Sarychev Peak

Friday Flotsam: Plume images and a restless (?) North Korean volcano

eklemetti — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:08:35 +0000

Friday Flotsam: Plume images and a restless (?) North Korean volcano

This week went fast, didn't it?

The Baekdu caldera along the North Korean/Chinese border.

The NASA Earth Observatory have been giving us a steady diet of volcanic plumes over the last week, including PNG's Ulawun, Russia's Sarychev Peak (a very faint plume), both an ASTER and Terra image of the summit region at Kliuchevskoi and finally a mix of plume and clouds over PNG's Manam volcano.
I wanted to also mention a brief article I ran into on the Changbaishan/Baekdu caldera along the Chinese and North Korean border. Although short on specifics, this article mentions a number of interesting (and potentially odd/wrong) things: (1) Baekdu is showing signs of "becoming active" - this is the first I've heard of that, but the article does mention increased seismicity, inflation of 10 cm since 2002 and an increase in surface temperature; (2) the North Korean government is creating "comprehensive countermeasures" in case of an eruption - I have no idea what this means, it almost suggests they want to come up with ways to stop the eruption, which is ridiculous; (3) that the recent North Korean underground nuclear test might have had an effect on the magmatic system at Baekdu - and this strikes me as 100% pure speculation. The volcano has a caldera lake at the top, known to the Chinese as the "Lake of Heaven" and a Korean-speaking population living around the edifice. If Baekdu were to erupt, it would be a very large problem for North Korea's already teetering economy and government - the eruptions tends to be explosive with the last coming in 1903. However, Baekdu/Changbaishan did likely produce a VEI 7 eruption ~1000 A.D., meaning any activity at the volcano should be closely monitored (which could be difficult with its location on the Chinese-North Korean border).

eklemetti Fri, 06/18/2010 - 02:08

Off-topic: "Seventh Graders Find a Cave on Mars" http://www.physorg.com/news196003436.html
It appears to be a lava tube "skylight" of really big dimensions.

Hi Erik,

i just took a look on Google Earth at the Changbaishan/ Baekdu caldera.Its a monster,thats for sure. Could be another case for media speculation though?.

Wow,

Big smoke vent alongside the old lake on Thoro cam !

And there is at least one more "plume" to the right of that one !

Umm,im not so sure now,sorry(Gets back under his rock...)

Could Baekdu produce another minor eruption? Yeah, no question. Will it produce another monster eruption?

Not very likely.

'Comprehensive countermeasures' probably refers to evacuating the affected population, presuming there actually *are* emergency plans in place for an eruption response.

The North Koreans, true to form, have heavily deforested their side of the mountain, which has caused erosion and probably affords a more significant risk to the locals than danger from a large and aggressive eruption.

@Birgit, last thread, cool micrographs. I like the one with "7" on it, too. Another one I like a lot is the one that has all the holes in it filled with tiny "boulders".

I have a quick question for you. Did you have time to answer my questions on the thread where you posted your first pics? If you did, I missed it.

When I took EM, I liked the scanning EM the best. I had some fun with that one.

On the Thoro cam, I think I see a water fall to the right of Gig glacier. Can anyone confirm? It is a bit of a distance from it , but it sure looks like one. It could be just a ribbon of ice, but I think it is a water fall.

I have also noticed a different area of water coming into the river to the right also. Not much right now, but here is a channel there. Has it always been there and I just didn't see it, or is it a new feature?

OOPS! I was referring to the small ribbon to the right of Gig almost level with the spot of ice in the crevice, not the larger obvious water fall further to the right.

Hi Diane,

Yes,I concur with you there.The water flow (stream or larger) from the right has been there for about two weeks.The waterfall I first spotted two or three days ago.

Baekdu is in an odd location for a volcano..what's the explanation?

What does anyone make of the light at the back of the lake area on Thoro cam ? Just to the left of the main cleft/split.

an amateur here loving the blog.

completely OT as it's not a volcano but wouldn't it be cool :)

--
peel.

Great time for the Flir cam to still be down !

@ #12 I see it too, it's really weird? If it was lava would it not be more black and smouldering, rather than bright and fire like? Probably some simple explanation though? The picture quality doesnt help though, the constant refocusing of the camera really plays tricks with the eyes!
I'm no expert here, just an Eruptions blog addict watching/waiting for some new developments!

@15 Marginata,

Its been there pretty well all day.At first I thought that it was sunlight reflected off of a section of ice.Now im not so sure.The light is very poor now but the thing is that that area is pretty big in real life.

@#8-#10, #12, #15: Sorry, folks, I think you are seeing things that just aren't there.

The two white spots in the ThÃ³rÃ³lfsfell picture of the glacier are, as far as I can fathom, freshly-revealed, clean ice: a bit of the ice has collapsed there. I don't see any waterfalls, they would move, and there is no movement visible. (not counting steam, clouds, birds, cars and planes.)

@ Adrian
I havent been watching all day, but know exactly what you mean about the sunlight, it can really play tricks with the eye. The bright light is still visible though, even through the gloom and it must be quite big, given that cliff face is maybe a couple hundred feet high (maybe?). I also thought that there was a lot more water at the bottom of the glacier, but maybe that could be a trick of the light.
I'm totally intrigued does no one have any suggestions?

Gawd I hate getting distracted by wandering thoughts.

Baekdu is â75 miles from Nuke Test #2. Reportedly, this was stronger than test #1 about 3 years earlier... though no radionuclides were detected. This has led some (including me) to the possibility that it was a faked nuke. North Korea produces quite a bit of Ammonium Nitrate for use in farming. If you remember, there was a train disaster there a few years ago was most likely a batch of this stuff going up. In mining, explosive shots (ANFO) are fired in a sequence in order to direct the shock wave and get a better fracture of the rock. A side benefit is that this keeps the mining blasts from being mistaken as nuclear tests on the seismographs. Boring a hole and dumping one massive charge of ANFO down there it not something that I would count out... though there is no evidence that that happened. It's pure conjecture on my part.

Either way, the USGS measured whatever it was at about Mag 4.7

This leads me to the distraction.

On April 05, 2010, a mine disaster/explosion occurred in West Virginia. News debris from that event still pops up now and then. The high levels of noxious and explosive gases hampered rescue and recovery operations, and most recently the news spit out the hairball about there being a "crack" in the mine that was the likely source of gas. Okay... if they say so. One thing the "news" never elaborated on, or even mentioned was that on the day before the explosion, 09:19:14 UTC on April 04, there was a Mag 3.4 quake (38.599Â°N, 80.916Â°W) This is 58 miles from the mine incident.. and the (poorly constrained) depth was above the level that the miners were operating at.

I'm not saying that the quake caused the disaster, just that the equiv energy was about 125.9 tons of TNT, or 7,943 mJ. This is about 1/10th of Hiroshima blast. That was the amount of stress those coal seams and rocks were under... squeezing out the gas.

But.. that was not the distraction.

I did a Joule/mile comparison between the W VA mine and Quake, and the NK blast to Volcano distance. I'm not real sure about the energy dissipation of rock, but if you use a linear relationship, the volcano felt 68 times the energy that the mine felt from the VA Quake. If you use an R square relationship, it's 58 times the energy... pick whichever one you think is the best fit.

Either way, not a whole lot of energy got to the piping of the volcano.

Just found this at Physorg.com "Like fireflies, earthquakes may fire in synchrony" http://www.physorg.com/news196090397.html

Uhh, I commented on this here briefly. I also contacted and suggested to the Mine Owners that there may be more to the failure than meets the eye, in that the surficial quake (at near ground level) that occurred the day before had the potential to cause a fault rupture and discharge/vent gas into the mine at a much faster rate than could be removed, especially give the faulty ventilation system (for which the firm had been found in violation, several times).

I believe the cause of the quake (in a relatively low EQ probability setting) to be climate related, specifically, rainfall related. Of course, the company never responded.

Their loss, not mine.

Did the 'nuclear test' set off the volcano? I concur with your back-of-the-envelope estimates.

No.

What is probable, is that climate is playing a role in disturbance in the northern latitudes.

For a potential answer, we need to look at a trends that has been evaluated quite a few times by many reputable research groups.

A paper that addresses some of the result variability appeared in the journal Nature on May 20.

Robust warming of the global upper ocean. There is a figure in that paper that we want for purposes of our discussion here.

Figure 2: OHCA curves (upper ocean-heat content anomalies), 1993-2010.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7296/fig_tab/nature09043_F2…

Study this one carefully. Think about the patterns of activity in Iceland in the same time period.

I believe you have been party to our technical discussions on cause. I've discussed at length upper ocean heating and current transfer of that heat to air in the temperate coastal maritime environment of South Iceland, and its effect on glacier recession.

Our Eyjaf's glacier has been the most affected by glacier recession.

Now, the idea here is that this glacier thinning and outlet recession (very vivid photos have been posted here by others) has displaced many thouands of millions of tons of water from the icecap to the surrounding environment in the flood plains over a very short time period. It can and does exert a large force potential on a very dynamical force-couple and moment (horizontal plane pivot from the coastal land mass being sqeeeezed between expanding MAR relict limb and Reykjanes peninsula/WVZ interface) system that Eyjaf sits on, with respect to the SISZ and southern terminus of the EVZ/interplate region.

Thinning of the icecaps and rebound is one of several complex mechanisms in action here in the eruption of Eyjaf, and they have a common source.

Brought forward from earlier thread in the hopes that someone might be able to answer:

On the charts at

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

will the upper-limit on the chart (specifically the North chart) be adjusted if inflation increases beyond +20? After staring at it for so long, this is the first time I've noticed the reading this high.

Thanks in advance.

Also, FWIW I too thought the white on the right of the Thoro cam was a waterfall for the past few days.

There have been two deep earthquakes in this are over the past few months. Both of them where at the depth of +500km or more (I don't remember).

It might well be that this volcano is becoming active. But don't count on North Korea telling you that it is.

@Princess Frito

Yes, the scale will be adjusted when needed; on the same page there's the vertical movement plot that's +/-60 millimeters, which, I'm sure, started with a smaller scale.

I found one large deep EQ back in February at the NK-China border, nearly 7.0 at 350 miles deep.

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2010/eq_100218_swaf/neic_swaf_h.html

From the look of the historical seismicity maps, this isn't an uncommon occurrence in Jilin province (couple of ripsnorter mag 8s on the 1990-present map).

Thank you kindly Kultsi.

I did notice the different scale of +/-60 for the "Up" but (and my memory might be failing me) I don't ever remember seeing the upper limit of +20 for the North and East scales adjusted higher when readings got close to it but then I've never seen the top of the little black bars go beyond +20 until last night.

Thanks again for your response. I'll keep an eye on it :)

@Diane #8
"On the Thoro cam, I think I see a water fall to the right of Gig glacier. Can anyone confirm?"
I have noticed that too, earlier today, and now it's still quite visible.

Any comments on EQs and tremor plots under Eyjaf today?
Weel, guys, I must hit the bed now. Be back tomorrow!

A last look at ThÃ³ro cam and I notice a tiny eruption at the crater ...

Sorry. Looking better I can see these are cliffs behind the regular steaming that looked like lumps of tephra. Good night everyone!

Boy, you know you've hit the big time when the NYT's travel section recommends buying insurance against volcanic clouds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/travel/20prac.html?src=me&ref=travel

Wow, just back from a trip to southern Calif and there is so much catch-up to do here. Juicy material, thanks all! Incidentally, my host there felt the two recent desert quakes as gentle swaying but felt none of the aftershocks. Having grown up on the west coast, I experienced many smaller quakes and several big ones, including the Northridge quake in CA (as a kid) and Nisqually in WA. I also rode out the 1996 quake in the Kingdome, right after Edgar's home run. All this quake talk has me checking my earthquake insurance policy (I do have one). Calling my agent Monday to update my insured value. It's too low. Back to catching up...

Here is an oddity - Giant sinkholes appearing across china.

http://itn.co.uk/b7a2345bae65fa99ada8d962eec50f25.html

@Diane#7
Sorry Diane, i must have missed your question on the earlier thread. Could you ask again, please?

@ JulesP[33]

Odd. Any connection to massive aquifer usage? I know that they have an issue with water availability in some areas.

Shift the water table in the right geological settings and you get sinkholes.

Lurking
I know that some areas of China have had prolonged and severe drought conidtions over the last couple of years, especially mongolia, so your suggestion makes sense. They must have been tapping deep water reserves to keep irrigation and water supply going.

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/natural-disasters/katla-volcano-10x-100x-…

Katla could it be 100 times as big as the last one?

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/h…

Now there is a live link to watch the Oil Volcano in the gulf

hi me again just looking at Greg on the Bp oil spill on the live link that not good.Been looking through North Altantic logbook live journal by Michaelix,Can Jonkulhlaup debris cause undersea landslipes if Katla erupted.What are the odds on this? and if so do the governments know bout this?As media only pointed out ash risks fallout and Tempature fall on the climate for a year or so,But no mention this.

Off topic, but would be very interested in people's thoughts:

"L'Aquila, June 3 - Experts who told L'Aquila city officials there was no risk of an earthquake six days before last year's catastrophic quake are under investigation for gross negligent manslaughter, prosecutors said Tuesday."

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/content/prosecutors-probe-experts-who-said-l…

The gist of it seems to be that because the experts said that a series of small quakes didn't necessarily mean that a large one was on the way, that they are culpable for the fact that many people did not leave their houses six days later when the big quake struck, and are thus responsible for the death of 300 people.

That seems like a stretch to me. I've read a little bit about how it's possible to map stress shifting through well understood fault systems, as in Turkey, but not that it's possible to predict the timing of a quake. For less well understood systems (and I don't know how well understood this faultline was) it must be pretty hard to be able to say what's coming.

Reminds me of volcano prediction, where some people seem to expect scientists to magically produce a date and time of eruption.

What I worry about - in addition to the future that these scientists face - is the chilling effect it might well have on research in EQ/volcano prediction in Italy.

@40 Hi Suw! It strikes me that that sort of 'it's their fault' thinking also goes along with the idea that someone could 'do something' about Eyja's ashfall...serious lack of general public basic scientific knowledge about their own surroundings. Some people ready to capitalize on the 'opportunity' provided. Schools should teach not only science 'mechanisms' but realistic views of our only-too-human ability to predict anything. We are able gain inklings but not necessarily hard-and-fast truths.

RE (#37): The last two eruptions in Katla following eruptions in EyjafjallajÃ¶kull was rather small as far as I know. ;)

"Probabilistic model for eruptions and associated flood events in the Katla caldera, Iceland"
http://www2.verk.hi.is/vhi/vatnaverkfrstofa/greinar/Probabilistic_model…

"Postglacial lava production in Iceland"
http://www-old.isor.is/~ah/dr/AH6_eruptions.pdf

"Volcanic hazards in Iceland"
http://www.almannavarnir.is/upload/files/Volcanic%20hazards%20in%20Icel…

i dont agree with any1 being charge for any natural event anywere in the world were human life has died we can not prevent or stop every think that can happen.If anythink maybe up scale the square radius to the earthquake area so includes a larger area maybe.im going to have to go with the experts on this one and Suw comment prosecutors should drop this all together

Whats going on with the tremor plots? Increased activity overnite....

RE (#37): The last two eruptions in Katla following eruptions in EyjafjallajÃ¶kull was rather small. ;)

"Probabilistic model for eruptions and associated flood events in the Katla caldera, Iceland"
www2.verk.hi.is/vhi/vatnaverkfrstofa/greinar/Probabilistic_model.pdf

"Postglacial lava production in Iceland"
www-old.isor.is/~ah/dr/AH6_eruptions.pdf

"Volcanic hazards in Iceland"
www.almannavarnir.is/upload/files/Volcanic%20hazards%20in%20Iceland.pdf

Hello to all,

@43 Renee.Hi,I think that the I.M.O. have lowered the tremor amplitued on some of the Helicorders.Try this link,http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/eyja_trem_eruption.png.It really puts the recent activity (or lack of) into perspective.

@43 Renee.Profuse apologies,just checked the link I gave you to find that it is old.Try this one.http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/gosplott.html

@ Adrian Thankx for the link I did compare and I realize that the activity we are seeing now is way down compared to before. I tend to watch the smaller daily changes right now and they are increasing almost a sine wave until todays activity which is the highest of late on the graph

@47 Renee,

Hi,yes,todays activity has been high and there has been a small rise in the number of Quakes in the vicinity.

@suw: local officials are seeking a legal scapegoat for blame. The hazard map is the tool they should have used, not simply checking views of geologists.

But more importantly, the level of damage sustained and loss of life reflect the degree of earthquake preparedness, especially in enforcement of building codes.

Historical seismicity 10-year map, USGS, for the quake.
neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2009/eq_090406_fcaf/neic_fcaf_h.html

Italy is one of the most earthquake prone nations in the world. The investigation is assinine and officials are making fools of themselves.

There is no shortage of geotechnical and civil engineering specialists who would back a counter-investigation, of civil authority culpability for failure to anticipate the eventuality of a damaging quake and lack of code enforcement to prevent loss of life and property damage, with aggravating factors in the underlying geology of the city that magnified risk disproportionately to the surrounding area.

From the wikipedia page:

'Earthquakes mark the history of L'Aquila, a city built on the bed of an ancient lake, providing a soil structure that *amplifies seismic waves*.

Second aggravating factor: \'According to firefighters and other rescuers, some concrete elements of the fallen buildings "seemed to have been made poorly, possibly with sand"'

Historical evidence of exceptional susceptibility:
The city was struck by earthquakes in 1315, 1349, 1452, 1501, 1646, 1703, and 1706. The earthquake of February 1703, which caused devastation across much of central Italy, largely destroyed the city and killed around 5,000 people.'

'The main earthquake was preceded by two smaller earthquakes the previous day.'

The crux of the issue is that small slip movements were hinting at accumulated stress that had not been relieved for hundreds of years in the complex fault system in this region.

It would be next to impossible to accurately forecast the date and time of fault rupture. Even if an accurate forecast were made, the nature of the sediment base is such that, even when people are out-of-doors, they may be subject to serious injury or death from falling debris, ground ruptures or landslides.

The geophysical community would be HAPPY to explain principles of liquifation physics and risk to local officials and prosecutors in terms even simpletons can comprehend.

The Italian experts under scrutiny need only reach out to their colleagues in Seattle for supportive testimony.

Birgit #34 I don't remember all of it, but here goes.

I was wondering what you coated the ash with to prevent charging. When I took EM, we were mostly using carbon arcs in the vacuum evaporator. I know things are way more advanced now than when I took the course to be a tech. We also used germanium and one other metal that I don't remember what it was. I also want to know if you were using secondary or another of the ways you can use to get the micrographs. When takeing EM we uses secondary and backscatter and we did some x-ray anaysis also. A friend of mine gave me a piece of metal for my rock & mineral collection and when I put it in the scope, it turned out to be strontium. That blew me away.

It has been a long time since I took EM and I never did get a job as a tech. I came close, but now I am glad in a way I didn't get one. The chemicals in the lab were not exactly what I needed to be around.

I have a funny story about what someone did at UC Berkely. There was a PhD person that wanted to look at a frog. He stuck the entire frog into the scanner and, well, you can imagine what happened then. What a mess that must have been!

The Cenapred webcam for Popo is showing steady steaming activity this morning.

http://www.cenapred.unam.mx/popo/UltimaImagenVolcanI.html

@35, 36 - On the Chinese sinkholes: not drought, but heavy rains, in karst areas with a notable history of mining activity.

Refereence: The formation of sinkholes in karst mining areas in China and some methods of prevention. Zhou Wanfang Environmental Geology May 1997. Second paper in March 1999, same title, with Li Gongyu, Engineering Geology vol 52.

The three factors identified by the author(s) in the formation of China sinkholes in these metals and coal mining areas are: the presence of caves in karst formations, thin overlying soil strata (highly permeable substrate), and recent water activity (flooding, suction).

Passerby #50. They ARE reaching out for support. Just look at some of the 4500 (and counting) signatories ( http://www.mi.ingv.it/open_letter/archive.php ) to INGV's open letter/petition to the President of Italy ( http://www.mi.ingv.it/open_letter/ ).

In the meantime, why aren't we hearing more about this travesty from the rest of the world media?

@MJKBK, we are probably not hearing about it because it isn't important enough yet to the media. It isn't a disaster, you see. And right now most of the media stuff is either on the gulf oil disaster or the World Cup. I think it is so stupid to charge people for something they had no hand in. Some people are just not thinking here. It is the blame game again and I doubt they will listen to anybody. I hope I am wrong about that, but Italy is what it is: Burlisconiland.

@ Greg[38]

A wider link that gets you access to all of the bot video feeds is:

www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033572&contentId=7062605

My Fav are the Skandi Neptune ROVs. They provide a N: and E: coordinate set. It took a while to figure it out, but a friend and I puzzled over it and came to the conclusion that it reads in feet. The equator (according to Google Earth) is ROUGHLY 10419719.52 feet from the site. The site position was derived from a planning chart overlaid on Google Earth and the actual position is only as good as my eye/hand coordination. However, it was good enough to show that the N: value is probably reference to the Equator. The E: coordinate was more tricky. Underwater navigation is usually accomplished by setting up an acoustic array that is geo-referenced by the controlling unit. Best I could figure, this was somewhere around 92Â° West Longitude. This makes sense, since that cuts roughly though the middle of active oil field region of the GOM. It still adds a lot of ambiguity for the casual observer when trying to figure out where the Bots are at on the seafloor.

With patience comes rewards. I caught one of Skandi Neptune's ROV's in the handling bay on the ship being hosed down and looked at. At that moment in time, MarineTraffic.com showed Skandi Neptune at 28.738770Â° -88.368900Â°. Bingo. A second fix that logically fit with a previous ROV/Skandi Neptune observation. The coordinates from Marinetraffic are the ones that come in via an automatic system that the ship's nav system broadcasts.

So.. with that, and working out the coordinates using an Earth Radius of 20855487.84 feet... (converted from Wikipedia) I was able to put this chart together:

Enjoy.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2i76ydd.png

Indeed, we're thinking of a more direct approach: frontal assault.

Additional perspective of the issues is warranted here.

Excellent seismic perspective, in a recent article with risk evaluation: 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake (Central Italy): an InSAR source mechanism and implications for seismic hazard.
www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL039337.shtml
www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~richardw/laquila/

A tiny fraction of the existing structures in Italy meet Eurozone requirements for earthquake proofing. Italy does not require retrofitting of existing structures to code, even when modification permits for structural upgrades are made. There are issues of substantial cost and legal requirements to meet 'code' in new versus updating existing structures.

Low-cost, innovative partial-retrofit measures that afford baseline protection from seismic shock are needed, in Italy and elsewhere.

'After a reassessment of this complex geology three years ago, LâAquilaâs seismic danger was upgraded from moderate to severe'.

Not quite enough time to upgrade building code and make structural modifications to newer buildings, but more than enough evidence that *ample* expert warming* was given of heightened seismic risk to LâAquila before the earthquake.

www.earthmagazine.org/earth/article/23a-7d9-7-e

There is also recent evidence that the risk of another moderate rupture in historic building settings (very old cities) in adjacent fault systems remains significant and is therefore of substantial concern.

It is more than possible to turn the accusatory tables on prosecutors and serve the public at the same time, by highlighting these results and emphasizing 'geotechnical lessons learned' with 'further risk-reduction needed, now, now, now!'.

L'Aquila anniversary highlights need for better buildings. May 6, 2010.
www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1005/10050602

INGV has not been sitting on their backsides, but working hard on better risk communication tools. Touche!

Are short-term evacuations warranted? Case of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake. (2010) Geophysical Res Lett 37: L06306, doi:10.1029/2009GL042352

'Earthquakes cluster strongly in space and time, leading to periods of increased seismic hazard. During such seismic crises, seismologists typically convey their knowledge of earthquake clustering based on past experience, basic statistics and âgut feeling.â However, this information is often not quantitative nor reproducible and difficult for decision-makers to digest. We define a novel interdisciplinary approach that combines probabilistic seismic hazard and risk assessment with cost-benefit analysis to allow objective risk-based decision-making.'

www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GL042352.shtml

Strong foreshock signal preceding the L'Aquila (Italy) earthquake of April 6, 2009. Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 10, 19â24, 2010
www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/10/19/2010

Foreshock seismic signal series from October 2008 to the time of rupture may be useful as a risk diagnostic tool.

Another:

A group of collaborators (Russian-Austrian-Italian) have investigated VLF precusors to this rupture and demonstrated a diagnostic tool for forecasting earthquakes. This is not exactly new science with approximately a decade of previous publications in print (and we introduced the concept here by showing HAARP Rio signal match against Icelandic miniquake swarm energy intensity), but maybe useful to INGV in the future if it can be used, with the foreshock series and advanced communication tools, to refine elevated occurrence risk windows.

europlanet-jra3.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/presentations/11_VLF_signal_precursor_Molchanov.pdf

http://en.rian.ru/Environment/20100619/159491100.html

Russian volcano no threat to planes

The problem is that quake prognostication is difficult if you have a bunch of lawyers standing around ready to whack you with a lawsuit if you even try to hazard a guess. I'd much rather hear that something is up with a fault line from a Geologist rather than a tarot card reader.

If the Geologist is wrong, he looses reputation. If the tarot card reader is wrong, they make an excuse and another prediction.

#51 Diane
Nothing. I used a FEI Phenom http://www.fei.com/products/scanning-electron-microscopes/phenom.aspx
and fortunately the samples did not really get charged too much which is probably due to the chemistry of the ash itself. When you look at the ash under a normal mikroscope you can easily see that there are very different particles. They look like what Erik showed us in an earlier thread. In some of the samples i would say, 50% is volcanic glass but the ash seems to be magnetic and it is not easy to spread it out thin enough to get good pictures. WHen i do SEM images on pollen or insects, i often have a problem with the charging of the samples.
The SEM, i used, belongs to a Museum, the Ars Electronica Center in Linz Austria We have different Labs there ( RoboLab robots etc FabLab fabrication lab with a lasercutter and a 3D printer, BrainLab with a visucam where you can have a photo of your retina taken and email it home and a BioLab where we are cloning plants or do gene sequencing in workshops with our visitors. ) When i did the SEMs i did them with the vistors watching me and deciding onto which particle we should take a closer look. I did study pharmacy, so i have been working in chemical labratories but i am no tech but an Infotrainer, a person who does guided tours. The museum is trying, what we call an open lab situation, so visitors can get to see things which are normally not accessible to them or shown in tv shows like CSI.
Sorry that was completely OT

Oh and something else. In case someone here has ash from other volcanoes and would like scanning electron images done on it. Just send a sample ( very little is necesary for a SEM) We could compare it with the ash from Eyjafjalla.

@ Birgit [60]

I went back digging though the posts in the other thread to try and find the link to the images, could you please repost them?

---
OT: Rigzone posted a somewhat glitzy article about a heavy vessel (27,270 metric tonnes) that will be joining the spill effort. "the sheer mass of this unique vessel means it is perfectly suited to handle this type of large clean up."

It sounded impressive, I just had to get look at a picture of this vessel, the "Mighty Servant 3." The first one I found did not instill confidence.

http://i50.tinypic.com/2ni2kvt.gif

It seems the thing sank itself about 4 years ago and has since been recovered and repaired.

Sorry for the OT... this thing keeps nagging at me.

@Lurking [61]
You mean these http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronicacenter/

Erik, I ran across the Korea Times article when it was six hours old and posted the salient information here plus a link to the (then) only publicly available paper on it, concerning inflation prior to c2002. Since you were preoccupied with end-of-term work at the time, you are forgiven for not paying due attention. ;) ;)

Looks like the obstruction higher up on GigjÃ¶kull has given up and the warm water is now flowing much farther - and is apparently dammed again.

@Kultsi 64 Good morning - I think that the dark area is vegetation - it never reflects, and in the afternoon you can see little silver streams cutting through it- but the lowest part of the glacier has had its face washed of a lot of ash, yesterday afternoon it looked almost shiny.

@Kultsi - on re-reading, I think you must have been able to see the glacier higher up this morning - It has been cloudy since I have seen it, so I don't know what you were looking at earlier- sorry - but I think if there had been a break in the ice wall, the force of the water would have carried all the way down?

@Birdseye (#65-66) - I was looking at steam emissions at the upper slope of the glacier. I haven't seen any increased water flow from the glacier and that's why I think it's dammed up there somewhere.

The rain has, indeed, washed the glacier face and the collapses here and there show almost pristine ice faces shining in white.

A glacier flood has started in the glacier river SkaftÃ¡r, they flood is called SkaftÃ¡rhaup and they happen regularly. Last flood there was in the year 2008. Follow this type of flooding there are usually a large spikes of harmonic tremor coming from the volcano area where flood comes from. This year won't be any different. In rare cases there might even be a eruption there.

Icelandic news on this flood.

http://www.ruv.is/frett/skaftarhlaup-er-hafid (Translate with Google at your own risk!)

On SEM, clearing up more misconceptions.

This Eyjaf ash is clearly HIGHLY conductive and carries quite a surface charge. We had several discussions on this interesting aspect, from the perspective of chemical composition but also a proposed charging mechanism and observation of retention of charge/recharging at distance.

Our sample is also known to be enriched in higher atomic number atoms, so the two conditions necessary to run the sample as is rather than coated, are met. Hence, no need to coat the ash sample. The ash samples could be mixed with epoxy and thin-sectioned to yield additional information on particle size and composition. This technique was demonstrated and used for analysis of Mt Redoubt ash from the 1989 eruption.

www.ees1.lanl.gov/Wohletz/MethodAshCharacter.pdf

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_electron_microscope#Sample_preparation

On to Lurking's comment.

Mighty Servant 3 was completely rebuilt after salvage recovery. Very common operation, although the ship type is unique. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Servant_3

Q: Why are they using one of the largest semi-submersible heavy-lift vessels in the world at the Deepwater Horizons oil recovery site?

A: They have to lift something very, very heavy. Like maybe the 450-ton blowout-preventer.

Q: Why might they be lifting the BOP? We thought it was there to put pressure on the wellhead to slow down the leak rate?

A: Conditions down below are a little more complex than we thought.

If you want to worry about what is happening in the Mexican Gulf, read this.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967

In the US Congressional hearings with BP corporate heads earlier this week, a question was asked about the integrity of the casing below the seabed floor. The response was frank but foggy: they didn't know the condition of the wellhead casing because they weren't able to test it and can't see into the well to examine it.

What we do know is that BP has given up trying to plug the flow of oil and appears to have reversed course, possibly to relieve pressure on the thin and poorly consolidated seabed floor around the wellhead.

If this layer caves in and BOP falls over, the rupture will be...a worst case scenario. Since the BOP doesn't rest on the seabed, it's being held up by the pipe and casing. The pipe is thin and apparently, the BOP is starting to list.

So, you would want to bring in heavy lifting gear, I suppose, to support it while you figure out what you're going to do next.

scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/06/worst_case_scenario_on_gulf_sp.php

www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967

Remember, all of the facts aren't known and The Drum Beat reader report is 'knowledgeable conjecture'.

As bad as the Gulf spill is, the situation in Nigeria is now and has been dreadful.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-de…

@Birgit #59 thanks for the info. I had not idea there was even such a scope out there. Things have progressed so far from when I took EM. It was not an easy course. It took me four years to do a supposedly two year course of study. I have a two year degree and certificate as an EM/SEM tech. Used both scanning and transmission scopes. Ancient ones at that. The college now has an entire building dedicated to EM study instead of just a lab. I want to get in there and see what they have some day. I know they now have a microprobe which does a better job of xray analysis. One of the things I had to do was a quantitative analysis of Hexel hip joint material. Now that was 30 years ago so I know hip replacement parts are far different now.

BTW, I also had to be able to describe what the electron beam was doing when it was going down the column of the scopes. The ones we were using make the one you are using look like a simple OLM. :-)

Sounds like you work in a neat enviornment. I do know where I can get some ash from areas in CA so I will be sending you a sample when I can get to the area. Right now it is most likely under snow and the road is closed.

Sorry for the OT for the rest of you, but when it comes to microscopes, I get going. LOL One of my dreams was to be able to use an electron microscope and I was able to do it so I am happy. I would love to have one of those things you use, Birgit. I used to say I would like to have a trailer with "Have scope, will travel" on the side. LOL

@stigger[70]

The article seems to want to piggyback on the hype of the GOM event. Let's compare the two.

From the article:

'The government's national oil spill detection and response agency (Nosdra) says that between 1976 and 1996 alone, more than 2.4m barrels contaminated the environment.'

At 60,000 bbl/day the GOM event far outpaces that. 2.4 million barrels over a 20 year period (7305 days) is about 274 barrels/day. The GOM event passed 2.4 million barrels back around the 1st of June... and that took about 40 days.

On a lighter side... Crude oil averages a carbon content of about 85%. Living tissue averages a carbon content of about 18.5%.

At a flow rate of 60,000 bbl/day (2.5 million gallons/day) and at an average mass of 25 tons (short) for a Sauropod (Brontosaurus)... that's about 72 Sauropods per minute coming out of that hole... 4321 dinosaurs/day.

Sort of adds weight to that abiotic oil idea.

@Passerby[69]

Thanks for that link. Lengthy read but worth the trouble. It also explains this screen cap from 3 June 2010... it's an inclinometer affixed to the BOP:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2exy9za.png

Lunatic press seems to be of the opinion that the "sinkhole" will expose millions of gallons of water to "400Â°," flash to steam and cause a tsunami wiping out the Gulf Coast. All I can say is "so?" At 1000 psi the boiling point of water is 285Â°C (545Â°F) and the hydrostatic pressure at the BOP is what? 2226 psi? Good luck with that scenario.

No, the more plausible horror story is the opening up of the borehole to the ocean. I can find nothing factually wrong with the information in that article. I think that scenario is what's been eating at me. The stressful part of it is that there isn't a [expletive deleted] thing that I can do about it... let alone any body else.

*sigh...

@ lurking. Way back when I was in college, one of my professors was a founder of the zero population growth group. I remember asking him how he could keep working given what we knew then about the not-so-great-future. He said "You grieve, and then you fight on". My condolences.

@Kultsi, Askola, FI

Thank you for the SEM link.

Any one know how they (the 'not us' people) determine what the clasts are composed of?

Good evening everyone!
Someone look at HvÃ³lsvÃ³llÃ¼r cam. I think there's a plume rising above the clouds... (Toggle full screen mode)

#72: Thank you for the comparison. My point is that whilst the GOM is bad, people are taking action. Nigeria has lived with oil pollution since 1976 caused by Exxon and Shell (amongst others) but it is still happening and little action has been taken against them. That is wrong.

BP and the unmitigated disaster
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2010/06/bp-and-unmitigated-disaster…

@stigger [76]

I agree that it's wrong, but technically... what their corrupt government arranges with the oil companies is between them and their government. The Great Lakes Brewing Company of Cleveland, Ohio reportedly named their Burning River Pale Ale after the Cuyahoga River. It seems to have a habit of catching on fire... some estimates place it at 13 different fires since 1868. I don't expect the people of Nigeria to come over here and fix it for us or to do anything about it. When I was growing up in Central MS, there were areas of marsh that bubbled up ... "stuff" with the consistency of rubber. Again, I didn't expect some other country to come rescue me.

Bad? Yes, I do agree with that. But again, a corrupt government allows it to happen unfettered.

Back to Passerby. Later in that thread there is a set of two images that show what appear to be puffs of oil from the seafloor. Based on that Bot coord transformation thing I figured out (which could be wrong), it maps to a position 40 feet from the LMRP.

http://i47.tinypic.com/20fovbp.png

Lurking, I suppose my primary concern at the moment would be the consequences of applying dispersant directly into the spill flow at depth.

This is A Very Bad Idea for several reasons, the foremost being that the nonsolubilized plume components ('heavy ends', large polycyclic compounds) are will hover at low oxygen, low light levels and eventually sink.

This would explain the formation of the odd, murky subsurface plumes. The solubilized stuff is forming thin-film 'oil-sheen' surface plumes that will continue to thin fully disperse and biodegrade with wave-mixing action in the weeks-to-months ahead.

No such luck for the heavy residuals. The oil plage will slowly sink to the bottom, covering vast areas of the cold anoxic depths with a stiffly amorphous sludgy mass.

Out of sight, out of mind is the game being played here.

I went back to The Oil Drum website to look for telltale comments from BP that may indicate the corporate engineers knew they were facing bad news.

May 29th summary post:

'He (Suttles) noted that their inability to stop the well âscares everybodyâ but is reasonably confident (no success percentage estimates) that this (Lower Marine Riser Package) will collect the majority of the oil and gas.

Because they do not know the flow path of the oil below the seabed, it is difficult to estimate what is actually going on in terms of oil path below the BOP. Thus they are, again, trying something that has never been done before, but expect, based on the RIT, that it will work.'

'On being asked about the cleanup of the dispersed oil â he pointed out that the reason that the dispersant was used was to break the oil into small droplets. These are small enough to be consumed by the microbes in the sea, and thus there is no plan to do other than let nature take its course. For the oil on the surface, they are getting better at spotting oil pools and sending skimmers to deal with them. '

Huh? The BBC News website has a map graphic series showing the progression of the oil plume. Last two frames look they are reversed - bit confusing, since the LMRP would be gaining in recovery efficiency with 'tune-up' over time.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10309001.stm

@Passerby[80]

Humor is where you find it.

While doing my best to dig up data on the amount of spume that is lofted at various wind speeds, all I could find (so far) is information on the enthalpy issues... heat transfer to and from the low lying strata of hurricanes. In these papers, the idea of surface tension came up, having a heavy influence on spume formation. With that thought, I began following lines of info on surface tension modifiers... surfactants came up. Surfactants are commonly used in dispersive agents. How this will affect storm formation/efficiency is beyond me. I'm just a data monkey rooting around in what I can find, playing with the dots.

But I also revisited the Wiki page on Corexit, the dispersion agent being used by BP. Both varieties have unspecified sulfonic acid salts, but now the Wiki page has been updated to state:

"An organic sulfonic acid salt is a synthetic chemical detergent, that acts as a surfactant to emulsify oil and allow its dispersion into water. The identity of the sulfonic acid salt used in both forms of Corexit was disclosed to the EPA in June 2010, as dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate."

And looking that up I find:

"...an anionic surfactant and a common ingredient in consumer products, especially laxatives of the stool softener type."

Um... how appropriate.

There appears to be some pretty sustained tremor going on at Ngauruhoe in NZ (probably just got excited about the world cup):

http://www.geonet.org.nz/images/volcano/drums/ch/otvz/10/drum.png

AOT structure:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioctyl_sodium_sulfosuccinate

Too big to fit in enzyme binding sites (fortunately), because it has 'steric inhibition' written all over it, from a structure-activity standpoint. Sure enough, early biochemical studies show protein degradation (trypsin degradation of casein milk fats, for example) is blocked by AOT irreversibly.

Toxicity chitchat
www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v28je16.htm

We want section 2.2.5 Special Studies, and 2.2.6 Laxative Effects.

The section on pulmonary edema indicates that the surfactant altered the air-water cell membrane at aveolar-vascular interface (probably affecting ion channel and porin water channel function).

May explain the respiratory distress reported by cleanup workers, although it could have arisen from hydrocarbon fumes, too. Do not think it was the ethyl glycol monomer, because the AOT surfactant concentration was much higher than the stabilizer (predominantly nephrotoxic effects for the former) in the Corexit formulation.

*Real* interesting to find it reported in bile, as AOT was reportedly efficiently metabolized in rat liver.

I know you meant your entry to be humorous, but the toxic info turned out to be kinda interesting. Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I studied surfactant-enhanced bioremediation of oil components.

Anionic surfactants, at the concentrations needed to efficiently disperse and solublize waxy alkanes and highlyh insoluble polycyclic hydrocarbons, were not kind to naturally occurring oil degraders in fresh- and saltwater treatment systems.

#69 Passersby, I have deliberately been trying to avoid the goings on in the Gulf of Mexico because the environmental, social and financial disaster that this has turned into is causing pain that I don't want to expose myself to unless I can do something about it; which I can't. I decided to read your link to the oildrum.com however as the grandstanding politicians, and the apparently less than open oil companies are becoming unavoidable on the news here.

I think that there is a need to explore these hydrocarbon bearing areas,as I see no sign that the move to a post oil world is going to be a quick one. It can also be expected that activities which are really pushing the envelope are going to run into difficulties from time to time. However to find that these operations were being subject to "cost savings" on a well which was apparently in serious difficulties is just ludicrous and negates any sympathy I had for BP at the hands of the US politicians.

The local press in Aberdeen "Oil capital of Europe" is staying very quiet on the subject, and while the US, Brazil, and Norway have all halted progress on deep drilling meantime, the UK government is still gung-ho about prospective deepwater drilling in the Shetland Basin.

I could go on, but this is more than enough for a rant.

@Passerby

"I know you meant your entry to be humorous, but the toxic info turned out to be kinda interesting."

Agreed. The humor is a dry one. It's a sort of "laugh or else cry" ifelse statement.

@Gordon

I'm not too happy with Oildrum. Lots of load this load that stuff going on in the browser. That or it's the four simultaneous Oil-Cam-Bots I have running.

I think I'm going nuts.

Mt Hood creaking again....worth keeping a note of

Beautiful view on the thoro cam now.
(22.25 Icelandis time)

If you perused The Oil Drum, you must have come across two 'must read' posts:

Waiting for the Millennium, Parts I and II.

Read them if you want to be *really, really* depressed.

@ Steve
Yes it is isn't it.
There is a long way to go before we see an eruption, if there is one.... but you never know.

Questions for Hekla

Hekla over recent time has erupted every 10 years or so. Are there any signs that it will erupt soon again, or did it not give much seimic warnings last time?

Last time there was a small pyroclastic flow. What is the significance of this.

@90: See Eruption history, on the wiki-webpage on Hekla regarding the most recent reports of magma chamber pressure. Hekla is said not to give much notice of an impending eruption. On the meaning of finding evidence of a pyroclastic flow in the last eruption, see

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hekla#2000

I now what a pyroclastic flow is, question is is it changing?

You didn't read the text, did you?

'Up until this eruption, it had always been assumed *that Hekla was incapable of producing the most dangerous of volcanic phenomena, the pyroclastic flow*.

----> This will call for a reappraisal of volcanic eruptions of the basic rock type, which up to now were generally thought not to produce large pyroclastic flows.

----> It will also require that the public and curious spectators who always rush to the scene at the start of a new outbreak, be kept much further away from the volcanic activity than was thought necessary during previous outbreaks.

How can you tell if anything is changing if it has only occurred once?

Ok, I don't usually read wikipedia anyone can write that :P

Well if it's occured once, maybe the system is changing?

Aww, come on Wikipedia is fine as long at you verify the info. It's good as a quick reference, especially if the sources are cited.

If you move to the political info, caveat emptor applies.

@Nick #90 and following. The pyroclastic flow at Hekla in 2000 was probably not the only one ever recorded at this volcano - there was nearly certainly one at the start of the 1947 eruption and again, during the first few minutes of the 1980 eruption. My bet is that these pyroclastic flows are generated by explosive interaction of magma (or rapidly flowing lava) and thick snow and ice, because such things have been observed at a number of other volcanoes such as Etna, Llaima, Kliuchevskoi and Pavlof. Possibly some small pyroclastic flows were generated earlier this year at EyjafjallajÃ¶kull during its first basaltic eruptive phase, when lava cascaded over snow-covered cliffs.

By the way, I am convinced that pretty much every volcano is capable of producing pyroclastic flows. At Etna we know of eight or nine cases in the past 30 years where small pyroclastic flows were produced, some by the collapse of an eruptive column, some by interaction of lava with snow or wet rocks, and one by the collapse of a sort of a lava dome. Kilauea is known to have produced dilute pyroclastic flows (base surges) most recently during an explosive eruption in about 1790. So I would refrain from saying that a volcano is incapable of producing pyroclastic flows ... maybe we should rather speak in terms of a volcano being unlikely to produce major pyroclastic flows unless there are significant changes in its plumbing system (as at Etna, where large pyroclastic flows occurred about 15,000 years ago when its magma was more evolved and gas-rich).

he he I was just kidding about Wikipedia. Thanks for the info guys :)

Yes Boris, GVP Hekla webpage list of eruptions does indeed list pyroclastic flows for the 1980 and 1947 eruptions.

www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1702-07=&volpage=erupt

Nice little article on the 2000 Hekla eruption that explains the mechanics of the initial phase that resulted in pyroclastic flows: column collapse following early explosive eruption, a function of magma water and silicic acid content, and probably tightly related to repose duration (result of previous publications evaluating older, plinian eruptions at Hekla - a familiar theme of theolitic primordial crust reworking and mixing, but with a twist - feedforward strain from the SISZ).

If one wants to know the hints of pending eruption at Hekla, look for:

sudden jump in thermal and SO2 emissions in air and groundwater are useful for fine-tuning eruption probability to a 1-2 day window; larger eruption window probability can be deduced from a drop in geothermal and hot springs elevation and in the nearby lake level and correlations with warm, dry seasons during the same time period (1-2 years in advance of a central fissure eruption).

SISZ activity is, as on the Tjornes Transform Fault system, associated with a sudden jump in deep fissure pore pressure from liquid injection at depth. Look for a similarity in general timing in the pressurization of the magma reservoir under Hekla.

Hekla dances to a different piper than the EVZ.

Lovely and insightful paper, crafted by a talented group of Iceland's finest, on the subject of the Hekla eruption of 1980-81, open access on the 'Net. Read it.

The millennium eruption of Hekla in February 2000. (2007, Karl Gronvold and friends)
www.springerlink.com/content/p25157781v031261/

The Hekla Eruption of 1980-81.
www.lsndocuments.info/Documents/wp0056.pdf

Hybrid magma generation preceding Plinian silicic eruptions at Hekla, Iceland. (2007)
geolmag.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/144/4/643

Seismic activity related to the 2000 eruption of the Hekla volcano, Iceland. (2005, Pall Einarsson and friends)
www.springerlink.com/content/j58611614567716u/

I would love to visit this volcano at least one in my lifetime. I have heard a lot about it and I wanna see it live from my eyes.
http://healthproductadvice.com/acai-max-cleanse/

KVERT has posted some more images of Klyuchevskoy(Kliuchevskoi, Ð²ÑÐ»ÐºÐ°Ð½Ð° ÐÐ»ÑÑÐµÐ²ÑÐºÐ¾Ð¹ ) at http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/current/klch/index.html

Steam plume visible on MÃºla and Thoro cams.
Another EQ near EyjafÃ¶ll:
Saturday 26.06.201018:51:4663.741-19.5511.1 km2.790.017.9 km NNW of BÃ¡sar

@103Renato,Hi,

Not as much activity as last night.Btw,you're on the wrong thread.Everybody else seems to be on the Mystery Volcano Thread.

Definately the best blog post I've read today. Just an FYI, my Motorola Cliq shows this page great in it's browser.

Pitty i discovered your site too late!

Excellent read, I added your feed to my RSS Reader http://www.acaimaxcleansereview.com

What youre saying is totally true. I know that everybody should say the same factor, but I just believe that you place it inside a way that everyone can comprehend. I also adore the images you put in here. They match so well with what youre attempting to say.

I know you meant your entry to be humorous, but the toxic info turned out to be kinda interesting. Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I studied surfactant-enhanced bioremediation of oil component http://acaimaxcleansecanada.org/

Hello.This post was extremely motivating, particularly since I was investigating for thoughts on this issue last week.

It will also require that the public and curious spectators who always rush to the scene at the start of a new outbreak, be kept much further away from the volcanic activity than was thought necessary during previous outbreaks

Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for 5/26-6/1/2010

eklemetti — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:22:47 +0000

Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for 5/26-6/1/2010

The level of news-frenzy on some of the recent volcanic eruptions has died down, but if you're looking to see information on the many rumbling going on worldwide, look no further. Here is this week's Volcanic Activity Report put together by Sally Kuhn Sennert of the Global Volcanism Program.

Highlights - not including Pacaya, Yasur, Tungurahua and our friend in Iceland - include:

The eruption in the Marianas apparently came from South Sarigan volcano - at least according to the best guess by folks who work in the Marianas. This submarine volcano apparently shows evidence of young lava flows, so this explosive event might have been part of that same system. The activity has waned considerably since the plume was spotted on May 31.
Kirishima in Japan has a small eruption that produced a ~100 m / 330 foot plume. However, ash was noted as far as 6 km from the vent.
Ulawun in Papau New Guinea was put on Stage 1 alert (the first level from the bottom) after the volcano began to show signs of restlessness, including "jetting noises", incandescence and white vapor plumes.
Non-eruption-related lahars were spotted at Guatemala's two other highly active volcanoes - Fuego and Santa Maria. These lahars were triggered by the heavy rain from TS Agatha and are common occurrences when you mix loosely consolidated volcanic sediment with heavy precipitation.
Lastly, back in the Kuril Islands, a thermal anomaly was spotted by satellite on Sarychev Peak. Unfortunately, there is no realtime monitoring of the volcano, so satellite images are all we have.

eklemetti Thu, 06/03/2010 - 04:22

Thanks for keeping us posted, Erik. We know how much work this blog takes: hope you get some recognition from your department for this public educational effort! (Would it be appropriate if some of us wrote to your chairman?)

Susan - No need to do anything on my behalf. The folks here are aware of the blog and its modest impact, so it is all good. One of the perks of being in a small department - we all know what we're doing.

@Erik Klemetti, A new shipment of ash is coming your way from today. I don't know how long it takes until you get it.

This time the ash is more interesting then before, as it is three different types of ash that I am sending you now. At least I think so. The biggest amount of the ash is quite fine dust. I did send you a email about it.

Hey, it's the level of news-frenzy which has died down, not the eruptions! At least in the grammatical sense, and possibly literally as well. You wrote:

The level of news-frenzy on some of the recent volcanic eruptions have died down

but it should be
The level of news-frenzy on some of the recent volcanic eruptions has died down

So sorry to be a pedant on such a great blog, but it's a pet hate!

Having got that off my chest, two questions:
What is going on with those level 4 EQs north of Iceland, and, why has the south-eastern Australian hotspot gone cold? Not so much as a hot spring, but eruptions as recently as 5000 years ago according to some.

It's good to hear that your efforts are noticed: hope they get the appropriate credit, too. I know what the academic system is like.

Erik posted a short note on Arenal volcanic activity on May 24th. The Volcano listserv posted additional information on that event today:

New pyroclastic cone on top of Arenal volcano, Costa Rica
From: Eliecer Duarte

On Monday 24, noon a series of PFs took place at Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica. An upper south section of the new volcano collapsed due to gravity and sudden shacking of a nearby pyroclastic cone under construction.

Since early January a new lava flow was detected moving towards southwest. (see previous report at:
http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/vulcanologia/estadovolcanes/2010/febrero2… )

The new cone, located east of the summit (towards the old Arenal crater) is producing loud explosions accompanied by bombs and other pyroclasts that cover 360 degrees around the summit. Due to the narrow area where the new cone is being built new collapses will ocurr in the near future. In the past, similar cones have produced lava flows that move where gravity take them.

Detailed info is available at: (Spanish field report).
http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/vulcanologia/informeDeCampo/2010/InfcampA…

Iceland's RUV has a report from the crater rim of EyjafjallajÃ¶kull - it's in Icelandic only, but the images are striking:

http://dagskra.ruv.is/sjonvarpid/4472205/2010/06/03/0/

(Windows Media format)

Erik I have a New Zealand question.....is there a Mancow New Zealand (not sure about spelling)? I have a friend who needs to find a flight to there or as close to there as they can. I couldn't find it on the map so maybe I am spelling it wrong. Anyone else from around that area?

@Thanks for posting, Mike, strikingly beautiful, indeed. If someone from Iceland could just be so kind as to give us a brief explanation on what it says, we would be mostly grateful...

@ Randall #8 - could you mean Manukau? (sounds like Man-uh-cow when spoken)
If so, your friend can fly right there - it's where Auckland airport is situated.
http://www.welcome2manukau.com/

Kathryn, Australia thanks I think that is what we were looking for.

I think Eyja is erupting again (seismic tremor!)

@Randall #11 - My pleasure!
Actually, I lived in Auckland for a year back in 1999 - that's what sparked an interest in volcanoes.
I got into genealogy at the same time, that's another hard bug to shake off! And the rest, as they say, is history!

Another volcano, is located in Santorini island, Greece. You can find out more about it in my blog @ http://santorini-hotels.blogspot.com/

Did buyers know that Ones website is valuated significantly more than 5000 bucks to dnscoop? WOW. how can buyers achieve this? Techniques to may i allow my web site evaluated, i think this has now a niche but not convinced.? is here a position i may have my site evaluated and possibly are provide A few advise on order how to turn significantly more sucsessful, The web blog is just finding started and i need aid

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Report 2/3-9/2010 - stymied by weather!

eklemetti — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:57:14 +0000

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Report 2/3-9/2010 - stymied by weather!

Sally Sennert from the Smithsonian Institution sent me an email to say that this week's USGS/Smithsonian Institute Weekly Volcanic Report will be delayed due to the inclement weather in the Washington DC area. She can't connect with the server, so the report can't be updated on the Smithsonian website ... so here it is! Look for it to show up on the Smithsonian site with all the bells and whistles as soon as DC thaws out.

And a big thanks to Sally for sending me the Report to post.

***PLEASE NOTE: Website posting of the SI/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for 3-9 February 2010 will be delayed due to closings from inclement weather.

New Activity/Unrest: | Bezymianny, Central Kamchatka ( Russia) | Fukutoku-Okanoba, Japan | Pacaya, Guatemala

The Weekly Volcanic Activity Report is a cooperative project between the Smithsonian's Global Volcanism Program and the US Geological Survey's Volcano Hazards Program. Updated by 2300 UTC every Wednesday, notices of volcanic activity posted on these pages are preliminary and subject to change as events are studied in more detail. This is not a comprehensive list of all of Earth's volcanoes erupting during the week, but rather a summary of activity at volcanoes that meet criteria discussed in detail in the "Criteria and Disclaimers" section. Carefully reviewed, detailed reports on various volcanoes are published monthly in the Bulletin of the Global Volcanism Network.

Note: Many news agencies do not archive the articles they post on the Internet, and therefore the links to some sources may not be active. To obtain information about the cited articles that are no longer available on the Internet contact the source.

New Activity/Unrest

BEZYMIANNY Central Kamchatka (Russia) 55.978Â°N, 160.587Â°E; summit elev. 2882 m

KVERT reported that during 29-30 January and 2 February a thermal anomaly from Bezymianny's lava dome was detected in satellite imagery. The anomaly was larger during 7-8 February, prompting KVERT to raise the Level of Concern Color Code to Orange. Strong activity from Kliuchevskoi volcano had obscured seismic signals from Bezymianny since 4 January.

Geologic Summary. Prior to its noted 1955-56 eruption, Bezymianny volcano had been considered extinct. Three periods of intensified activity have occurred during the past 3,000 years. The latest period, which was preceded by a 1,000-year quiescence, began with the dramatic 1955-56 eruption. That eruption, similar to the 1980 event at Mount St. Helens, produced a large horseshoe-shaped crater that was formed by collapse of the summit and an associated lateral blast. Subsequent episodic but ongoing lava-dome growth, accompanied by intermittent explosive activity and pyroclastic flows, has largely filled the 1956 crater.

Source: Kamchatkan Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/index_eng.php

FUKUTOKU-OKANOBA Japan 24.28Â°N, 141.485Â°E; summit elev. -14 m

According to news articles, JMA reported Surtseyan explosions from Fukutoku-Okanoba, 5 km NE of the island of Minami-Iwo-jima, on 3 February. Steam-and-ash plumes rose 100 m a.s.l. and the surrounding sea turned yellow-green. Video footage of the event was captured by people aboard a Japanese Coast Guard patrol boat. One article stated that the sea in the area had regularly changed colors since the 1950s, most recently in December 2009.

Geologic Summary. Fukutoku-Okanoba is a submarine volcano located 5 km NE of the pyramidal island of Minami-Iwo-jima. Water discoloration is frequently observed from the volcano, and several ephemeral islands have formed in the 20th century. The first of these formed Shin-Iwo-jima ("New Sulfur Island") in 1904, and the most recent island was formed in 1986. Fukutoku-Okanoba is part of an elongated edifice with two major topographic highs trending NNW-SSE and is a trachyandesitic volcano geochemically similar to Iwo-jima.

Sources: ITN http://itn.co.uk/505f1ee85ab8fd460beb70dabaf8421e.html,
The Mainichi Daily News http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100204p2a00m0na017000c.html

PACAYA Guatemala 14.381Â°N, 90.601Â°W; summit elev. 2552 m

INSIVUMEH reported that activity from Pacaya consisting of effusion of lava flows, the source of which had migrated towards the S from the N flank since April 2006, ceased on 30 January 2010. On 5 February, Strombolian explosions from MacKenney cone ejected material 30 m into the air and lava from the crater moved down the flank. The activity was heard in the village of San Francisco de Sales, 5 km N. A new lava flow originating from a depression on the NE flank was seen on 6 February.

Geologic Summary. Eruptions from Pacaya, one of Guatemala's most active volcanoes, are frequently visible from Guatemala City, the nation's capital. Pacaya is a complex volcano constructed on the southern rim of the 14 x 16 km Pleistocene Amatitlan caldera. A cluster of dacitic lava domes occupies the caldera floor. The Pacaya massif includes the Cerro Grande lava dome and a younger volcano to the SW. Collapse of Pacaya volcano about 1,100 years ago produced a debris-avalanche deposit that extends 25 km onto the Pacific coastal plain and left an arcuate somma rim inside which the modern Pacaya volcano (MacKenney cone) grew. During the past several decades, activity at Pacaya has consisted of frequent Strombolian eruptions with intermittent lava flow extrusion on the flanks of MacKenney cone, punctuated by occasional larger explosive eruptions.

Source: Instituto Nacional de Sismologia, Vulcanologia, Meteorologia, e Hidrologia (INSIVUMEH) http://www.insivumeh.gob.gt/

Ongoing Activity

DUKONO Halmahera 1.68Â°N, 127.88Â°E; summit elev. 1335 m

The Darwin VAAC reported that during 5-6 February ash plumes from Dukono rose to an altitude of 2.4 km (8,000 ft) a.s.l. and drifted 55-150 km SW and W.

Geologic Summary. Reports from this remote volcano in northernmost Halmahera are rare, but Dukono has been one of Indonesia's most active volcanoes. More-or-less continuous explosive eruptions, sometimes accompanied by lava flows, occurred from 1933 until at least the mid-1990s, when routine observations were curtailed. During a major eruption in 1550, a lava flow filled in the strait between Halmahera and the N-flank cone of Gunung Mamuya. Dukono is a complex volcano presenting a broad, low profile with multiple summit peaks and overlapping craters. Malupang Wariang, 1 km SW of Dukono's summit crater complex, contains a 700 x 570 m crater that has also been active during historical time.

Source: Darwin Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/OTH/AU/messages.html

GALERAS Colombia 1.22Â°N, 77.37Â°W; summit elev. 4276 m

On 9 February, INGEOMINAS lowered the Alert Level for Galeras to III (Yellow; "changes in the behavior of volcanic activity"). During the previous few days, seismicity was low and sulfur dioxide emissions were low to moderate.

Geologic Summary. Galeras, a stratovolcano with a large breached caldera located immediately W of the city of Pasto, is one of Colombia's most frequently active volcanoes. The dominantly andesitic Galeras volcanic complex has been active for more than 1 million years, and two major caldera collapse eruptions took place during the late Pleistocene. Longterm extensive hydrothermal alteration has affected the volcano. This has contributed to large-scale edifice collapse that has occurred on at least three occasions, producing debris avalanches that swept to the W and left a large horseshoe-shaped caldera inside which the modern cone has been constructed. Major explosive eruptions since the mid Holocene have produced widespread tephra deposits and pyroclastic flows that swept all but the southern flanks. A central cone slightly lower than the caldera rim has been the site of numerous small-to-moderate historical eruptions since the time of the Spanish conquistadors.

Source: Instituto Colombiano de GeologÃa y MinerÃa (INGEOMINAS) http://www.ingeominas.gov.co//

KARYMSKY Eastern Kamchatka 54.05Â°N, 159.45Â°E; summit elev. 1536 m

KVERT reported that during 29 January-5 February seismic activity from Karymsky was above background levels and possibly indicated weak ash explosions. Analyses of satellite imagery revealed a thermal anomaly over the volcano on 28 January and 1 February. The Level of Concern Color Code remained at Orange.

Geologic Summary. Karymsky, the most active volcano of Kamchatka's eastern volcanic zone, is a symmetrical stratovolcano constructed within a 5-km-wide caldera that formed about 7,600-7,700 radiocarbon years ago. Construction of the Karymsky stratovolcano began about 2,000 years later. The latest eruptive period began about 500 years ago, following a 2,300-year quiescence. Much of the cone is mantled by lava flows less than 200 years old. Historical eruptions have been Vulcanian or Vulcanian-Strombolian with moderate explosive activity and occasional lava flows from the summit crater. Most seismicity preceding Karymsky eruptions has originated beneath Akademia Nauk caldera, which is located immediately S of Karymsky volcano and erupted simultaneously with Karymsky in 1996.

Source: Kamchatkan Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/index_eng.php

KILAUEA Hawaii (USA) 19.421Â°N, 155.287Â°W; summit elev. 1222 m

During 3-9 February, HVO reported an active lava surface about 200 m below a vent in the floor of Kilauea's Halema'uma'u crater. The lava surface occasionally spattered, and both rose and drained through holes in the cavity floor. A plume from the vent drifted mainly SW, dropping small amounts of ash, and occasionally fresh spatter, downwind. Measurements indicated that the sulfur dioxide emission rate at the summit remained elevated; 1,200 and 700 tonnes per day were measured on 4 and 8 February, respectively. The 2003-2007 average rate was 140 tonnes per day.

Lava from beneath the Thanksgiving Eve Breakout (TEB) and rootless shield complex flowed over 3 km SE through a lava tube system before breaking out onto the surface. Thermal anomalies detected by satellite and visual observations revealed active lava flows above and on the pali, and on the coastal plain. By 8 February, pahoehoe lava flows had advanced 700 m from the base of the pali S onto the coastal plain. Incandescence was sometimes seen from a vent low on the S wall of Pu'u 'O'o crater.

Geologic Summary. Kilauea, one of five coalescing volcanoes that comprise the island of Hawaii, is one of the world's most active volcanoes. Eruptions at Kilauea originate primarily from the summit caldera or along one of the lengthy E and SW rift zones that extend from the caldera to the sea. About 90% of the surface of Kilauea is formed of lava flows less than about 1,100 years old; 70% of the volcano's surface is younger than 600 years. A long-term eruption from the East rift zone that began in 1983 has produced lava flows covering more than 100 sq km, destroying nearly 200 houses and adding new coastline to the island.

Source: US Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/

KLIUCHEVSKOI Central Kamchatka (Russia) 56.057Â°N, 160.638Â°E; summit elev. 4835 m

KVERT reported that during 29 January-5 February seismic activity from Kliuchevskoi was above background levels and lava continued to flow down the NW flank. Strombolian activity periodically ejected material 300 m above the crater, and phreatic explosions occurred from the front of the lava flow. Satellite imagery revealed a large daily thermal anomaly at the volcano. On 30 and 31 January, gas-and-steam plumes rose to an altitude of 6.2 km (20,300 ft) a.s.l. The Level of Concern Color Code remained at Orange.

Geologic Summary. Kliuchevskoi is Kamchatka's highest and most active volcano. Since its origin about 7,000 years ago, the beautifully symmetrical, 4,835-m-high basaltic stratovolcano has produced frequent moderate-volume explosive and effusive eruptions without major periods of inactivity. More than 100 flank eruptions, mostly on the NE and SE flanks of the conical volcano between 500 m and 3,600 m elevation, have occurred during the past 3,000 years. The morphology of its 700-m-wide summit crater has been frequently modified by historical eruptions, which have been recorded since the late-17th century. Historical eruptions have originated primarily from the summit crater, but have also included major explosive and effusive events from flank craters.

Source: Kamchatkan Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/index_eng.php

SAKURA-JIMA Kyushu 31.585Â°N, 130.657Â°E; summit elev. 1117 m

Based on information from JMA, the Tokyo VAAC reported that during 3-9 February multiple explosions from Sakura-jima produced plumes that rose to altitudes of 1.5-3 km (5,000-10,000 ft) a.s.l. and drifted SE and N. On 5, 6, and 7 February, pilots reported that ash plumes sometimes drifted SE and S at altitudes of 1.5-3.4 km (5,000-11,000 ft) a.s.l. An eruption on 8 February produced an estimated 1-km-high lava fountain, and an ash plume with abundant lightning. Incandescent material fell onto the flanks.

Geologic Summary. Sakura-jima, one of Japan's most active volcanoes, is a post-caldera cone of the Aira caldera at the northern half of Kagoshima Bay. Eruption of the voluminous Ito pyroclastic flow was associated with the formation of the 17 x 23-km-wide Aira caldera about 22,000 years ago. The construction of Sakura-jima began about 13,000 years ago and built an island that was finally joined to the Osumi Peninsula during the major explosive and effusive eruption of 1914. Activity at the Kita-dake summit cone ended about 4,850 years ago, after which eruptions took place at Minami-dake. Frequent historical eruptions, recorded since the 8th century, have deposited ash on Kagoshima, one of Kyushu's largest cities, located across Kagoshima Bay only 8 km from the summit. The largest historical eruption took place during 1471-76.

Sources: Tokyo Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/OTH/JP/messages.html,
Kago-Net http://www.kago-net.com/index.php?itemid=127

SARYCHEV PEAK Matua Island 48.092Â°N, 153.20Â°E; summit elev. 1496 m

SVERT reported that a thermal anomaly on Sarychev Peak was detected by satellite on 3 February.

Geologic Summary. Sarychev Peak, one of the most active volcanoes of the Kuril Islands, occupies the NW end of Matua Island in the central Kuriles. The andesitic central cone was constructed within a 3-3.5 km wide caldera, whose rim is exposed only on the SW side. A dramatic 250-m-wide, very steep-walled crater with a jagged rim caps the volcano. The substantially higher SE rim forms the 1496 m high point of the island. Fresh-looking lava flows descend all sides of Sarychev Peak and often form capes along the coast. Much of the lower-angle outer flanks of the volcano are overlain by pyroclastic-flow deposits. Eruptions have been recorded since the 1760's and include both quiet lava effusion and violent explosions. The largest historical eruption of Sarychev Peak in 1946 produced pyroclastic flows that reached the sea.

Source: Sakhalin Volcanic Eruption Response Team (SVERT) http://www.imgg.ru/rus/labs_vulcan_hazard.php

SHIVELUCH Central Kamchatka (Russia) 56.653Â°N, 161.360Â°E; summit elev. 3283 m

KVERT reported that during 29 January-5 February seismic activity from Shiveluch was above background levels, possibly indicating ash plumes rising to an altitude of 5.7 km (18,700 ft) a.s.l. Fumarolic activity was observed on 1 February; cloud cover prevented observations on other days. Analyses of satellite imagery revealed a large daily thermal anomaly from the lava dome. The Level of Concern Color Code remained at Orange.

Geologic Summary. The high, isolated massif of Shiveluch volcano (also spelled Sheveluch) rises above the lowlands NNE of the Kliuchevskaya volcano group and forms one of Kamchatka's largest and most active volcanoes. The currently active Molodoy Shiveluch lava-dome complex was constructed during the Holocene within a large breached caldera formed by collapse of the massive late-Pleistocene Strary Shiveluch volcano. At least 60 large eruptions of Shiveluch have occurred during the Holocene, making it the most vigorous andesitic volcano of the Kuril-Kamchatka arc. Frequent collapses of lava-dome complexes, most recently in 1964, have produced large debris avalanches whose deposits cover much of the floor of the breached caldera. Intermittent explosive eruptions began in the 1990s from a new lava dome that began growing in 1980. The largest historical eruptions from Shiveluch occurred in 1854 and 1964.

Source: Kamchatkan Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/index_eng.php

SOUFRIERE HILLS Montserrat 16.72Â°N, 62.18Â°W; summit elev. 915 m

MVO reported that during 29 January-5 February activity from the SoufriÃ¨re Hills lava dome was variable as the lava dome continued to grow. Cycles of vigorous ash venting, rockfalls, and pyroclastic flows occurred every seven to twelve hours. Pyroclastic flows traveled mostly W down Gages into Spring Ghaut, as far as 3 km, but also occurred in Whites Ghaut to the NE. Rockfall activity was abundant on the N flank. On 4 February, ash fell across NW Montserrat. Observations the next day revealed that the central W part of the lava dome had grown and was 1,070 m a.s.l.

Pyroclastic flows following a Vulcanian explosion on 5 February traveled W, reaching Plymouth and spreading 500 m across the sea. Pyroclastic flows also traveled as far as 2 km NW down Tyers Ghaut and NE down Whites Ghaut. An ash plume rose to an altitude of 6.4 km (21,000 ft) a.s.l. A small Vulcanian explosion on 8 February generated pyroclastic flows that mostly traveled W down Gages Valley. Small pyroclastic surges observed using a thermal camera descended the N flanks. An ash plume rose to an altitude of 4.6 km (15,000 ft) a.s.l. and drifted E and ENE. Ashfall was reported in NW Montserrat and in SW Antigua, 50 km NW. The Hazard Level remained at 4.

Geologic Summary. The complex dominantly andesitic SoufriÃ¨re Hills volcano occupies the southern half of the island of Montserrat. The summit area consists primarily of a series of lava domes emplaced along an ESE-trending zone. English's Crater, a 1-km-wide crater breached widely to the E, was formed during an eruption about 4,000 years ago in which the summit collapsed, producing a large submarine debris avalanche. Block-and-ash flow and surge deposits associated with dome growth predominate in flank deposits at SoufriÃ¨re Hills. Non-eruptive seismic swarms occurred at 30-year intervals in the 20th century, but with the exception of a 17th-century eruption that produced the Castle Peak lava dome, no historical eruptions were recorded on Montserrat until 1995. Long-term small-to-moderate ash eruptions beginning in that year were later accompanied by lava-dome growth and pyroclastic flows that forced evacuation of the southern half of the island and ultimately destroyed the capital city of Plymouth, causing major social and economic disruption.

Source: Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) http://www.mvo.ms/

SUWANOSE-JIMA Ryukyu Islands (Japan) 29.635Â°N, 129.716Â°E; summit elev. 799 m

Based on information from JMA, the Tokyo VAAC reported explosions from Suwanose-jima during 5-6 and 9 February. Details of possible resulting emissions were not reported.

Geologic Summary. The 8-km-long, spindle-shaped island of Suwanose-jima in the northern Ryukyu Islands consists of an andesitic stratovolcano with two historically active summit craters. Only about 50 persons live on the sparsely populated island. The summit of the volcano is truncated by a large breached crater extending to the sea on the east flank that was formed by edifice collapse. Suwanose-jima, one of Japan's most frequently active volcanoes, was in a state of intermittent Strombolian activity from On-take, the NE summit crater, that began in 1949 and lasted nearly a half century. The largest historical eruption took place in 1813-14, when thick scoria deposits blanketed residential areas, after which the island was uninhabited for about 70 years. The SW crater produced lava flows that reached the western coast in 1813, and lava flows reached the eastern coast of the island in 1884.

Source: Tokyo Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/OTH/JP/messages.html

TUNGURAHUA Ecuador 1.467Â°S, 78.442Â°W; summit elev. 5023 m

The IG reported that 14-51 explosions from Tungurahua were detected by the seismic network during 3-9 February. Inclement weather often prevented observations of the volcano; an ash plume was seen rising to an altitude of 7 km (23,000 ft) a.s.l. Ashfall was noted almost daily in areas to the SW, W, and NW, and was particularly heavy towards the end of the reporting period. Roaring noises and sounds resembling "cannon shots" were heard. Explosions sometimes caused windows and structures to vibrate, including large windows at the Tungurahua Observatory (OVT) in Guadalupe, 11 km N. Occasionally at night incandescence emanated from the crater and incandescent blocks rolled down the flanks as far as 1 km. On 3 February lahars descended drainages to the W and SW, carrying tree trunks and blocks up to 1 m in diameter, and causing the road from Riobamba to BaÃ±os to close. Strombolian activity from the crater was seen during 6-8 February.

Geologic Summary. The steep-sided Tungurahua stratovolcano towers more than 3 km above its northern base. It sits ~140 km S of Quito, Ecuador's capital city, and is one of Ecuador's most active volcanoes. Historical eruptions have all originated from the summit crater. They have been accompanied by strong explosions and sometimes by pyroclastic flows and lava flows that reached populated areas at the volcano's bas e. The last major eruption took place from 1916 to 1918, although minor activity continued until 1925. The latest eruption began in October 1999 and prompted temporary evacuation of the town of BaÃ±os on the N side of the volcano.

eklemetti Wed, 02/10/2010 - 07:57

So, Erik got the info.........
When major communictions have failed.........
We are so well connected. ahem....cough,cough.

and i guess this means the volcanoes have a snow day.
Best!motsfo

They may have a problem in Washington for quite a while. Last Friday and today they have experienced a classic Weather Bomb....something like a Snowcaine ...it looks like it is even developing an eye. Hey Erik I guess the East Coast apocalypse obsessed really did have a reason to obsess last Friday;)...Here is another reason for them to worry....They were told to get 3 days food last Friday, it is now Wednesday and most of them are stuck for awhile. At some point they will need to get some of that wet heavy snow off the roofs or they will start to collapse. The ones without power may not get it back for weeks as the temps stay below freezing. Also they most likely will see a possibly even bigger storm on the 16-17 and in between now and then almost nothing will melt. Here is a link to the GFS models

http://coolwx.com/cgi-bin/getptype.cgi?region=us&model=gfs&run=12&fhr=9…

It looks like we may even get a little snow here in Florida by the weekend.
I also see another storm possibly coming to the East coast less than a week after the 16-17 storm. As long as the Arctic Oscillation is negative and those El Nino storms are rolling in from California, they and much of the Eastern US are in the crosshairs for more ice and snow. Before this is over people without power around Washington and Philly will be burning furniture or anything they can find just to stay warm. They should see 100 inches or more for the season in several cities along the East Coast. This pattern looks like it will be here into March....although it may mercifully (For those on the East Coast) shift back to just west of the Appalachians and the South around the 1st of March. It should be a nice April though:) then ....gradual warming until middle June but a cool summer after that with very cold and stormy winters coming to the US and Europe for the next 2 winters and maybe beyond.

Let's see here. What was that they said about "global warming?!! Nice and warm in Washington and Tennesee isn't it Mr Gore?!!

So we got the Info from the Govt before the normal distribution eh?
Reminds me of the Movie Trading Places, where they get rich off the Orange Juice Market.
Quick, buy up all the Lava Futures! No! Sell!

I wouldn't put too much stock in the long-term storm track models - worked for storm 1, but not so good for storm 2.

Keep your eye pasted on jetstream map
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Wind/JetStream.aspx

The current pattern of high speed winds across the southern US is pretty interesting.

Ha! I was right about Sarychev Peak picking up in activity.

Big shake in southern Mexico (Chiapas) subduction zone is another reason for pause. OTOH, the Aleutian chain is looking pretty busy, shake-wise, but the volcanic activity is strangely quiet.

Quiet is not always good.

Trust me I know the weather almost as good as I do geology;)

Passerby, Keep an eye on this and you will know the winter weather in the North America and Europe at least 2 weeks ahead of time.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao_index_…

The AO ensemble in no way solely dictates NA and Eurpean weather. Nino3.4 for longterm national forecasts.
Storm track to monitor short-term bad news.
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/stormtracks/mstrack.shtml
Jetstream to evaluate short-term shift in temperatures.

I feel bad for Europe, under the hammer with major storms, facing yet another, with additional bad news on the way in about 10 days.

Exceptional winter weather.

Food for thought:
Large Earthquakes Trigger A Surge In Volcanic Eruptions (Science Daily, Jan 2009)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090110084653.htm

The pertinent questions are therefore 'where' and 'when'.

And here on the upper left coast? The warmest January on record, my primroses are blooming and the crocuses have started to fade. El Nino tend to induce a split flow in the jet stream over the north east pacific, keeping cold weather far north and sending rain storms to the southern califoria. It recombines over the mid west with the recently observed results.

The Cliff Mass weather blog is the best I've seen at explaining these weather complexities, http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ , with occasional side servings of "why modern math education at the high school level is producing college freshman that can't keep up" and "there's a still lot of science to do on climate change" that are worth reading for those interested.

Passerby You are right it doesn't determine the weather but it is a good barometer of coming cold and storms in the Northern Hemisphere...We will agree to sort of disagree on the weather:) That article and the paper I posted the other day are just some of the reasons I am worried about Yellowstone. A shallow magma chamber that is 4300km3 in volume and 32% melt saturated with 8% water plus CO2 by volume is just a cocked gun waiting on one of those quakes. I can only hope that maybe someone saw our discussion the other day, read that paper and took it seriously. I have emailed it to Mike Rampino, Bill Mcguire and several others.

the Redoubt RSAM is starting to look interesting again too

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/rsam/rsam.php?volcname=Redoubt

Well, those of us on the middle left coast, N CA had some unusual snow. We had 14" here a couple of months ago and then 3 1/2" in a later storm. At ~2500', that is not typical for us. We had a blizzard in 91 that gave us 30" in one day and up in town they had about 4'! We ususally get more rain than the Central Valley and just north of us they get more rain than we do. We have been fortunate in that we have received more rain than normal. Thing is, I remember back in the 50s when the Sierras had snow all year long. Now they have almost no snow on them by the end of July or beginning of August.

I new a lady that was a friend of my mother's and her father was a physisist/meteorologist and he told Mom that every 50 years the weather patterns change. That is basically true, though not necessarily cut in stone. I believe we are going to see some really weird weather patterns. Just think of the "storm of the century" a few years ago when the east got hit and hit hard because a cold air came down from Canada and warm air came up from the gulf. They merged in the Appalatians. Major trouble.

I haven't read everything yet, but I will get to it. I want to see what is being said about the weather. As for Yellowstone, wouldn't it take a larger quake to get it to start rumbling? Of course, it may not. I think I mentioned once that my DH and others were using a thumper truck on the Garlock fault and the USGS guys came running and told them to get off the area. Just that thumper truck could have created a quake that might have been large enough to cause damage. So it may not take much. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Maybe Einstein was right. Check the post on another part of the blog (forgot what part, but it is a quote posted from Einstein). Maybe we could get a discussion going about that one. It is about the weight of the ice at the poles reaching a point were it starts to move the plates around. Interesing theory.

I found the post I was talking about. It is under the Monserrat post. #7

You'll have not supposed to do so, but I believe you've gotten managed to specific the state of mind that a lot of people are in. The sense of wanting to help, but not figuring out how or the place, is one thing plenty of us are going through.

Russia nixes Kamchatka and Kuril Island volcano monitoring

eklemetti — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:49:45 +0000

Russia nixes Kamchatka and Kuril Island volcano monitoring

Bezymianny in Kamchatka, one of the many volcanoes in eastern Russia that will no longer be monitored by KVERT.

In some bad news for volcano watchers (and the general public, too), Russia has decided to stop funding KVERT (the Russian equivalent of the Alaska Volcano Observatory), the institute that monitors and researches volcanic eruptions on the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands in the western Pacific. Here is the news release from KVERT:

Due to a loss of government funding beginning February 01, 2010, KVERT will no longer
distribute information regarding volcanic activity in Kamchatka and the Northern Kuriles.
Specifically, the following KVERT services are suspended:
- Assignment of Aviation Color Codes;
- Sending:
- email operational messages from IVS FED RAS and KB GS RAS;
- daily activity report in English from KB GS RAS (table format);
- KVERT Information Releases about current activity and forecasts activity of
volcanoes of Kamchatka and Northern Kuriles from IVS FED RAS
to all users including Tokyo VAAC, Anchorage VAAC, and Washington VAAC, and airlines

In addition, KVERT will no longer maintain its public web site with volcano information.
Access to the following information will cease:
- KVERT information releases
- Volcanic danger prognosis for aviation for next week (in Russian)
- Current Activity of the Volcanoes
- MODIS and NOAA satellite images
- Weekly information on current eruptions on the IVS website

So, for all intents and purposes, all the local expertise and information about the eruptions in eastern Russia is no more. No more aviation alerts, no more website with hundreds of images of the volcanoes erupting, no more updates on the activity along the arc. Now, why should you care?

Have you looked at the aviation routes to Asia lately? Last year when Sarychev Peak in the Kuril Islands erupted, there was a large disruption of air travel - both passenger and freight - from North America/Europe to eastern Asia. Volcanoes are a serious hazard to aviation. This was to avoid the ash plume from the erupting volcano, which can stall engines on jet aircraft - a recipe for an air disaster. Luckily we had KVERT monitoring the volcanic eruption to give air traffic controllers and airlines information about the ash cloud and its behavior.
The Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands are one of the most active volcanic arcs right now - at one point recently 6 volcanoes were erupting or showing signs of imminent eruption simultaneously. Now, we have no group dedicated to keeping track of the changing activity at noisy volcanoes like Shiveluch, Bezymianny, Kliuchevskoi, Sarychev Peak and many more.
After an event like the Haitian earthquake, any time you see a government stop funding groups that monitor and mitigate for natural disasters, you have to wonder if the politicians have even a remote grasp of why these disasters occur. The more we know about the potential hazard and the better grasp we have during disasters, and especially during the period in between disasters, the more likely we are to avoid disaster. Why the period between disasters? If we can understand what leads up to a large eruption or earthquake or the like, then we can give people more warning - and more warning leads to more chance to reach safety.

This, again, shows that the general public and politicians around the world are uninterested in science. We can spend $50 million dollars for a new MIG, but not to fund a vital institution that can help prevent disasters over one of the busiest flight corridors in the world.

eklemetti Thu, 01/28/2010 - 02:49

You said it, Erik.

Funding to KVERT has been cut off before, but something has always been cobbled together to get it going again. Let's hope it will be back again, sooner rather than later. Whatever, it's a very irresponsible way for the Russians to manage volcano monitoring.

Even in the post-Soviet world we still need Kremlin wtchers to try to figure out the motivations behind Russian government thinking. That's not my field, but if I were to hazard a guess I would say the finances of the Russian state are not as good as we have been led to believe in recent years. Natural gas prices have dropped and the Russian supply may have peaked - The US has overtaken them.
When money gets tight politicians have people screaming at them from all sides that their program is vital. The pols tend to then worry about the near term and not long term issues. The add in influence peddling, lobbying and corruption. Plus big programs are less likely to get cut than smaller ones. Volcano monitoring is long-term, does not produce much "pork" and is not big enough to have a large politically connected bureaucracy.
Its not a rational decision making process, but it is the usual one. The only response is to fight on and make your voices heard.

Perhaps the industries affected by this (aviation) should be the ones to step up and find a way to fund KVERT?

It may be instructive to look at this graphic:
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/qed/

It depicts 30 days of global earthquake activity. Patterns of shallow earthquakes suggest accumulated energy along subduction tensor systems is being perhaps...'nudged' into release.

We know from recent reports that earthquakes and volcano eruptions may exhibit activity patterns of seasonality, related to changes in precipitation.

But what if there are additional sources of stressor energy capable of additive effect to seasonal pattern effect along slip-strike zones?

One interesting report suggests surface processes, like seasonal precipitation induced changes in coastal embayment sediment loading may also contribute to stress response.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/qbbfcvjnjhcx0ggp/

A report last week suggested that maximum wave height event probability (in this case, the Pacific Northwest) may be changing as a function of shift in annual severe storm probability (perhaps a function of lower atmosphere energy attributed to global warming). These waves play a role in coastal scour and erosion events that take place in very short time periods (days to weeks).

Food for thought: Haiti has massive soil erosion issues, following near total deforestation.

There is one more major energy source that may be playing a role in temporal subduction zone activity. We'll talk about that in a later post.

Hopefully, you also made the logical connection of the exceptional number of high energy storm events that wracked Haiti recently and the exceptional high latitude cold season temperatures and precipitation events of last year and this year.

Has Bobby Jindal assumed control of the Russian government?

Can anyone find out the amount ( in $ ) of funding that we're talking about? I cant find the amount. The Russians have stopped funding temporarily before. I bet we arent talking about a lot of money.

Wouldnt it seem fair for the US and Japan to foot a share of the funding? Its OUR flights that are most at risk. And with shared funding would come shared control, and better exchange of info and learning. Always a silver lining.

It looks like the responsibility for ash advisory warnings in Kamchatka belongs to the Tokyo VAAC (see map here: http://aawu.arh.noaa.gov/vaac.php). This may mean that ash advisory forecasts will continue. However does anyone know how much Tokyo VAAC relied on KVERT for information or do they make their assessments independently?

Also while I am at it can someone let me know if the VAAC system is run through a treaty or binding international agreement - i.e are there legal requirements for the US to run the Anchorage and Washington VAAC centers, and other countries theirs?

Yes, I wasn't implying that there will be no ash advisories - we do have satellites to help detect them - but I'm sure that information of a group like KVERT can make predicting ash hazard and assessing what is seen invaluable. I mean, look at the mystery "eruption" last fall at Karkar - it took people on the ground to determine that the VAAC ash advisory was a false positive.

KVERT is very instrumental in notifying the VAACs of volcanic hazards - this paper gives specific examples from several eruptions (Bezy 2006, Klychevskoy 2007, etc.) Unlike just satellite data, KVERT can often provide advance warning of an eruption.

Neal, C., Girina O., Senyukov, S., Rybin, A., Osiensky, J., Izbekov, P., and Ferguson, G., 2009, Russian eruption warning systems for aviation: Natural Hazards, doi:10.1007/s11069-009-9347-6

Following up on Eileen's comment, History of KVERT webpage at kscnet.ru, also has administration info on the website home page

http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/kvert_10_eng.php
http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/index_eng.php

I guess the Washinton VAAC will have to take responsibility for the warnings in that flight info. region. It's always best to have people on the ground watching those things though. A few years ago I ran into a petroleum geologist whose sister worked there; he was saying she supplemented her research funds with her photographs and showing tourists around (though I can't imagine many tourists in such a remote area); maybe it's getting to the point where the researchers need to work two full-time jobs. I wonder what the state is doing with all that money they make from being Europe's largest gas supplier.

The USGS could always step in.

Rule number one: You never get credit for what didn't happen. Saving thousands of lives by providing timely early warning gets you two column inches on page 14. Save billions of dollars by informing city planners which slopes are safe and which aren't and the consulting fee is considered thanks enough. Hang a photocopy of the check on your wall if you want the feeling to last. Until an airliner falls out of the sky little will be said about, and nothing will be done, to fill this hole in the monitoring program.

AVO/USGS can be expected to have a contingency plan in place in response to previous KVERT funding shortfalls. Japan will be saddled with the task of filling regional monitoring gap. Meanwhile, the aviation industry, NOAA/NWS and others involved in risk management are voicing their concerns via the appropriate national and international diplomatic channels.

@Passerby

You are an interesting individual.

May we know who we are listening to?

Russia seems to have never really understood what KVERT was doing. They were always willing to cut their funding off,do thy even have clue what they are doing there,probbly not.

Even in the post-Soviet world we still need Kremlin wtchers to try to figure out the motivations behind Russian government thinking.

In general, I would agree, but this case seems quite simple. The thinking is likely: "We can't afford it, and nobody lives anywhere near there." Probably they didn't know about the air traffic issues. If they did, they probably thought air routes could just be bent to always avoid the active volcanoes, or that air traffic could rely on satellites.
I suppose there's an outside possibility this is the beginning of an attempt to convince other nations to contribute some $$ to KVERT, but it seems much more likely they just don't understand the importance of KVERT.

Just have the companies that insure the planes increase their premiums because of no volcano monitoring. The planes have to be insured or they can't be used as collateral for loans.

Here's a thought if you don't know what something is then don't mess with it, period. And if they have no clue what KVERT does then go there and find out.

The Federated Russian Republic is sparsely populated with a very low population growth rate; Far Eastern Russia isone of the least populated Russian regions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Russia_natural_population_growth_rate…

The global economic decline has impacted many industrial sectors, including petroleum and natural gas production. Russia is also known to have made some...not good industry investments. The rationale of cutting nonessential government programs to offset funding shortfalls will be an increasingly common theme in the next year - indeed, US Federal and state agencies are presently planning budget cuts.

KVERT (and maybe SVERT) are likely to be cast as nonessential from the distant viewpoint of Moscow in the short-term as the major risk management beneficiaries are nonRussian aviation traffic.

We would politely like to add to the aviation traffic risk management, large volcano or grouped smaller eruptions are also potent modulators of global climate and may adversely affect the environment through air and water quality impacts. Volcanic gas and ash emissions can impact environmental and human health for a period of months to years after major eruptive periods.

The exceptional concentration of active volcanoes in the Kamchatka peninsula and Kurile (and nearby) islands and relative proximity to a mirrored concentration of equally active Alaskan volcanoes - all situated at a critical latitude - is reason enough to carefully monitor activity.

The well known adage, "What goes around, comes around", is worth considering with respect to global hazard monitoring along high northern latitudes*.

* large eruptions at high northern latitudes have been repeatedly shown by temperature and precipitation modeling to have profound effect on a global scale for a period of 1-4 years.

The first plane to crash because of this will cause Russia a headache I am sure they don't want.

this really helped me 4 mi reasearch 4 class

The latest via the KVERT website: KVERT has reached a temporary funding agreement and the KVERT Project has returned to full operations. KVERT will provide daily analysis and evaluation of activity of volcanoes of Kamchatka and Northern Kuriles to ensure safe air services. The temporary agreement will fund the KVERT Project until 30 April 2010.

Hey that's an amazing insight on the subject, thanks so much! never heard it more clear.

Um ma'am, ur thong is showing.

The 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year goes to ...

eklemetti — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:46:45 +0000

The 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year goes to ...

2009 is over! If you missed the Volcanic Year in Review, check out my summary of the volcanic events that captivated many of us over the past year. However, only one event will get the coveted 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year. A lot of you wrote in with votes and comments - I thank you - and a number of events stood out in your mind. Here we go:

Honorable mention
A few volcanic events got multiple votes:
- Soufriere Hills on Montserrat.
- Mando Hararo in Ethiopia.
- Chaiten, Chile and the new research on the eruption.
- The earthquakes in western Saudi Arabia under the Harrat Lunayyir volcanic field.

The Top 5
4 (tied): West Mata and Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai erupting in March 2009.
It seems oddly fitting that two submarine volcanic eruptions tied for 4th. Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eventually became subaerial, but West Mata showed us the first real explosive volcanism caught on camera in deep ocean conditions.

3: Mayon, Philippines

Mayon erupting with lava flows from the summit dome, December 2009.
Possibly the last year activity helped boost its placing, but a large Mayon eruption would be a significant event no matter what. While that hasn't happened just yet, over 50,000 people have been evacuated and lava flows are cascading down the sides of the picturesque Philippine volcano. Look for Mayon to make news well into 2010.

2: Redoubt, Alaska

Redoubt erupting on March 28, 2009. Image courtesy of AVO/USGS, taken by Tricia Joy Sadler.
The eruption of Redoubt got our attention in January and didn't let go for months - will it erupt? When will it erupt? How big will it be? When all was said and done (?), the eruption was relatively minor - the Anchorage airports were only briefly closed and the oil production in the area has resumed (albeit with the Drift River Oil Terminal closed for good). However, the lasting legacy of Redoubt might be how closely this event was monitored from start to finish by the Alaska Volcano Observatory - and how much information they put out for public consumption (via Twitter no less). Redoubt was the first 21st century, digital age volcanic eruption ... and it might not be over.

The 2009 Pliny winner for Volcanic Event of the Year

Sarychev Peak, Russia

Sarychev Peak erupting in June 2009, taken from the ISS.
It might have come out of the blue - it might not have even lasted as long as other eruptions in 2009, but it was the images of the Sarychev Peak eruption that captured out imagination. The sequence of pictures taken of the plume from the International Space Station might be the most stunning images of a volcanic eruption ever taken and the plethora of satellite images of the eruption collected by the NASA Earth Observatory let us see the mammoth eruption in all its splendor. The eruption wreaked havoc on transpacific flights over the Kuril Islands for weeks - but it is fascinating that an eruption that took place near almost no one has ended up being seen by almost everyone.

Happy 2010 to all my Eruptions readers ... !

eklemetti Thu, 12/31/2009 - 21:46

Happy new 2010 to everybody and Congratulations to Sarychev, a volcano that I am sure fully deserved being "the volcano of the year". Not only because it featured spectacularly in one of the most spectacular volcano photos ever taken, but also because it was a BIG eruption - a far cry maybe from ChaitÃ©n or Pinatubo, but probably among the most voluminous eruptions of the year.
Now let's see what volcanic events the new year will bring ... Mayon seems to be dropping out of sight for the moment (but I remember during its 1984 eruption it came back spectacularly after about one week of very low level activity, and also in 1993 and 2001 there were significant pauses in the activity).

i appreciate Your considering Redoubt as the Volcano of the Year. i live across Cook Inlet and my little grandson lives 70 miles south of me and had a clear view of one of the more spectacular eruptions and happened to be out in his yard talking to me on a cell phone. He was quite concerned and was telling me all about it......"Mots, Mots..... it's scary scary!" as the hugh black cloud exploded upward. i couldn't see a thing; being too close and having a cloudy sky. It's alright, It's Ok, It's going to be ok, i tried to console the little guy...... He turned to the rest of the crowd and announced releaved...."Mots says it's going to be ok." with total relief. ........

Later i caught a film of that particular explosion........
it WAS SCARRY SCARRY! i don't think my grandmother could have convinced me that it was going to be all right!

What undeserved power we have.
Happy New Year, Everyone!
Try to deserve the trust of our grandchildren.
Best!motsfo

Well, obviously this one had my vote; timing is everything. If the ISS had been 15 minutes earlier or an hour later, this growing eruption column would have been either missed or spread out. They caught in ascent; lucky and spectacular.

First new eruption of the year 2010: Piton de la Fournaise (RÃ©union Island, Indian Ocean). This event is announced on the web site of the RÃ©union island newspaper "Journal de l'Ã®le" (http://www.jir.fr/index.php?id_article=232698&page=article) and at http://www.fournaise.info/, whereas no news has yet been posted at the web site of the volcanological observatory of Piton de la Fournaise: http://www.ipgp.fr/pages/03030807.php

A dictator may termination for a pongid but never wish for a birdie's snoot

More and lots more people maintain preconditioned notion that MLM is a scam since they or somebody they know has hit a brick wall at building an mlm establishment before. Nothing is brand new with that. 95% of companies fail within their very initial 5 years and 5% fall short of their first 10 years. That is a Government information and it has completely nothing to complete with MLM. Does that imply you shouldn't give yourself an opportunity of the American vision by means of free enterprise?

278Colker@yahoo.com

2009: The Volcanic Year in Review

eklemetti — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:45:45 +0000

2009: The Volcanic Year in Review

Here it is, my attempt to recap a year's worth of volcanic events. By no means is this supposed to capture every event, but rather the highlight/lowlights and what most captivated me during 2009. I'll be announcing the winner of the 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year tomorrow.

Waimangu Geothermal Valley in New Zealand, taken in January 2009 by Erik Klemetti.

January
The year started out with a trip to New Zealand (well, for me at least) and vistas of the Waimangu Valley, formed in the 1886 eruption of Tarawera on the North Island. We were also still thinking about the late 2008 earthquake swarm at Yellowstone, which didn't lead to anything in 2009. British scientists suggested that Antarctica has been experiencing subglacial eruption, which might account for some of the melting of the ice on the southern continent. However, what really got our attention in January was the Mt. Redoubt in Alaska, with the volcano being put on alert by AVO on January 26th - leading to months of speculation about what might happen. By the end of the month (4 days later), the volcano was all over the news and concern about the Drift River Oil Terminal was high.

February
It was the Redoubt wait that dominated the volcano news during February. Earthquakes, steam and speculation were the order of the day. We also got news of recent eruptions at NW-Rota 1 from Dr. Ed Kohut off on a research cruise in the Pacific. Chaiten was still going strong, but the social fallout from the relocation of the town of Chaiten was proving to be a major problem was well. Finally, volcano monitoring made a surprise splash at the end of the month when Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal suggested that monitoring volcanoes was "wasteful" - he learned quickly that badmouthing volcanologists is not a good idea.

March
We had to wait most of the month, but right after AVO thought things were winding down at Redoubt, the volcano goes and erupts anyway on March 23rd. It wasn't a little eruption either, throwing ash to over 50,000 ft / 15 km and eventually closing the international airport in Anchorage. March ended up being a double feature, with the surprise - and very impressive - eruption of Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha'apai in the island nation of Tonga. This eruption started as an undersea eruption noticed by commercial pilots in the area and quickly became a classic island-building event. We also had a lot of noise about the earthquake swarms in the Bombay Beach area long the San Andreas fault in southern California. March also marked my move from Wordpress to ScienceBlogs - so I send a special thanks to all the readers who came with me and all my new readers - if you can believe it, Eruptions will be just short of half a million visits in the 10 months since coming to ScienceBlogs!

Llaima in Chile erupting in April 2009.

April
April ended up being my busiest month - with over 50 posts in the month alone. A lot of that was, again, dominated by Redoubt's activity that continued throughout the month. We also saw impressive eruptions of Llaima in Chile and new fissure eruptions at Fernandina in the Galapagos Islands. I addressed some concerns people have on the dangers of geothermal drilling causing an eruption (short answer: probably not). We also got an inside look at the USGS Volcano Hazards Program and I got all worked up about some questionable volcano journalism (what a surprise).

May
May marked two anniversaries: one was for Eruptions, the other, more important one marked one year of eruptions at Chaiten in Chile. The eruption that got me on this blogging track was still going strong after a year, with at least three domes growing inside the Chaiten caldera. Of course, we were also still waiting for the big dome collapse at Redoubt as well, but little came of that. We also got the first glimpse of West Mata erupting in the Lau Basin of the Pacific - the media would really get fired up about this in December when video was released. However, the most exciting event of the month was the earthquake swarm and potential threat of volcanic eruption in the Harrat Lunayyir region of Saudi Arabia. At times, I felt like I was the only person covering the event, getting reports from people on the ground in Saudi Arabia - but when all was said-and-done, no eruption came.

June
We had two volcanoes headed in opposite directions in June. First, Redoubt settled down for the summer. Second, Sarychev Peak in Russia blew its top in a spectacular fashion - disrupting air traffic all across the Pacific. The eruption was a major sulfur dioxide event and provided one of the most stunning volcano images - well, ever. The eruption did a number to the small island of Matau. Sarychev Peak wasn't the only volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula making noise: Shiveluch also had a major eruption. In June, we also got the first taste of the "Mt. Saint Helens: Supervolcano" controversy and media disaster that would come back later in the year. Finally, my colleagues at UC Davis, Naomi Marks, Peter Schiffman and Robert Zeirenberg, made the news by drilling into an active rhyolite magma in Iceland - nice way to end the month!

Sarychev Peak erupting in June 2009.

July
Volcanically speaking, things quieted down during summer after a very busy spring. The biggest news for July was likely eruption at Mando Hararo in Ethiopia - adding more fissure volcanism in the East African Rift. Of course, it might have been most fascinating to Eruptions readers because one of your own might have been the first to notice the eruption actually occurred. Over in Hawai`i, a rockfall captured on camera temporarily "snuffed out" the Halema`uma`u vent, but it didn't take long for lava to retake the crater. Mayon offered foreshadowing of things to come with evacuations prompted by the beginning of the current eruption.

August
August was especially quite around these parts - thanks partially to my move from California to Ohio, but also to the fact that, well, not much happened (so much for 2009 being an "anomalously volcanic" year). We started the month with some news that there might have been a volcanic eruption on Venus. I've since lost track of the research on this event - anybody have any new theories in what happened on our sister planet? Kamchatka was in the news, mostly because it was such a volcanically active area in 2009 - 5 volcanoes were erupting at once during August - and a new geyser was found as well. And if you need something to read in the long winter months, check out my favorite volcano books.

September
Things picked back up once the fall began. I dabbled in the world of "manmade volcanoes" (short answer: bad idea unless they erupt a dinosaur). In what now seems premature, the eruption at Soufriere Hills on Montserrat was declared "over" after 6 months of quiet at the volcano. We all know what came two weeks later. The international media was all over the proclamation that Australia was "overdue" for a volcanic eruption - a notion that most people think is fear-mongering at its best. There was some suggestion of something happening at Mt. Rainier - but what exactly is still a mystery. Finally, after 6 months of eruptions and noise, AVO lowered the warning level at Redoubt to green (normal). The eruption was over ... or is it?

Nevado del Huila in Colombia steaming from the summit in 2009.

October
With Redoubt out of the picture (for now), a couple of new volcanoes took to the streets. Gaua in Vanuatu erupted, prompting evacuations of people living near the island volcano. We also saw more activity at Huila in Colombia - it was a busy year for volcanic eruptions in Colombia, with eruptions at Huila and Galeras, along with signs of life from the slumbering volcano of Machin (enough to prompt the Colombian government to ponder diverting a major highway to avoid it getting cut by a Machin eruption). A study in Nature was published showing that the magma erupted during 2008-09 at Chaiten shot through the crust - and then you got to ask Dr. Jonathan Castro, coauthor of the study - all about Chaiten. I also attended the GSA Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon, where I found out some fun information on Toba, New York kimberlites and Mackenzie Pass.

November
Two non-events dominated a lot of the discussion during November. First was the attention paid to the idea that geologists could "destroy Naples" through exploratory drilling into the Campei Flegrei. Second was the non-eruption of Karkar in Papau New Guinea - we all thought a major eruption occurred, but now it looks like the satellites might have been a bit confused, thanks to reports from the ground. Dr. Boris Behncke answered your questions about Italian volcanoes. Both Gaua and Soufriere Hills were full-steam-ahead when it came to their respective eruptions.

Mayon erupting in December 2009.

December
As 2009 closed out, all eyes turned to the Philippines and the eruption of Mayon. The volcano produced some impressive lava flows and avalanches, but as of December 30, the big explosive event that PHIVOLCS is thinking is in the cards has yet to arrive. Large-scale evacuations have occurred, but keeping people out of the danger zone has been problematic. Piton de la Fournaise on Reunion Island actually erupted first in November, but the December eruption was captured in time-lapse video, showing the growth of the fissure vent eruption on the basaltic shield volcano. Soufriere Hills stayed in the news, causing power problems on Montserrat and ash from the volcano cancelled flights as far away as Puerto Rico. And in a bit of a surprise, as 2009 closed out, Redoubt was put back on Yellow Alert status after new signs of potential activity.

So there is 2009 in a nutshell ... any predictions for 2010 (volcanically speaking)?

eklemetti Thu, 12/31/2009 - 04:45

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 7/8-14/2009

eklemetti — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:02:31 +0000

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 7/8-14/2009

Your weekly dose of volcanism from the USGS/Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program.

Highlights (not counting Mayon), include:

The activity at Mando Hararo in Ethiopia appears to be a fissure eruption. Ground observations saw a 4-5 kilometers / ~2.5-3 mile fissure with new predominantly 'a'a lava flows that were 2-3 m thick ... the fissure was lined with scoria ramparts 30-50 m high. They did not see any active lava, though.
As some Eruptions readers have pointed out from the OMI SO₂ maps, Sarychev Peak (Russia) is still producing gas-and-steam (with some ash) plumes, mostly drifting off to the east of the volcano.
Shishaldin in the Aleutians saw its Alert status changed to Yellow/Advisory by AVO. A thermal anomaly seen via satellite in the crater has been growing more intense recently. The anomaly was first noticed in January of 2009. The volcano last erupted in 2004.
Explosions and 4-4.5 km / 13,500-15,000 foot ash columns were produced at Fuego in Guatemala. There was also some incandescent ejecta spotted being thrown 75 m / ~250 feet from the crater.
Shiveluch in Kamchatka (Russia) continues to rumble, with gas-and-steam plumes with ash produced by explosions reaching as high ~5.3 km / 13,400 feet.

eklemetti Wed, 07/15/2009 - 10:02

Interesting that Shishaldin is brewing up again; I've always been fascinated by this volcano, one of those frequently-active but generally well-behaved ones that rarely make the news. Couple of odd facts: first known ascent in May 1932 by a team led by Jesuit priest/geologist Bernard Hubbard..who found that at that time it had no defined crater. It's also acquired a plethora of different names...Sisquk, Shishaldin, Caroli and the colloquial 'Smokin' Moses'

Well, then you should check out today's post : http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2009/07/is_something_up_at_shishaldin….

Could not have arrived at a much better time. Superb write-up.

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 7/1-7/2009

eklemetti — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:53:28 +0000

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 7/1-7/2009

All the volcano news that is fit to print, all thanks to the USGS/Smithsonian GVP!

Highlights (not include Manda Hararo, Kilauea and Mayon) include

San Miguel in El Salvador has been experiencing increased seismicity. The last time the volcano erupted was in 2002.
A pilot spotted a ~10,000 foot / 3 km ash plume emanating from Anak Krakatau in Indonesia.
Another ash plume, this time at Ubinas, Peru, was spotted by pilots rising to ~6.7-9.1 km / 20-30,000 feet.
Explosions were heard from Suwanose-jima in Japan, but no associated ash plumes were spotted.
It sounds like a lava dome has been spotted at Sarychev Peak in the Kuril Islands of Russia. An "intense thermal anomaly" was noted at the summit in satellite images and gas/steam plumes have been seen each day. However, no new ash plumes have been noticed since June 16.

eklemetti Wed, 07/08/2009 - 08:53

pretty interesting seismogram at yellowstone today:

http://www.seis.utah.edu/helicorder/heli/yellowstone/Uuss.LKWY_SHZ_US.2…

A couple of days ago an ash cloud from Sarychev reached Finland, about 8000 km away in west. It was flying high in the stratosphere. The weather camera of Tampere amateur astronomers recorded it:
http://picasaweb.google.fi/TaUrsa.albumit/TorninSaakameranKohokohtaOtok…

The camera points north. And yes, at this time of the year the Sun really sets almost due north. And pops up again pretty soon. Latitude is about 61.5N.

AVO responded to an emailed inquiry on the persistent strong SO2 signals observed for several weeks over the Aleutians - enough to make me wonder if there was a local source of emissions. They confirmed the source as Sarychev.

Interesting Doug. Thanks for the heads up.

Looking at the location of that web recorder, is that not the focus of the earthquake swarm from a few months back?

http://www.seis.utah.edu/helicorder/GIFs/misc/ynpwebcord.gif

Recorder LKYW

That be recorder LKWY located on the north end of Yellowstone Lake

Lassi
Cool time lapse thank you for sharing

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 6/24-30/2009

eklemetti — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:16:06 +0000

SI/USGS Weekly Volcano Activity Report for 6/24-30/2009

A wrap up of the week's volcanism, brought to you by Sally Kuhn Sennert and the USGS/SI Global Volcanism Program.

Highlights, not including Sarychev Peak, Redoubt and Shiveluch (busy week in the north Pacific), include:

A small ash cloud was spotted at Bagana in Papua New Guinea.
The Tavurvur cone at Rabaul (PNG) continues to glow at night and produce small ash/steam plumes.
The Santiaguito dome at Santa Maria in Guatemala produced 8,000-10,000 foot / ~2.9-3.3 km ash plumes, along with a lahar that carried blocks over 1.5 m downstream from the volcano.
A 25,000 foot / 7.6 km ash plume was spotted at Sangay in Ecuador.

eklemetti Wed, 07/01/2009 - 11:16

Sarychev Peak: Before and after

eklemetti — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:20:31 +0000

Sarychev Peak: Before and after

The NASA Earth Observatory has posted some excellent images of Matua Island in the Kurils that show the before and after of the Sarychev Peak eruption of June 2009. There are some impressive changes ... so lets see if you can spot them! Post your comments on whats changed and why and I'll chime in periodically with what I've noticed.

BEFORE: Matua Island and Sarychev Peak in May 2007 (big version)

AFTER: Matua Island and Sarychev Peak in late June 2009 (big version)

eklemetti Tue, 06/30/2009 - 12:20