthesized overtones.

Any location with a set up a similar environmental sonics recording and translating equipment and streaming project would have an entirely different character and sound signature.

What would our favorite volcano sound like, I wonder, at full steam, fountaining fire at night, sending jets of ash skyward that is full of lightning? What would the massive ice field should like as it reacts to a thundering eruption, to summer rains, or when outlet glaciers are running with steaming water or lava?

Even when Iceland's volcanoes are not singing, the earth, ice, morraines, meltwater rivers and mountain weather is extraordinarily active. This small continent is booming with tectonic and volcanic-seismic activity.

Gods, it would be like listening to an endless symphony.

I find i somehow curious, that nobody mentioned this nice line of 4 quakes under VatnajÃ¶kull.

Have a look and lets talk about what you think ;)

http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/vatnajokull/

the image for savety:
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/845/1008110630.png
http://img838.imageshack.us/f/1008110630.png/ (the same, other link)

@134, 132 Passerby

Wow ... they sould should post on youtube.

I hope this issue gets resolved soon, so i can have someone to share my oilfield gifts with.

GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for July 28-August 3, 2010

eklemetti — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:54:33 +0000

GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for July 28-August 3, 2010

A new Weekly Volcanic Activity Report from the Smithsonian and USGS Global Volcanism Program!

Highlights from this week's report include:

Things are getting a little noisy in Colombia. I mentioned a few weeks ago about a possible explosion at Nevado del Ruiz. Now we have reports of increased seismicity under nearby Cerro MachÃn and ash plumes from Nevado del Huila. After a few centuries of relative quiet, it looks like the volcanoes of the Colombian Andes are looking more lively.
Also in South America, a gas plume was spotted at Chile's Planchon-Peteroa. This is the second time this year that increased gas emissions have been noted at the volcano that hasn't erupted since 1998.
Shiveluch on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia continues to rumble - ash plumes were produced from pyroclastic flows and steam-and-gas plumes reaching 4 km / ~13,100 feet were spotted as well.

eklemetti Thu, 08/05/2010 - 05:54

More activity in Wyoming just south of Yellowstone this morning, bringing the current EQ list to:
4.22010/08/05 14:59:28 43.646-110.416 5.0 34 km ( 21 mi) ENE of Teton Village, WY
4.82010/08/05 00:04:17 43.585-110.440 5.0 29 km ( 18 mi) ENE of Jackson, WY
3.02010/08/05 00:04:03 43.585-110.438 5.0 29 km ( 18 mi) ENE of Jackson, WY

though I can plainly see many aftershocks on this webicorder:
http://quake.utah.edu/helicorder/moow_webi_1d.htm
(for yesterday)

and this one for today:
http://quake.utah.edu/helicorder/moow_webi.htm

But there are still no updates to the earthquake map aside from the three larger earthquakes. What's up, USGS?

Hi Jen,

There may be no official statements from the USGS yet, but there is a bit of chatter on a local blog at:

http://www.jhunderground.com/2010/08/05/quake-watch-along-teton-fault/

I visited the place last summer, really interesting geology.

You can add another 3.2 at Wyoming @ 17:45 UTC. I can expect we'll see another swarm this winter.

The rumblings in Columbia, I'm wondering, if they're the effects of all the recent quakes in Chile.

Just came across the photo collection of Owen K. N. (as it seems he's a geologist) on Flickr, which has some outrageously spectacular aerial views of Bezymianny and Kliuchevskoi (or Klyuchevskoy) taken late July:
www.flickr.com/search/?q=klyuchevskoy&w=35670622%40N06&ss=1&s=rec
What strikes me most is the large cone that has grown within, and is now practically completely filling, the summit crater of Kliuchevskoi as seen in particular here:
www.flickr.com/photos/oneill244/4864468767/
The outline of the old crater rim is still marked by small knobs on both sides of the new cone.
Owen had the privilege to witness, from a safe distance, pyroclastic flows descending the southern or southwestern flank of Kliuchevskoi:
www.flickr.com/photos/oneill244/4864932936/
There are also spectacular views of a lava flow extruded from Bezymianny after its latest explosive eruption in May this year, like this:
www.flickr.com/photos/oneill244/4865084090/

Boris, just saw you on tv! Th Etna flank collapse program. Nice to put a face to a name!

Amazing pics, Boris, thanks a lot!

What Renato said - wish I'd been there; not only the volcanism, but also the fauna seems to be fascinating.

When I saw the equipment pics, I thought, "That must be KVERT stuff." ;)

Thanks Boris. I never thought a volcano could rebuild itself so quickly. What would be the mechanism? Super thick rhyolite? (ie so thick that it can't move?

Yesterday, I wondered if the August 4-5 strong solar storm might have any effect on magma flow on earth and therefore on earthquake activity. Or perhaps there may be more simple interactions between strong electro-magnetic (E-M) disturbances and the Earth's crust - which might result in tectonic movements and earthquakes.

I found that there were five magnitude 6.0 or greater (M6+) earthquakes during the solar storm's strong E-M disturbances of Earth's atmosphere and space environment. During the eight days from July 30 to August 6, there were only two other magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquakes, so there was a clear anomalously sharp increase in occurrence during the strong solar storm.

Note: Sometimes multiple numbers of M6+ earthquakes will be recorded within minutes or hours because they are at the same approximate location and part of the same tectonic event. But the five M6+ earthquakes recorded during the solar storm were not at the same location, but rather widely dispersed in locations around the pacific ocean.

This is only one correlation of a solar storm's E-M disturbances to the Earth's seismic activity, so no firm conclusions can be drawn. But the fact of the anomalously sharp jump in M6+ earthquake occurrences during the 33 hours of the solar storm's E-M disturbances upon Earth is very intriguing and should prompt for further study.

Here is the data:

----------------------------------------
E-M Anomaly In Earth's Space Environment:
----------------------------------------
Proton flux unusually high: Aug 3, 18:00 UTC to Aug 4, 06:00 UTC = 12 hours duration
E-M disturbance very high: Aug 3: 18:00 UTC to Aug 5, 03:00 UTC = 33 hours duration

Source: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/plots/satenv.html

----------------------------------------
Quakes >= Mag 6.0
Eight Days: Jul 30, 2010 to Aug 6, 2010
----------------------------------------
* 2010/08/05 03:00:00 SPACE E-M ANOMOLY ENDS

6.0 2010/08/04 23:48:03 45.964 153.216 33.6 EAST OF THE KURIL ISLANDS
7.0 2010/08/04 22:01:44 -5.768 150.776 44.0 NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
6.4 2010/08/04 12:58:25 51.426 -178.607 27.0 ANDREANOF ISLANDS, ALEUTIAN IS., ALASKA
6.4 2010/08/04 07:15:33 -5.521 146.793 213.6 EASTERN NEW GUINEA REG, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
6.0 2010/08/04 04:46:22 -26.953 -177.148 23.7 SOUTH OF THE FIJI ISLANDS

* 2010/08/03 18:00:00 SPACE E-M ANOMOLY BEGINS

6.3 2010/08/03 12:08:27 1.243 126.277 42.8 MOLUCCA SEA
6.3 2010/07/30 03:56:13 52.461 159.902 18.6 OFF THE EAST COAST OF KAMCHATKA, RUSSIA

Source: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

William Boston

@ Chris - I would doubt there is any connection between volcanic activity in Colombia and the seismicity earlier this year in Chile.

If Cerro Machin does erupt it could produce some very impressive and dangerous pyroclastic flows. The quote below is from
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1501-04=

"Voluminous pyroclastic flows traveled up to 40 km from the volcano during eruptions in the mid-to-late Holocene perhaps associated with formation of the caldera."

We are in the Holocene now correct? So the pyroclastic flows may not have happened in the extreme distant past. Maybe they haven't been able to study this volcano as well as they have studied many volcanoes in the US and that is why the dating of the pyroclastic flows isn't as precise as some of us would like.

Now what are the odds that this increased seismic activity under Cerro Machin does not indicate that there will be an eruption there in the next few decades? This is where the experience of volcanologists is helpful in reading the physical signals given off by a long dormant volcano.

so informative, thanks to tell us.

Eruptions Word of the Day: Dacite

eklemetti — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 02:25:46 +0000

Eruptions Word of the Day: Dacite

So, I've had requests on the blog to help to do some defining of volcanologic terms on the blog, so I thought I'd try a new column called Eruptions Word of the Day. I'm not sure how often it will run, but let's give it a try.

Eruptions Word of the Day for July 5, 2010: Dacite
Dacite is a magma type defined by silica (SiO₂) content between 63-68 (or 69) weight percent. That is the textbook definition, but some other typical characteristics of dacite lavas (or magmas) is the presence of certain minerals: plagioclase feldspar and hydrous minerals (containing water in their mineral structure) such as amphibole (typically hornblende) or biotite mica. If the dacite is hot and dry (lacking in water), you would expect to find pyroxene in the lava as well, although it is common in almost all dacites that even have hydrous minerals. Typically, dacite erupt anywhere from 800 to 1000 degrees Celsius. The intrusive equivalent for a dacite is granodiorite.

Dacite lava hand sample, with abundant amphibole and plagioclase feldspar.

Dacite is found in a wide variety of tectonic settings but is most common in continental subduction zone/arc settings, such as the Andes or the Cascades. They tend to be products of magma mixing or crustal assimilation (by another magma) to form the dacite. The types of eruptions that dacite magma produces can vary from lava flows and domes (effusive, passive eruptions) to explosive, plinian-style eruptions - but they are most famous for the explosive eruptions like Mount St. Helens, Lassen Peak and Unzen in Japan (see below).

Pyroclastic flows from Mt. Unzen in Japan. A flow like this killed the Kraffts in 1991.

However, there are impressive effusive dacite lavas flows, such as the Chao Dacite and Volcan Aucanquilcha (see below) in Chile and Llao Rock at Crater Lake, where minor explosive deposits preceded the lava flows that stretch upwards of 5-10 km from the vent. These lava flows are usually steep-sided with well-formed levees on the sides and pressure ridges along the flow tops (see below). It is thought that dacite lava flows or domes form when the magma is allowed to degas before erupting, allowing for a passive rather than explosive eruption.

Dacite lava flows on Volcan Aucanquilcha, Chile. Note the steep sides of the flows coming from from the main summit. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image by Erik Klemetti.

Dacite tend to be a "garbage bag" of minerals - they have collected a variety of crystals from different sources. These sources include the active magma of the eruption in question (phenocrysts), crystals from previous magmatism at the volcano (antecrysts) and wholly unrelated crystals (xenocrysts). This mixing creates disequilibrium, where minerals only stable in one condition find themselves in another, creating impressive reaction textures (see below). This variety of crystals supports the ideas that many dacites are the product of magma mixing.

Amphibole crystal breaking down in a mixed dacite from Volcan Aucanquilcha, Chile. The interior is cored with biotite mica, iron-titanium oxide (such as magnetite), and quartz, while the outer roughly hexagonal shape is amphibole. The clear crystals along the edge of the grain are formed from the breakdown of the larger amphibole crystal when it is in disequilibrium. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image by Erik Klemetti.

eklemetti Sun, 07/04/2010 - 22:25

Erik, it might not be a bad idea, when describing a rock like this, to give the names for equivalent composition medium and coarse grained intrusives.

Excellent idea Erik!!
This is exactly what I need!

Very nice post. I would also add that the word "Dacite" comes from Dacia, an ancient land north of the Danube, in an area of what is now Romania. It was first described in Romania (Romanian word is spelled "Dacit") in the Neogene volcanic complex of the Eastern Carpathians.

Oh, good stuff! Thanks.

Gee, this is great. It's just like being an undergrad again. No wonder I was happy then, with the earth divided into reasonable chunks of rock and unreasonable time periods. There's something so comforting about mineralogy and petrology and all matters geologic in a world of idiotic politics, wars, and pop culture. I'm serious! Whenever I feel confused I go out in the field and ponder erosion features, stream gradients, and rubble deposits, and lug home metamorphic cobbles, which are the most mysterious objects I know of. No kidding!

Yes, thank you for the definition, added to my definitions folder. :-)

Good point, Fireman. I've added this to the definition.

Great idea and work to get these main volcanic features together like in an encyclopedia!

Fantastic, Erik! Great idea to have the definitions and pictures of what you are talking about. Although I took geology, that was forty years ago and I have forgotten a lot of it.

@Bo Moore #5, I can't agree with you more! My DH and I like to go to the river early when no one else is there and it is so peaceful. We like to pan for gold and check out the rock in the river. We see a lot of different things in the river such as lava bombs and jasper. A lot of quartz and limestone. Once in a while you will have a really cool find as I did at a confluence of two forks of the river: a fairly large rock of yellow jasper. I intended to take it out and forgot it. I could kick myself for that one.

I have a metamorphic rock I took out of an ignious dike. I showed it to my geology teachers and they told me it was metamorphic and when I told them where I got it, they didn't believe me. The dike was a place they sent all of us to see what it was like and I found that rock in the dike. It was different and I kept telling them it was from the dike. They were puzzled by that one.

Erik, when you talk about "hydrous minerals (containing water in their mineral structure)" I understand that water molecules take part of the chemical structure, am I correct? Different from free water bubbles mixed in explosive viscous magmas? If so, does this chemically-bound water take part on the "explosiveness" of the extruding lava?

2010-07-05 14:50:45.6 (2hr 20min ago) 71.67 N 5.35 W 2km4.3 - JAN MAYEN ISLAND REGION
(http://www.emsc-csem.org/index.php?page=home#2)
This EQ hasn't yet be confirmed by USGS

Be careful about picking up rocks! : 0 ;)

05/07/2010 | 08:00 Iceland Review
Jinxed Lava Nugget Returned
A British tourist has returned a piece of lava which he removed without permission, visir.is reports. He believed the stone to be the source of all his recent calamities. The lava has now been returned, flown by helicopter to the eruption site at EyjafjallajÃ¶kull glacier.

After suffering blows both in his private and professional life, the tourist decided to send the nugget to the University of Icelandâs Institute of Earth Sciences, requesting that it be returned to its proper place.

âHe was not joking,â said Rikke Pedersen, a specialist at the institution. âHe had been traveling around Iceland with his family and since then, all kinds of bad things began happening to him. He was convinced that if he returned the nugget, everything would return to normal.â
Pedersen received the rock along with a letter explaining the situation. This week, she brought it to the Iceland Tourist Assistance. There, the staff got in touch with Nordurflug Flight Company who flew it to the eruption site, which contains Icelandâs freshest lava.

In Iceland, rocks are part of the folklore.

Excellent! like #4 this is a nice escape into the world of an
undergrad, I almost switched my major to Geology, but didn't.
I probably wouldn't have used the Degree anyway like I didn't use my B.S. in Biology...

>I have a metamorphic rock I took out of an igniousigneous dike

Could be evidence of contact metamorphism, where hot igneous intrusion(some 1200 degrees C) heats host rock, transforming it. It occurs at shallow depths.

It's not a new concept (dates to early 20th century), and has been described for small intrusions as well as large plutons.

Maybe your rock was displaced and carried to the location you found it, which caused some confusion over it's origin.

Nice question Renato! As a quick answer: yes and no. I'll start with the "no" - the molecular water in the crystalline structure doesn't directly take part in making an eruption explosive as such as it is bound up in the crystal (not as bubbles in the mineral or magma). However, usually it takes higher water content in the magma (as bubbles when they exsolve/come out of solution) for these minerals to form in the first place, so the "yes" is that hydrous minerals are a marker for water/volatile-rich magma.

Often or not, useful most certainly.

Aside: Up here, 'lÃparÃt' (derived from Lipari) is a term used for silica-rich types like rhyolite, dacite and benmoreite, according to a glossary my sister bought last week.

#15 Thank, you Erik. I've been struggling with this question for a long time. Eagerly waiting for another "word of the day". Thanks again.

Does anyone knew why
http://www.intlvrc.org/news.htm

dosen't work any more?

Walter, I'm guessing it has something to do with this ongoing saga:

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2010/06/arizona_republic_a…

Thanks for the post, Eric, keep them coming.

Let's try a slightly different approach.

You got your basic tool chest volcanology glossary from SI-GVP.

vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/volcano_terminology.html

Oregon State also has one:
volcano.oregonstate.edu/education/glossary.html

The problem with these glossaries is that the definitions are a tad too brief, and the explanation pages (hyperlinked on GVP) are WAAAAY too complex.

Enter Erik, with his explanatory pages.

You ask Lee at GVP, real nicey nicey, if you can collaborate on a little NSF education proposal, to provide an *intermediate* level of technical term definitions in an online format. The individual term def pages are provided piecemeal by you, Erik, through a serial posting on this website and they are permanently hosted by SI-GVP.

I like the idea of your def webpages getting feedback from the professionals via this forum. That way, you got your bases covered with respect to covering the important bits.

It would also be good to see these def pages hosted on a more permanent platform like GVP, rather than on a blog.

I see that as a win-win situation for you and SI.

I've been doing some catching up on the last few days... Thanks to Raving on June 30, I followed your link, and EMF theory and methodology are now much clearer to me and I now know what a nano Tesla is! It will be interesting to see if they can get back to Volcano Island in October for the next planned study.

July 1 comments were fantastic, that one day alone would have hooked me into "Eruptions" even without an ongoing eruption to follow.

I like Carl's idea of vorticity in the mantle. The idea that a vortex could become self generating by pulling in colder mantle material and then warming it by friction makes some sort of sense. Hurricanes can grow by pulling in warm air from the water surface, and firestorms, manmade or natural, by pulling in cold oxygen rich air to fuel the central combustion. Both are vortices but in a different medium and timescale.

Great idea Erik. Petrology was more than 20 years ago for me, so the review is much appreciated.

Dear Eruptions: Have being looking in I.T. for a web site or page in which it appears Volcanology terms abbreviate for example:V.E.I.= Volcan Explosivite Index.
Thank You very much.
Sincerely Yours.
Frojan, J.J.

GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for June 16-22, 2010

eklemetti — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:41:35 +0000

GVP Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for June 16-22, 2010

The latest news from the world of volcanoes, brought to us by the Global Volcanism Program, USGS and the Smithsonian Institution. They are also brought to us by Sally Kuhn Sennert - and if you have a question for her about her job at the GVP preparing the Weekly Volcanic Activity Report and all things volcanic (and hopefully it won't end like another recent volcanically-mitigated interview).

Some highlights (not including Gorely and Sakurajima):

Ioto (aka Iwojima) in the Volcano Islands of Japan produced an ash plume of unknown height. The volcano has frequent phreatic eruptions and abundant fumarolic activity.
Colombia's Nevado del Huila has been experiencing increased seismicity and sulfur dioxide emissions from the volcano and there may have been some ash explosions. The INGEOMINAS elevated the alert status to Orange.
Batu Tara in Indonesia produced a 3 km / 10,000 foot ash plume - the volcano erupts highly undersaturated lavas such as basanites and tephrites thanks to its position north of the main volcanic arc.
Kilauea continues to impress, with activity at the summit lava lake producing tephra and fresh spatter downwind from the vent.
Soufriere Hills on Montserrat produced a number of pyroclastic flows produced from the collapse of the summit domes. There was also a lahar generated during the week's activity.

eklemetti Wed, 06/23/2010 - 21:41

Big E hasn't finished just yet maybe, the GPS is showing marked upward movement in the last couple of days and to the north.

Webcam for Nevado del Huila here

http://intranet.ingeominas.gov.co/webcam/popayan/webcam_Huila.html

hi all just looking at the oil leak/spill photo on weatheronline.com will this leak affect the gulf stream in the near future if they dont cap it in time

Well, "can" and "will" are two very different critters.

Can it affect the Gulf Stream? That really depends on what you define as "affect." Yes the oil can get into it, and in all likelihood, it eventually will. The question then is how much and what nature the oil will be in when it gets there. (either globules, slicks, particles, or wads of crude)

Can it affect the flow of the Gulf Stream? Probably... but how? Changing the evaporative rate of the gulf so that the heating/cooling ratios are different? Okay... how much change do you need to see an effect? How much does the oil move those ratios around? Does it change the reflectivity of the water? I don't have an answer for that.

I also don't have an answer for how the characteristics of "spume" will change. Yes, "spume" is is a real word. It's the stuff that is torn off of the tops of waves in a storm. The spray/foam and what ever else can be grabbed by the wind. It hangs out in the air just above the sea surface and then falls back into the water. Hurricane researchers argue all the time about how much heat energy is extracted from the spume and given up to the storm. One thing that figures in this idea is that of surface tension. At this point, surfactants come into the discussion. surfactants are substances that change the surface tension of the water. Surfactants are also used in detergent for your dishes to break up the grease and oil so that the water can take it off. Another place you will see them are as an ingredient in dispersants used in oil spills where they do the same job.

How will that affect the spume? Will it make any tropical storms stronger? Weaker? Ya got me. It will definitely have an affect by changing the heat flow into and out of the storms, but good luck figuring out what it will be.

The Nevado de Huila webcam sure is not up to date: it's showing midnight view of last night, and it should be on EDT, about 11:20 AM.

A slight precision about soufriere hills activity. There is no new magma at the dome. The different little collapses of the summit dome were caused by heavy rainfall which provoked the fall of already instable spikes on the summit dome. Many hot point were observed but they were the result of the exposure of still hot magma after the different collapses.

@[5] ...and the reason is: the cam is down. The last view looks a bit like it's being nuked...

@Kultsi (#5)

It seemed to 'time trip' backwards. I "could have sworn" (...famous last words...) it was up to date when I posted the link a few hours ago. Shrug

@Raving [8]

I agree with you! I opened the link and it was showing a good pic of the volcano; now, nothing useful. Well, Murphy was an optimist, as s*t happens even when not thought to be possible.

Seismograph links available in link below.

http://intranet.ingeominas.gov.co/pasto/Principales_volcanes_de_Colombia

@3 and 4:

The Gulf of Mexico primary adverse water quality impacts from the oil spill are intensification of anoxic areas ('Dead-Zones') and physical impedance of oxygen and light penetration at the surface from the oil layer. Surfactants applied at high concentration can form their own ordered-strructure phase (called 'micellar') and float, like bubbles after entraining and dissolving oil. Thus we have very large massed patches of solubilized hydrocarbons forming reflective 'sheens' and floating oil, as seen in this image from the UMBC US Air Quality Blog:

alg.umbc.edu/usaq/images/2010_06_19_OilSlick.png

In early June, the effect of dissolved hydrocarbon biodegradation by bacteria and algae on dissolved oxygen in the water column, at depth and along monitored transects offshore, was reported on the Dauphin Island Marine Lab news blog: very low to zero. That situation has worsened over time and is complicated by changes in surface tension by undissolved and dissolved oil-surfactant phases.

Off-topic: Just at Physorg.com "Tiny clays curb big earthquakes" http://www.physorg.com/news196604550.html

The report cited by Birger above begs the geoengineering question, of trickle injection of water-clay emulsions to slowly 'lubricate' certain fault sections in densely populated urban areas of Southern California that tend to 'jump' because they don't have this clay nanolayer in place.

An interesting article: 'Nanocoatings of clay and creep of the San Andreas fault at Parkfield, California.' (2010)
A.M. Schleicher, B.A. van der Pluijm, and L.N. Warr.

geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/7/667.abstract

Melimoyu to all!

Melimoyo has had increased quake activity since mid march of this year.
Sernageomin has released a special report on Melimoyu volcano due to the last set of quakes that started on the 17th of june with numerous afterquakes. This set of quakes are judged to be volcanic in nature and may be asociated with magma opening a route to refill the chamber. Melimoyu is located in Southern Chile.

http://www2.sernageomin.cl/ovdas/ovdas7/informativos2/Melimoyu/2010/Rep…

http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1508-052

OVDAS/Sernageomin continues to have the volcano at a raised level of observation.

And with that I leave you all to celebrate Midsummer festival in any way you wish. Since I am a Swede I will drink excessivly, chant strange viking songs about small frogs, dance around a cross with hanging balls, and of course celebrate fertility in a clearly heathen way that would make any ancient barbarian proud.

Remember the MET computer models of ASH.

Computer models DO NOT WORK in complex systems and are open to political manipulation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487039000045753251311116377…

@Passerby [13]

Oh that just begs for a lawyer (intentionally lower case) to get involved. Supposed that is tried and the stress is relived through creep and a quake happens further up the fault.

Who's liable?

You got the concept wrong. Stress is reduced incrementally along the treated fault line and not passed up the chain because stress-strain energy isn't stored locally to the point of failure, at least not at the surface.

My understanding is that stress is moved downward, deeper into the earth as a result of clay mineral action on faulting surfaces within subduction zones. The farther that energy is located downward (at depth), the less catastrophic the wave energy action at the surface.

Deep earthquakes release more total energy, but releasing it at depth affords a large buffer in overlying strata to reduce transmission to the surface, especially if the surface fractures are made more elastic by the clay particle nanolayer than the deeper and more brittle rock strata in the crust.

Could be a dumb idea, may be impossible to move clay into these layers. It's just an idea, one that I'm reasonably confident has at least crossed the minds of the authors, and maybe reviewers, too.

@Passerby

Okay. I accept that I have the concept wrong.

But I have taken it upon myself to derive some life lesson from every ship that I had been on when on active duty.

Ship one... I learned crisis management. "Grace under pressure" (usually denoted as grace under fire, but no one ever shot at us, so I got that going for me.)

Ship two... It can always get worse, or go bad.

Ship three... Contingency planning. In other words, what are you gonna do when it invariably does get worse?

Ship four... Good luck with the plan. The Universe is quicker on its feet than any plan.

So... despite me having the concept wrong... okay, but I've seen how that works out. :D.

http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&fi=p100625.htm&no=38

Soon it will be level zero and your not allowed to climb or go near a volcano in the Phillipines. Lucky in Indonesia you can actually see the beauty of a volcano and not be hounded by the government

POPO seems to have a nice glow in the pre-dawn darkness.

@Carl #14. Am intrigued by the dancing around a cross with Hanging Balls...this is just before celibrating fertility :) Sounds like a great party!

Someone is posing in front of ThÃ³rolsfell cam!

Are they interfering with tremor plots?

@Marginata [21]

This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I5BGsK5ZAU gives you an idea of the Swedish Midsummer.

@Kultsi 24 hahhaha :) OT: In Greenland for Danish 'Sankt Hans' in the '50's the airfield guys and the mine guys would meet for a 'football' (soccer ) match - and a big outdoor feast - and burn the 'witch' in a big bonfire for good luck. One year we had to cross the river on a D-9 bulldozer to get to the party because the it had jumped its channel and was trying to wash out the airstrip. Big excitement for us kids.

Hello JÃ³n FrÃmann,

JÃ³n I just saw that your Hekla Semicorder was "stuck" at 09:56 but your probably aware of this,

Kind regards, Adrian.

Apologies,slight "brain fade" there.I meant to say Helicorder of course.

IMO seems to have lost their english translation webpage.

Popo is indeed showing vigorous steaming this morning. Worth keeping an eye on it, as it looks like fumerolic activity has erupted on the side of the volcano from a vent.

I wonder what the seismometers are showing.

The tremors on JÃ³n's plot looks suspiciously like cultural noise of Swedes chasing flying hanging balls during surstrÃ¶mmingspremiÃ¤r. Perhaps a few weeks early, no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTuUEgjBBEc

@ Kultsi 24 - OT but thank you so much for that clip, it made my day! It looks like a Mad Hatters Tea Party being held on Fancy Dress Friday at T in the Park (big music festival in Scotland early July, cant wait!). Great stuff!

@Passerby

IMO's regular page http://www.vedur.is/skjalftar-og-eldgos/jardskjalftar/ and ongoing spectral tremor analysis suggests that the "noise" is cultural. :)

I didn't mean the IMOs tremor plots, I meant the ones from CENAPRED for Popo. After carefully comparing time series photos for the past 10 days, it appears to be in the early stages of an eruption.

In fact, it's rapidly escalating.

Confirmed.

Fumerolic (steam) eruption. We'll just wait to see if this yet one more large 'exhalation' that are quite common or another small eruption (couple weeks ago). The incandescence visible at daybreak suggests the latter.

Three webcam stations are available
http://www.cenapred.unam.mx/es/Instrumentacion/InstVolcanica/MVolcan/

http://www.cenapred.unam.mx/popo/UltimaImagenVolcanI.html
Excellent views on the Popo webcam.

And while waiting for Popo to ... here is a moonbow http://ht.ly/23idz

In my recent wanderings regarding Taal I found the following document. Wouldn't such methods be good for monitoring subglacial systems such as Katla and EyjafjallajÃ¶kull?

MONITORING ACTIVE VOLCANOES
BY ELECTROMAGNETIC AND OTHER GEOPHYSICAL METHODS

Second Workshop organized by:
The Electromagnetic Studies of Earthquakes and Volcanoes Working Group1
and
The Philippines Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Philippines2

http://www.emsev-iugg.org/emdoc/EMSEV_PHIVOLCS_2010workshop_20091201.pdf

The glow from Popo was very strong before day break. Lava must have been at the surface. Probably melting the glacier. Nice steam plume

Definite small amounts ash in the earlier pics of Popo around 7:30AM today.

Electromagnetic, geochemical and thermal investigations of Taal volcano, abstract. Jacques Zlotnicki, Feb 2010
(workshop online proceedings, per #37 above, with references)

www.intlvrc.org/EMSEV-2010-3.doc

Steam plume continuing to increase in elevation and volume.

@Passerby
They've also changed the refresh rate for the cams on El Popo - seems to be every 30 seconds, instead of the one minute they state in the caption.

Very active, I'd say, just short of an eruption.

tinyurl.com/23dweqz

#38: Sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings, but the is no glacier on Popo. Done bit the dust due to recent eruptions. Good read:

Impact of the eruptive activity on glacier evolution at PopocatÃ©petl Volcano (MÃ©xico) during 1994â2004. (2008) Julio-Miranda et al. J. Volcan. Geothermal Res. 170:86â98.

Excerpt from the abstract: The glacier evolution and subsequent extinction were induced by the eruptive behavior over the years. While not the only process at work, eruptive activity played the primary role in accelerating
retreat and as a consequence in glacier extinction.

http://www.geofisica.unam.mx/popoc/colaboracion/GTNH/files/public_mexic….

Nice find, Raving.

@Passerby (#44) Your link has been 4Ofnord

http://smsc.cnes.fr/DEMETER/

*gasp*

Remove the period at the end of the pdf hyperlink.

It's the authors manuscript copy. There is a previously published related publication, 'Glacier monitoring at PopocatÃ©petl volcano, Mexico: glacier shrinkage
and possible causes.' (2003) Huggel and Delgado.

www.geofisica.unam.mx/popoc/colaboracion/GTNH/files/public_mexico/03Hug…

I have an NASA EO satellite image from February 2009 showing the glacier remnant.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=37589

Umm,Eyja is giving Popo a run for her money at present.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/4999/poa.mp4

I was just thinking when a storm reaches the oil spill. just think how much oil the storm would pick up and hit landfall. Then rain on to the roads, then the roads become slippery?

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layou…

Whoooooops

Thanks for spreading the word about this.

USGS/SI Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for May 5-11, 2010

eklemetti — Wed, 12 May 2010 16:00:22 +0000

USGS/SI Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for May 5-11, 2010

Ah yes, a reminder that there are other volcanoes erupting around the world than EyjafjallajÃ¶kull - but yes, it is true! Here is the latest USGS/Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report!

Highlights (not including Iceland) include:

Another volcano in the Kuril Islands of Russia is showing signs of, well, something. Ketoi was noticed to be experiencing increased fumarolic activity according to satellite images. Ketoi hosts a Pleistocene caldera but has had three historic eruptions over the last few centuries, most recently in 1960, and all of which were explosive events around VEI 2.
It has been a busy spring at El Reventador in Ecuador, where ash plumes up to 5.2 km (17,000 feet) and small lahars were noted.
Another new entry into the report was Aoba in Vanuatu. Increased activity and a possible plume were noted, along with over 3,000 ton of sulfur dioxide being emitted per day. Aoba is actually a basaltic shield volcano with a summit lake filling the collapse caldera. Most recently, an eruption from Lake Voui in 2005 produced pyroclastic flows and evacuations of the local villagers.
Also in Vanuatu, Yasur continues to produce steam-and-ash plumes from three vents. It appears that strombolian activity has been common as well, with bombs in the crater area and explosions heard by the locals. Yasur has been erupting almost constantly since at least the 1770s.

eklemetti Wed, 05/12/2010 - 12:00

But the other volcanoes don't have cameras with internet connections on them! The ones in Kuril are only a threat to Siberian and Alaskan air routes (well, maybe northern Japan too) and the Vanuatu volcanoes are only likely to interfere with Australian air traffic.

Almost all North America to Japan routes are vulnerable to Large Kuril Island ash events, and depending on the winds, even New York/Chicago area to Seoul, Beijing and Hong Kong could be affected.

Don't some European routes go over the pole?
Best!motsfo

Looking at google earth it seems to me that Vanuatu is a massive caldera with Aoba being at the center of it. Ive just never heard anyone else mention this and wondered what other people thought about this considering there is increased activity in a couple of places in Vanuatu now.

Aoba got my attention, as it is one several unusual subduction zone volcanoes that have erupted picrite.

@4, Chris, Vanuatu is a volcanic arc associated with a subduction zone. Several of the volcanoes in the arc have calderas, but the whole system is not one.

So much party going on and noone comments it ?

okay this stupid cloud, but E is able to manage that right now :D

Hi Erik, I have sent you an E-mail with some Information About Villarrica and LLaima Volcanoes in Chile. ;)

Have a nice Day

http://www.ruv.is/katla/ WATCH NOW !! watch the sky and watch and watch really !!

Vanuatu has some vulcanos that are continuously erupting. Because of prevailing westerly winds these eruptions do not affect Australia air routes that much. The occasional major eruption in Indonesia affects air travel more.

There are webcams for many of the worlds volcanoes you just need to look for them.

Took a gander at the cams, saw ash cloud, now it is to bed. :-( Got to get up early and I won't be on all day.... Boo!

Catch you all tomorrow afternoon. Late. PDT

Yes, yes, bring more volcanoes, more! (if this isn't addiction, what else should it be?) You can also look from Hekla cam (by switching Katla to Hekla on the address bar). To the right, you can see Eyjaf's plume from afar.

Plume is now heading east. Trouble to air flights...

It is good that Manuel sent you something about Llaima (with 'stomach noises') and Villarrica. There are new reports both on Sernageomin and Ovdas page. Also ChaitÃ©n looks like saying 'goodbye' based on the last OVDAS report.

Seems to be fair weather again this morning. The lava channel is steaming quite happily, so apparently it's gotten more ejecta during the night. The first time I saw lightning activity in the column, so that seems to be up again, as well. The cam at Thorolfsfell has a better frame rate than in a long while, although the picture quality sucks. Good conditions to veg away.

I tried my hand at depicting the latest EQ swarm. First of all, M$ Excel is not up to the job, at least my version of it is not. I did get graphs, but they just confirmed that one needs better tools than I have at hand to make decent 3D images out of the swarm data.

good to see a thermal cam has now been put up at the thorsvelli location :)
How about fireing a laser beam across the apex of the mountain,to keep track of its topography?

what is the frequency of explosive outbursts? i times 30 mins between the last two. & is there a wave plot of them?

When you searching for monitoring, you realise how fortunate Iceland, Europe and the US are when it comes to adequate surveilance of threats:

El Salvador has a Volcano Institute with a surveillance program - www.snet.gob.sv/ver/vulcanologia/vigilancia/programa+de+vigilancia/ - but it only covers one volcano adequately (Santa Ana) and to a lesser extent five more (San Miguel, San Salvador, Izalco, San Vicente & Ilopangao). El Reventador does not seem to be monitored? Judging from the picture of that corn field close to three large volcanoes, I feel sorry for the people working and living in their shadow. Would any of us "Fortunate Sons" accept such a situation?

For the Vanuatuans, the situation is even more bleak - www.sveurop.org/gb/articles/articles/vanuatu.htm - Thankfully, the SVE has made a thorough assessment and set up a "minimal surveillance" program and educated the locals (see bottom entry). As far as I understand the danger assessment (it's in French) - http://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/griseli/01000… - there is no reason to expect a second Krakatau, as was proposed on a previous thread here. But evacuation of the entire population of almost every island is recommended in certain cases that do not seem to be overly "alarmist".

http://eldgos.mila.is/eyjafjallajokull-fra-hvolsvelli/

That looks like its going very high...

Henrik: I don't know if you meant to imply it, but Reventador isn't in El Salvador, it's in Ecuador. Lack of monitoring is probably because of its remote location (as is the case for Sangay)

Doh! The drinks are on me. A good example of the danger in assuming the search engine comes up with the results you thought the paramaters you put up constrained it to. Google, aiming to please replied "Yes sir, we have no bananas" (Gerry Durrell). I stand corrected, thanks for picking it up so quickly. :o

I think we could use a little Robin Williams here: "Gooooood Morning Volcano Fans!"

Looks like the plume is going nice and strong this morning - what can be seen behind the clouds that is.

EyjafjallajÃ¶kull volcano eruption 12 May 2010 vodafone webcam time lapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7H_VrcqcQ

"Bardarbunga, Hekla and Katla!!" (May I suggest: the only expletive allowed on this site when talking about Iceland's volcanicity problems?!)

Here is a little background on Iceland's geology and the significance of the spreading of the North American and European Plates. It is in plain-speak so particularly good
for any new enthusiasts.

http://iceland.vefur.is/iceland_nature/geology_of_iceland/index.htm

"People of da house!" There's no reference to Iceland and Icelandic volcanoes in Erik's list of categories at the top. Perhaps we should remain at the old thread out of respect for Guillermo, Manuel Humeres and others who may want to discuss volcanoes of more interest to them? ;)

#22 La Kat: very interesting article, thank you!

#23 Henrik: I think that is a good idea. It is also easier to follow the diskussion in one blog, as going back and forth between 2 blogs.

@23 Henrik, Swe

Apologies, Henrik et al, thought this thread was of a more general discussion on volcanology (i.e. this link is of much wider interest and NOT just on Eyjafjallajokull- not at all!). In any case, thought everyone had moved here now. (I'm learning, too!)

Morning everyone. It seems like Bardarbunga is moving a little bit today http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/vatnajokull/#v…

Haven't seen mention of it, but KVERT has apparently been given another funding boost to continue monitoring and reporting operations through June 30th.

http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/updates.shtml

Thank-you, whoever you are (governments, private sector) that are providing provisional monetary support for KVERT!

No need to apologise least of all to me, La Kat. I am as guilty as the next person if not more. I just remembered that Guillermo has tried several times over the past month to give us information about Chaiten and we collectively, myself very much included, were too busy to take notice. After all, there are other volcanoes whose impact currently is far greater to other people than the mere travel inconveniences inflicted upon ourselves... ;)

I'm still learning from you, while I'm trying to reach my goals. I absolutely enjoy reading all that is written on your site.Keep the posts coming. I loved it

So I attempted subscribing to your RSS Feed, and it gave me a "Illegal Action" error... Can you tell me if it's just me or the internet messing up?

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

eklemetti — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:40:15 +0000

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

Catching up with some news:

Anatahan erupting in the northern Mariana Islands in 2003.

I ran across this article right before I got sick, but its been popping up around the interwebs (and is pretty interesting). It details a study in Molecular Ecology that suggests that populations of caribou in Canada's Yukon Territory were strongly effected by the White River Tephra. The White River Tephra is supposedly the largest Holocene plinian tephra (from a ash cloud fallout), with two components dating from ~1900 years ago and ~1250 years ago. The vent for the WRT is likely from ~~a vent beneath the Klutlan Glacier~~ Mt. Churchill (see the discussion in the comments below) in eastern Alaska and produced a total volume of well over 50 km³. This tephra was significant enough to potentially kill off the older caribou populations in that part of Alaska, which were then replaced by a genetically different population after the WRT. ~~Now, nothing like a big eruption like that coming from an unknown, subglacial vent to keep the disaster-types biting their nails.~~
Volcano monitoring in the Mariana Islands will be getting a boost, mostly thanks to a desire to safeguard U.S. military and commercial aircraft that fly over the Pacific island chain. The USGS and Southern Methodist University will be installing seismic and infrasound monitoring systems in the Marianas to help feel and hear the signs of a new eruption. We can thank ARRA for the money needed to build this infrastructure.
Hawai`i 24/7's Volcano Watch column - written by members of the Hawaii Volcano Observatory - today features information about the gas plume from Kilauea - including the composition and ramifications of its high sulfur content.
Finally, the NASA Earth Observatory has nice before-and-after images of the revived activity at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat. Especially prominent is the increasing pyroclastic fan at Trant's Bay to the northeast and the pyroclastic debris in the area of Harris.

eklemetti Fri, 02/26/2010 - 04:40

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
VersiÃ³n en EspaÃ±ol
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 25.951Â°N, 128.401Â°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= 14Â°,
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
VersiÃ³n en EspaÃ±ol
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 35.846Â°S, 72.719Â°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= 36Â°,
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

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.

"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."

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?

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 :)

http://gaddis-insurance.info

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Tuesday Tidbits: Chaiten webcam, Soufriere Hills images and should airlines pay for ash monitoring?

eklemetti — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:24:24 +0000

Tuesday Tidbits: Chaiten webcam, Soufriere Hills images and should airlines pay for ash monitoring?

Not a lot of big news, but a lot of little news:

Soufriere Hills at night during the late January 2010 dome growth episode. Note the hot rock falls from the collapsing dome. Image courtesy of Photovolcanica.

This might not be new, but Dr. Boris Behncke brought the new webcam at the rim of Chaiten in Chile to my attention. You get a birds-eye view of the growing dome from the edge of the caldera - pretty nifty view for a once-in-a-hundred-years sort of event.
The NASA Earth Observatory has posted a close-up of the Soufriere Hills imagethat I posted yesterday, showing the February 11 plume. The plume was caused by a collapse of ~10-20% of the summit dome - yes, it only took a small portion of the dome to collapse to create an explosion like that! If you want to see some more stunning images of Soufriere Hills' activity this year, check out the collection on Photovolcanica.
Another great NASA EO shot have Shiveluch showing off either lava flows or lahars coming down the flanks of the volcano and an impressive steam plume. You can compare this new shot taken on February 13 to one from December 18 of last year.
In news that could be interpreted in many ways, state legislators in Alaska are wondering if commercial passenger and cargo airlines should be kicking in money to help pay for the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Although it makes aesthetic sense, it is a slippery slope to start privately funding offices for the public good. If you are in Fairbanks tonight, you can check out a talk by Dr. Michael West on forecasting volcanic eruptions.

eklemetti Tue, 02/16/2010 - 03:24

Airlines, like all forms of passenger transportation, all in some way taxpayer subsidized. Even, if a carrier is not directly owned by a government, some governmental entity (i.e. in the US Federal, State, and sometimes local)runs the airports, ATC, security etc. Yes, there are tariffs and other fees charged to airlines, but funding still must come from taxpayers. That is because ports are considered public property operated for the public good. Transportation arteries in the air and sea are also considered public, unlike a railroad right of way. Bit of trivia, this can also be called the "commonwealth", or as the Romans called it res publica, the root of the word republic.

It's bad to read about the shortening funds even in Alaska. So it might be a global problem that began with KVERT some weeks ago, I don't want to think of more important scientific activities to face decreasing funds...but still have to ask: what would be the next? Maybe those news agencies and TV companies that get lots of money for broadcasting natural disasters should also improve some payment to these funds...

The funding of AVO by airlines might be debatable, but
they clearly should be contributing to the operation
of KVERT, which is there largely for their safety.

The flows seen in the Shiveluch satellite image are most certainly not lava flows (that volcano is building a viscous dome), but rather small pyroclastic flows plus associated lahars.

Other news today are that there are signs of a re-intensification of the activity at Llaima and ChaitÃ©n in Chile, and the dramatic fall of a hiker into the crater of Mount St. Helens.

"Red alert at ChaitÃ©n": http://www.losandes.com.ar/notas/2010/2/16/un-472723.asp (it has been on red alert since it started erupting in May 2008)
"Alert level at Llaima raised to Yellow": http://www.latercera.com/contenido/680_226323_9.shtml
Keep an eye on the webcams.

At Mount St Helens, a climber seems to have fallen from the sharp rim of the huge crater formed in 1980, into the crater, which is a fall of about 500 m (1500 feet).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100216/ap_on_re_us/us_st_helens_rescue_9

There are other parties that benefit from volcanic activity and emissions monitoring for reduction management, from KVERT and AVO: the insurance industry.

They are fat cats, financially-speaking, even in a global economic downturn. Lloyds of London and it's many insurance partners would be a better target for fees to offset monitoring and reporting costs.

The commercial airlines industry has been very hard hit by the downturn in the economy this past 18 months; I doubt they can afford to pony up much at present. I would look to the insurance industry first, then perhaps ask for a bit of help from the airlines later on, once real operating costs and aviation risks have been discussed in three-party negotiations (representatives of US, Canada, Korea, China, Japan) government/commercial airlines/insurers).

Addicted to the Chaiten webcam! Watching a series of enormous blocks growing at the left-hand side of the summit..one of them has already collapsed, an even bigger one now visibly growing. Awesome.

I don't know if anyone has posted this here yet or not but here is a great site for volcano webcams. http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/cams.html

I also found this real time emergency/disaster monitor that includes volcanoes.
http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php

NOAA GOES Sat. RGB animation of the Soufriere eruption and ashfall on the Feb 12
http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Current/soufriere_rgb.gif

This picture of Montserrat makes me want to repeat the question I posed the other day. When does a lava flow become a pdc become a pf? Are we looking at a simple lava flow or is this lava so full of gas that it qualifies as a pyroclastic density current and does a particularly mobile one of these then equate with a pyroclastic flow? Or are all pdc's also pf's?

Joyfully screaming and activity with Fox Word