Undersea volcanism

Eruptions Word of the Day: Peperite

eklemetti — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:57:04 +0000

Eruptions Word of the Day: Peperite

Continuing my series where I try to define words of volcanic interest, the new Eruptions Word of the Day is a favorite of mine, mostly because my undergraduate thesis on Vinalhaven Island in Maine ended up dealing with a lot of these types of deposits ... so, without further ado, the word is peperite!

Now, what exactly is a "peperite"?

Well, a picture is worth 1,000 words, right (so that will save me some time):

Peperite in the Vinalhaven Diabase, Vinalhaven Island, Maine. Image by Erik Klemetti. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Let's make some observations:

The rock is full of red-to-black clasts of various sizes and shapes.
The clasts are almost all basaltic andesite in composition.
Some of the clasts look like they have a "chilled" margin, where hot molten material came into contact with colder material.
Some of the clasts look like you could piece them back together - as if they were shattered.
The material between them (the matrix) is mostly light grey/tan, looks to be fine grained.
On closer inspection, the matrix looks like mud or sand.
In some spots, the matrix looks "baked", like it was exposed to high temperatures.
In other spots, the matrix looks like it was squeezed into cracks and open spaces in the basaltic andesite clasts.

So, what does this suggest?
First off, it looks like sediment (the muddy matrix) is mixed with magma (basaltic andesite clasts). The chilled margins on the clasts and the baked areas of the sediment suggest that the magma was still hot and the sediment was cool (relatively speaking). This is supported by shattered clasts of basaltic andesite in the deposit (thermal shock). The sediment looks to have squeezed its way into spaces between clasts, so the sediment was likely not solid - unconsolidated sediment - and like wet, as mud should be. First order conclusion: It appears that hot basaltic andesite magma interacted with wet, unconsolidated muddy sediment.

And there you have it: peperite - magma interacting, sometimes explosively, with wet, unconsolidated sediment, producing a mixed rock with magmatic clasts and a sediment matrix.

The image above is from Vinalhaven Island in Maine, where the Siluro-DevonianVinalhaven Diabase, a thick basaltic andesite sill intruded the Seal Cove Formation (a sedimentary unit). Along the contact in places you find these peperites where the sill intruded into this wet sediment. This likely means that the sill was being intruded fairly shallowly in the crust as sediment begins to compact and loose pore water quickly as it is buried. Peperites have been recognized in locales all over the world and has been interpreted as one of the steps towards explosive hydrovolcanism - and experiments have been tried to recreate a peperite in the lab. There is some evidence that even lava flows on the surface can form peperite deposits as well. However, the thing to remember is that when you find peperites in the rock record, what you are seeing is evidence of shallow emplacement of magma in the crust where it can interact with wet, soft sediment - a current analog might be if magma intruded underneath Mono Lake in California or in the shallow seas along an oceanic arc like the Marianas or Tonga (think about the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha`apai eruption).

Another example of a peperite, courtesy of Highly Allochthonous.

And from where is the name "peperite" derived? It comes from the type locality of peperites, ~~Peper~~ Limagne d'Au- vergne region of central France, where the rocks reminded George Scropes in 1827 of ground pepper.

eklemetti Sun, 08/01/2010 - 21:57

Tags

Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai

hydrovolcanism

maine

peperite

Eruptions Word of the Day

http://www.aip.de/thinkshop/posterpaper/mukherjee1.pdf

http://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/8/12/7736/pdf

Interesting articles on the Sun/earthquake interface...

Looks nice. I'd like to have one in my aquarium.

Ah, one of the 'good rocks' of Home! : )

I've heard mention of the Sun-EQuake connection before, but it was only from the ... "excitable" community.

This should make for a good read later. Thanks.

Ref the word of the day, this one caught my attention. It's always a good thing when you learn something new and unique.

Is there a relationship between clast size and violence of the interaction?

@Paaerby from last thread: thanks for the references. I will have to get to them eventually. As for the wobble issue, I am not sure I was referring to it having anything to do with quakes or eruptions. I think it is an interesting feature that happens, but I don't know of any relationship to quakes or eruptions. It may or may not and I don't think we even have an idea what the wobble (or wobbles)do to the magnetic field or the earth itself. I can see why there would be some angst about it if it stopped. That is probably just because we don't have a full understandin of it. I would suppose it has done that before when no one was able to notice.

I find this stuff interesting rather than scary or having some kind of import about what is going to happen.

OOPS! That is supposed to be "Passerby" above! I think my computer is playing games with me. :-}

Seems like peperites (fairly mafic magma intruding wet sediments at shallow depth) ought to have some connection to maar formation (often fairly mafic magma interacting with wet sediments at shallow depth) Are there cases where the presence of peperites could be used to infer the likely former presence of a maar at the surface, a volcanic landform which can sometimes be rapidly destroyed by other geological processes?

(OT) Regarding mixing of magma... "Eruptive characteristics of Oregon's Mount Hood analyzed" http://www.physorg.com/news199976527.html

@8 - I'll have more to say about Hood in the nearish future (especially considering I helped collect some of the samples used in that study!)

Where is Peper in France?

Google maps seems to have never heard of it! If anyone can help out here I would appreciate it.

VMJC - Thanks for catching that mistake, I misinterpreted the origin. It is now fixed!

Wikipedia explains the name to be because of the look of the stone (black pepper) and the original region to be Limagne region of France.

Lacustrine means 'lake environment'. In this case, it refers to limestones that formed in

Perpite originates from the Gergovie Volcanic Complex.
The Gergovie plateau is a plateau of the Massif Central Auvergne.

A quickie look at Wikipedia for peperite affords a reference to the LeMagne Trench.

Further lookup on Wiki gives us the LiMagne Plain in the Massif Central (Central France).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MC_Limagnes.jpg

Volcanism accompanied the rifting and continued into the Pleistocene. The sediments deposited in the basin are affected by numerous intrusions. The area was the first where peperites were described, from a basaltic intrusion into lacustrine limestone.

The reference can be read through Google Books.

The LiMagne Plain lies in the dÃ©partement of Puy de DÃ´me (region).

gitelink.com/auvergne/departments.htm

'The "Puy de Dome" in the middle - largely mountainous, but with a large fertile agricultural plain, the Limagne, in the middle, to the east of Clermont Ferrand. '

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gergovie_plateau

Type locality would be the plain or town of Gergovie, located in the commune (county) of La_Roche-Blanche
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Roche-Blanche_%28Puy-de-D%C3%B4me%29.

Sedimentation episodes that formed the limestones mentioned above, but truncated to point to general locale first.

Clarification of the LiMagne Plain and Gergovie volcanic complex:

Morphostructural evolution of the Gergovie Lower Miocene volcano-sedimentary system : geodynamical implications on the late-tectonic Limagne rift (Massif central, France).
Canadian J. Earth Sci. (2008). 45(6):641-650.

Abstract: The Gergovie plateau is a Lower Miocene topographically inverted volcano-sedimentary system located in the monogenetic volcanic field of the Limagne rift Tertiary basin. It is composed of three east-west aligned maars partly covered by a basaltic lava flow. The eruption of the central maar (maar 1) occurred at the Oligocene-Miocene transition, during the first volcanic phase.

This phreatomagmatic structure was almost totally cut through by the opening of a second maar (maar 2) during the next eruptive phase. The basaltic lava flow at the summit and the eastern maar (maar 3) were placed during a third and last eruptive phase during the Middle or Upper Burdigalian (similar to 19-16 Ma).

Between these periods of volcanism, three fluvial to fluviolacustrine sedimentation episodes, separated by two erosive stages, followed one another. A bedrock thickness of 100-300 m was eroded from maar 2 during the upper Aquitanian and (or) the lower Burdigalian (similar to 22-19 Ma). This erosion is partly due to a volcano-tectonic uplift in the southern Limagne.

The complex morphostructural evolution of the Gergovie plateau demonstrates the north-south geodynamic differentiation of the Limagne rift during the Lower Miocene, since the northern part of the basin corresponded to a relatively calm lacustrine sedimentation area. More generally, the Miocene volcanic field in the South of the Limagne gives an opportunity to study interactions between volcanism, tectonics, and erosion during the late passive rifting activity phase.

Above post also made to answer Mike Don's question.

Is "Peperite" an internationally recognised term? The International Union of Geological Sciences Subcommission on the Systematics of Igneous Rocks* refers to "Peperite" as a "local term" but does not give the locality, nor a recognised scientific name other than "a tuff or breccia" (formed by the intrusion of magma into wet sediments). Obviously, there is a need for a specific name for this type of rock as "Vinalhaven Island peperite" is far more succinct than "the tuff (or breccia) formed by the intrusion of magma into wet sediments found at Vinalhaven Island, Maine". However, the name is not officially recognised by the International Union of Geological Sciences?

* Le MaÃ®tre, R. W. et al. (Eds.). Igneous Rocks: A Classification and Glossary of Terms: Recommendations of the International Union of Geological Sciences Subcommission on the Systematics of Igneous Rocks p.126, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002

space.com northern lights show sun waking up http://www.space.com/scienceastronamy/sun-eruption-aurora-activity-1008…
and found this also shift an pole reversal http://survive2012.com/index.php/geryl-pole-shift.html

@leon [16]

Dunno how wakey wakey the sun is...

http://i37.tinypic.com/f5gqu.png

A CME does not make a highly active sun. They happen all the time. We just happen to have been in the bore sight of this one.

And now that some sources are starting to use the Solar Dynamics Observatory with it's much greater resolving power, you have to wonder just how skewed the reported and official sunspot numbers are going to be. This was not available for most of the observations (1749 to 2010.) How do reconcile the Sunspot Number with new equipment with old data? In fact, there are some people who take exception to some of the "sun specks" that have been reported as full on "spots."

www.landscheidt.info

Either way, the plot that I made uses the SIDC count, which is accepted as the internationally recognized "official" count. And with that, you can see that cycle 24 is a bit behind the power curve.

BTW, the first of 2 CME's hit at 1730 UT today. Iceland's earthquake count responded with indifference. So far, it looks like that idea presented in the paper www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/8/12/7736/pdf is worth a good airplane or two.

(The author didn't really present anything to support his argument other than cherry picking a quake here or there... and you know how plentiful they are)

@17 lurking, thanks for that yeah looking at one of your links above i came across 'A massive winter heading for the Northern hemisphere?/planetary theory moves' which is linked to solar activity being low and your graphs shows this, so does the PDO. were we going in to a La'nina and a continued one, according to this site-Joe Bastardi from accuweather.com is an avid follower of this site is also predicting the same cooling trend.he also adds the possible cooling effects that could result from impending volcanic eruptions,and to expect conditions similar to the little ice age[1250-1850] http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/189 and looking at my weather world temp map [weatheronline he right you clearly see the drop happening except the Atlantic which will do in the near month or so when the hurricanes carry all that heat and spread that all out.so much media on global warming when in fact we just coming or have already come out of a strong El nino moving to La nina phrase. 'global warming v global cooling' we have to see who right

Not really a strong El Nino either. The press tends to like to toss "strong" "above normal" "greater than expected" and other such modifiers to various things.

Recently, a phenomena known as El NiÃ±o "Modoki" or Central-Pacific El NiÃ±o has been discovered. And, as regular as clockwork "the new El NiÃ±o leads to more hurricanes more frequently making landfall in the Atlantic." And yet 2010 is another year with a very late "first named storm." On average, from 1995 to 2008, the First Named Storm occurred by 16 Jun. In 2009, it formed 11 August. In 2010, 25 June saw the formation of Alex which immediately headed for the speed bump known as the Yucatan. The season so far seems a bit anemic to me. It doesn't mean that it wont become worse later in the year, but the predictions of a highly active season seem to be as wrong as it is every year.

So, when you see a headline like

"El Nino Modoki a Climatic Hybrid for 2009-2010
Winter Weather Forecast Predicts Hurricanes, Rain, and Flooding"

You have to sit back and think to yourself "Okay..."

but 1998 was record El Nino and 2007 2nd strongest El Nino i need more time on this i get to this later very complex stuff

Tough things about records. They only apply for the period that the data was being collected.

That's right back to that tree in the forest thing.

With ENSO (also referred to as the El Nino / El Nina thing or any variety of Multidecadal Oscillations), some weather guessers/analysts/prognosticators have noted what appears to be a step pattern to the heat flow as it progresses further and further north.

I dug around trying to find the link, but was unsuccessful. I ran across it while reading some of Bob Tisdale and Anthony Watts' post at Watts Up with That.

bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/04/misunderstandings-about-pdo-revised.html

wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/misunderstandings-about-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation/

Alternatively, Passerby posted a fascinating link that references El Nino/El Nina as it relates to Earth's rotational momentum:

http://www.examiner.com/x-17371-Raleigh-Climate-Examiner~y2009m8d30-Atm…

Passerby: Thanks for that info. Only just got back to checking this topic, hence delay in reply, sorry.

Impossibly kindly and want upon the significance of brio

There is an exception to every rule

I went to the physician and he mentioned that he doesnât do that kind of factor. Iâm just a little over 200 pounds it wasnât like i was asking for bypass surgery but i he couldnât do something for me. So which type of physician do you imply, i just have to have somewhat guidance/help and i was turned away, so iâm so confused now.

Thursday Throwdown: Stromboli's tiny bubbles, Hawaiian lava flow update and recovering from EyjafjallajÃ¶kull

eklemetti — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:51:59 +0000

Thursday Throwdown: Stromboli's tiny bubbles, Hawaiian lava flow update and recovering from EyjafjallajÃ¶kull

Lots of little pieces of news I've run across ... time to play a little catch up.

Stromboli: A volcano after Don Ho's heart.

Every once in a while, my RSS feeds will dredge up some articles from years gone by ... and this week there were two New York Times pieces that are a few years old, but interesting nevertheless. The first is about research conducted by Dr. Robert Sohn at WHOI on explosive undersea eruptions. The second is work by Corr and Vaughan about finding subglacial volcanism in Antarctica. Both are interesting reads if you missed them (like I did) the first time around.
Yesterday I talked about lava flows - and specifically the Kilauea lavas that are in the Kalapana subdivision. Here is the current update from HVO on the flows along with some details from the local news (link has video).
We have a new Smithsonian/USGS Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report - again, filled with great information, including news from Rabaul, lava flows and a >6 km ash plume from Kliuchevskoi, and continuing strombolian activity at Pacaya.
There was some news last week about recently published research on the mechanisms for eruptions at Stromboli. I haven't had a chance to digest it all, but the long-and-short seems to be to think about these eruptions like Don Ho would: "tiny bubbles". The original paper was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
In case you haven't been visiting the NASA Earth Observatory page in a while, they posted an image taken last week of the current activity at Nyiragongo in the DRC. The image shows the sulfur dioxide-rich plume coming from the main summit crater.
And there have been a lot of articles this week with airlines reporting the cost of the EyjafjallajÃ¶kull airspace closures. The reports are all in the tens of millions of Euros, but across the board, the airlines say ticket sales are back on track. Funny how quickly businesses recover after something like this eruption (even after all their wailing and moaning at the time).

eklemetti Thu, 07/29/2010 - 04:51

Tags

Global Volcanism Program

NASA Earth Observatory

Smithsonian Institution

volcanoes and the economy

volcanoes in the media

volcanoes and the economy

volcanoes in the media

Never heard of the
PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER
http://www.psc.edu/research/graphics/gallery/earthquake.php

maybe some of you find some interesting animations.

How about that:
"RVO reported an eruption from Rabaul caldera's Tavurvur cone on 23 July, after increased seismicity likely beneath Tavurvur cone was detected the previous day."
New Britain's sequence of EQs started after a 7.3 Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 13:34:59 UTC
and then, on July 23rd the sequence of deep Mindanao EQs.
No correlation?
BTW: Another 6.6 aftershock today in Mindanao.
(Data from USGS)

Renato: It's a bit difficult to correlate a specific Tavurvur explosion with the New Britain quakes, since Tavurvur has been banging and thumping away on a pretty regular basis for most of the last fifteen years. (check previous GVP weekly reports) But maybe it's not impossible that the quake could have given magma in the conduit a good shaking up and encouraged gas bubble formation

Rio, you read this: Tectonic Setting and Volcanoes
of Papua New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands

volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/southeast_asia/papua_new_guinea/tectonics.html

Think about Ekohs informative posts, my elaboration on the Mindanao deep focus EQs, the Russkie Model and the proof presented in the marvelous Cocos plate subduction and deep folding.

The map of volcanoes active from 1900-1999 is interesting. From what we know of this area, most of the recent volcanic activity makes sense, although it's a tectonically complex region.

And then there are the out-of-the-blue sleepers, like Lamington, with it's sole recent eruption occurring mid-20th century. It was a VEI 4, lasting several years with unfortunate pyroclastic flow deaths over a very large area.

volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/southeast_asia/lamington.html

From John Seach: Lamington is a major andesite volcano located in an area without a Benioff-Wadati zone. The magmas erupted from the volcano have unusually high levels of Nickel and Chromium.

That observation came from a 1983 publication, 'Ophiolite-contaminated andesites, trachybasalts, and cognate inclusions of Mount Lamington, Papua New Guinea: anhydrite-amphibole-bearing lavas and the 1951 cumulodome.', which mentions,

'Mount Lamington, together with three other major andesitic centers â Mount Victory, Mount Trafalgar and Hydrographers Range â rest on a northeast-dipping ophiolite sheet, the Papuan Ultramafic Belt (PUB); there is no evidence for a Benioff-Wadati zone beneath this part of Papua.'

That caused a bit of difficulty for subduction zone modelers, but a new regional model,

New SW Pacific tectonic model: Cyclical intraoceanic magmatic arc construction and near-coeval emplacement along the Australia-Pacific margin in the Cenozoic. (AGU 2008 Wattman et al)

www.agu.org/journals/ABS/2008/2007GC001710.shtml

was published recently.

'A new model is presented whereby the PUB, New Caledonia, and Northland ophiolites formed and were emplaced in a cyclical fashion above an extensive NE dipping Cenozoic intraoceanic arc system which diachronously propagated (N-S) along the entire eastern margin of the Australian Plate.'

Chris, at Highly Allochonthous, has a great descriptive tectonic map of the region.
all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2010/07/fridayish-focal-mechanisms/

And that's what set us off exploring deep focus EQ mechanics. After reading our posts here, it should be a nobrainer to see the depth of these quakes and understand that stretching/thinning and folding quakes will be ongoing, once the Big Crackers released the potential energy of what must be a major fold forming.

An aside: for those who were met with the inevitable NYTimes login webpage after clicking his hyperlinks to the articles on Antarctic subglacial volcanism, see

www.science20.com/news_releases/first_evidence_of_sub_glacial_volcano_i…

and the original letter-article abstract by Corr and Vaughn, Nature Geoscience 1, 122 - 125 (2008), 'A recent volcanic eruption beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet'.

www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n2/full/ngeo106.html

@mike don #3: this was a speculation we were arguing about on that day of New Britain's quake. Just wanted to post this as a reminder. Thank you.
@Passerby: I haven't yet finished all my homework and you're already providing us with ever more precious information. I must confess it's a bit confusing to understand all mechanisms involved in plates/subduction over that specific area, but I'm getting closer. I'ts a big honor to have you here to help us. Many thanks.

Not to worry - the mention of Lamington was to point to the evolving understanding of the mishmash of plates and mechanisms at play in the New Britain-PNG area; SE Asia-South Pacific region IS tectonically busy - and confusing, if you don't tease it apart.

To pick up on the links above, to the research conducted by Dr. Robert Sohn at WHOI on explosive undersea eruptions, and the work by Corr and Vaughan about finding subglacial volcanism in Antarctica, I was interested to see the links between volcanism and global warming being explored. It is not yet accepted that volcanoes might release the heat currently warming the globe, before the earth will cool back down again. The 60 meter rise of the polar region could possibly be a linked factor, and the melting of methane hydrates might well contribute to the explosivity of undersea volcanoes. There are interesting articles on hydrates on pages 64-67 in Google Popular Science.
Interesting times we live in! Thanks Passerby for the explanation of the deep quakes under Papua New Guinea and the Phillipines. There are so many different parts of the world working in different ways. The deep hammer action of the inverse Himalayas is not going to be anywhere near that sort of depth but do you think it has influence on the weaker gravitational field over India?

Interesting that Nevado del Ruiz was removed from the new Smithsonian/USGS Volcanic Activity Report. And we just had a 69km deep 5.0 EQ about 90 km SE of Ruiz. Let us see if it will give a "kick" and trigger volcanic activity.

I don't like to insist on the subject, but steam activity in EyjafÃ¶ll is quite vigorous. There are too many clouds, but you can see how fast it's pushed up from the rim, from ÃÃ³rÃ³lfsfell cam. You can also compare it with other cams, weather permitting.

You mean, do magnetic anomalies map to subduction zones?

Yes. Also to isotactic (glacial) rebound.

But you can verify this for yourself by mapping the geoid against global tectonic maps.

First Complete Image Created Of Himalayan Fault, Subduction Zone. Science Daily September 2009.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090911164435.htm

Underplating in the Himalaya-Tibet Collision Zone Revealed by the Hi-CLIMB Experiment. (2009) Science 325:1371-1374. DOI: 10.1126/science.1167719

Fig 2D. Interpretative cross section of the India-Eurasia collision zone. The graphic shows cross-sectional depth to 200Km, but you know it goes MUCH deeper, from the intense blue (the gravity is pushed down) over India as seen in the colored graphic of the new June 2010 ESA GOCE Satellite Geoid Map (see links below)

Click on the righthand panel, Figures Only link to see the Tibet-India plate interaction graphic.

GOCE Map
www.esa.int/esaLP/SEMY0FOZVAG_LPgoce_0.html

Tectonic map showing India Plate extent
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg

Thanks Passerby. I have learned a lot from these last 2 threads and you have confirmed what I suspected re India and conversely the Icelandic rifting. The layers within the Earth are very uneven...

@Renato: You missed the numerous other earthquakes and eruptions. No correlation, just numerous coincidences because these things really do happen all the time.

@Passerby

The part that had me curious, is that there was an article a few months ago that indicated that a mid depth segment of the Himalaya range was flowing northward. The basement is moving south, and the surface is moving south.

From the links you provided, this flow would seem to be associated with the Lhasa and Qiantang blocks. The flow evidently turns off towards SE Asia.

This appeared in an article that equated the massive height of the Himalayas with the high rate of erosion on the southern face of the range.

http://www.pgi.gov.pl/pdf/sad0806Hodg2p.pdf

Region: Mindoro, Philippines
Time: 2010-07-30 00:22:17.3 UTC
Magnitude: 4.8
Epicenter: 120.74Â°E 13.29Â°N
Depth: 115 km

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/read/index.php?pageid=seism_read&rid=184017

(pffffft. pops opens a tall boy)

*squinting at EQ Map, USGS, Mindano/Moro Gulf*

Couldn't find any quakes, regardless of magnitude, at shallow depth in this cluster of 22 events. They are all deep.

earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/120_5.php

The mapped 2010 quakes appear to be associated with the deep focus seismic events.

USGS Map, historical seismicity, maps 1990-2010 and 2010, Moro Gulf, Mindano, Philippines.

neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_zhbe_h.html

http://geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/db/eqpage.php?id=gfz2010otlz

Night Passerby and everyone. The tall boy has spoken to me.

|-o

----------------------------------
For followers of the night life there is sex, drugs or rocking with rolling off the Kamchatka peninsula to entertain you.

geofon.gfz-potsdam.de/db/eqinfo.php

Unusually high steam plume on Eyjaf!

Oh - as for a few tens of millions of euro lost for each operator? Hah - peanuts! They could easily have been spending over 30M euro per plane that flew through the volcanic debris. My suppressed evil ego is wishing they had flown after all - looking at available data after the fact, there is a good chance there would be no crashes and the operators could have discovered for themselves how their profits are affected by choosing to fly or to ground their fleet. Ultimately the market would have "rewarded" the operators who made the correct decision - those who didn't fly would have made much smaller losses than those who flew. Unfortunately there are no existing tools that would allow pilots to make appropriate decisions while flying in space with volcanic debris and, contrary to popular belief, what you don't know *can* hurt you.

Garry Hayes at Geotripper referenced this blog today. It covers, in detail, the current Kiluea lava flows, as well as a comparison to past flows:

http://hawaiianlavadaily.blogspot.com/

OT for Erik Klemetti, Boris Behncke or anyone of comparable knowledge.

I have run across several mentionings of different crust blocks "now welded to" another crust block. For example the Jan Mayen continental fragment now being welded to the Eurasian plate or the Yucatan Basin being welded to North America.

Is this just a cessation of fault activity or is there an actual process involved in making these welds? Or is it more of a case where the jagged edges become so snagged on each other that effectively no more movement is possible?

Again removed from the list:
Code Red the (still) ongoing eruption of ChaitÃ©n Volcano:
http://www.aipchile.cl/camara/show/id/14

According to icelandic news yesterday, there is a good chance that EyjafjallajÃ¶kull has gone dormant already and is now just cooling off.

Here is the news, www.ruv.is/frett/eyjafjallajokull-i-dvala

Translate at own risk with Google translate.

Re. Airline losses, to paraphrase a comment once attributed to the founder of the New York Herald, "if you're running an airline at a profit, you need a new accountant"

Is China's Riskiest Volcano Stirring Or Merely Biding Its Time?

Author: Richard Stone
Science 30 July 2010:
Vol. 329. no. 5991, pp. 498 - 499

AAAS ... Advancing 'science' by hiding behind a paywall

Raving: What's the odds this is a rehash of an article that has been mentioned (and linked to) several times already on this blog?

From the article:

Science 30 July 2010, 329:498-499
DOI: 10.1126/science.329.5991.498-a

'Chinese volcanologists keep a close eye on Changbai; they say an eruption does not seem imminent. From 2002 to 2005, the volcano's magma chamber evidently was filling, says Xu. In quiet periods, seismometers register about 100 small tremors a year around the mountain, he says. In 2003, Changbaishan Tianchi Volcano Observatory recorded 1293 tremors. By 2006, the frequency had receded to background rate, and in the first 6 months of 2010 the station recorded 58 tremors.

The mountain rose about 6.8 centimeters in 2003 and 2004, and the ratio of helium-3 to helium-4â"a good indication of magma activity because the source is the mantle," Xu saysânearly doubled during that time. Changbai has been largely quiet since 2005, says Xu, who expects it to kick into another "active phase" again in the next few years. "But that doesn't mean it will erupt," he says. Miyamoto agrees and notes that it is extremely unlikely that the next eruption would rival the millennium eruption.'

There will be a 3-way meeting of scientists to 'get to the bottom' of the North Korean's assertions of eminent eruption. The North Korean scientists have limited, non realtime, access to seismic data. That's one of the problems. The other is China's secretive nature over volcano observatory upgrades and operations close to the border. Their specific desire is to limit data access to science use only - a charge that North Korea may not be willing to adhere to.

China has magnanimously offered to build a seismic station and integrate observations in North Korea. That offer was declined.

First, we need background on this volcano. Fortunately, the Chinese have published a useful background study on-line.

www.mantleplumes.org/Changbai.html

The paper has a couple of familiar themes, eh?

A related paper, cited in the Changbai article above, that answers questions of recent seismicity off the coast of China.

So you see, my Droogie-Droogs, there won't be any of the old volcanic ultraviolence at Baekdu anytime soon. An elevated rate of tremors? Assuredly.

Why? The aesthenosphere is in an active deep upwelling period, as our good friends at IMO/IES have quietly opined.

Summer rainfall is very high at Baekdu; winter regional precipitation has been near or above historical records (despite the area being typically xeric in winter).

Pore-pressure, gravity flux and major mountain-side erosion on the North Korean side. These should be points of discussion when China and the Koreas meet to discuss Baekdu concerns.

The ESA 2009 GOCE Gradient Gravity Map is a useful thing to study to for a regional context of the Changbai tomography graphic.

www.esa.int/images/gradient_picture.jpg

So you see, my Droogie-Droogs, there won't be any of the old volcanic ultraviolence at Baekdu anytime soon. An elevated rate of tremors? Assuredly.

Why? The aesthenosphere is in an active deep upwelling period, as our good friends at IMO/IES have quietly opined.

Posted by: Passerby | July 31, 2010 5:37 PM

Surely not a subterranean DEW line. Get bent hoser why don't you eh. beauty

Interesting that the science is on a sufficiently firm footing now as to be confidently obvious? It might be so. ...

Subterranean DEW line?

I'm having a hard enough time equating "..there won't be any of the old volcanic ultraviolence at Baekdu anytime soon. An elevated rate of tremors? Assuredly..."

with "...The aesthenosphere is in an active deep upwelling period, as our good friends at IMO/IES have quietly opined."

With the other observations, I can agree with the increased seismic activity, but can not see how it rules out potential activity at Baekdu.

I think the parked slab is a pretty wild event though.

The Chinese, with their sophisticated monitoring program at Baekdu, know 'typical' from 'atypical'. 100 shakes per year is typical. We're just a hair over that for the year. Nothing like 2004-05, when the inflation and shakes, and chemistry, showed clear evidence of magma chamber filling.

Since then, it's gone back to being quiet.

The Aethenosphere plays a role in tectonic seismicity, near surface. Also in geothermal activity.

Mass slumping and erosion, and unusual precipitation, lend pressure stress to susceptible stress-strain loaded faulting.

Changbai has deep focus quakes and shall quakes. In order to suss out the cause, you need several layers of data.

Well, if your getting at there being a lack of inflation or a lack of a copious amount of quakes moving in a direction, then I follow that.

I can also see the mass wasting as being contributory to the seismic noise.

I just couldn't make out increased aesthenosphere activity as being indicative of a non volcanic threat.

Probably a brain fart on my part for not picking up on that.

hi all, i was having problem with pc.i was watching a film last night called 'scorcher' were china were doing a nuclear test in there ocean,which sent the Earth of its Axis towards the sun,then had to to use 2 nukes underneath LA to correct the earth could this actually happen when North Korea were testing i think 2008/9 or 10 not sure

@Leon, not a possibility. The quake on Dec. 26, 2004 was of such magnitude that we cannot build a bomb of the equivilent power. That quake was strong enough to affect the rotation of the earth a tiny bit as in microradians (I could be wrong on that term so Passerby correct me if I am wrong :-)) So the posibility of a bomb large enough to tilt the earth's axis is total nonsense. Movies are just that---movies. Most are just for entertainment and what you saw was for entertainment. As far as I know, there has not been a movie from Hollywood or anyone else that has been accurate about volcanoes. Documentaries are much better, especially when they talk to the people who are in the field of geology. Even then, sometimes there can be a bit of overkill. The best on volcanoes are the videoes and pictures of the real thing. Each eruption has a story to tell about the volcano itself and we learn from them. So don't worry about the earth's axis being thrown off by a bomb.

BTW, the earth actually does have a wobble in its axis that takes thousands of years to make a full revolution on that wobble. It is just a natural part of the movement of the earth in rotation and orbit around the sun. The magnetic north pole also changes position. The earth doesn't need us to affect anything it does. We do sometimes out of ignorance such as when we cut too many trees as the clearing in South America and our industry, but the earth moves and quakes on its own.

I hope you don't worry about what you saw in that movie. It was just a movie.

No.

For the sake of argument, lets say that Earth was whacked by another object... much larger than a standard Mk1 mod-0 asteroid... say, the size of a dwarf planet. A 2410km object moving at 45km/s and striking at 45Â° will generate a seismic event of about Magnitude 15.1.

According to the Earth Impact Effects Program,

http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/

"Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the tilt of Earth's axis (< 5 hundreths of a degree).
Depending on the direction and location of impact, the collision may cause a change in the length of the day of up to 15.3 hours.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably."

So.. I would say that the movie is stretching it a bit.

You are most likely to see a perturbation to Earth's orbit if you add to or take away mass or momentum, and as the simulation notes, even a 2410km diameter rock doesn't make much of an effect. (other than killing all life with the possible exception of few extemophiles that can ride out the melt period on debris slung into space)

Earthquakes don't add or subtract to the momentum of Earth in it's orbit. They can affect the compactness of Earth and change the rotation speed... making days longer or shorter.

That was in response to leon. Diane N CA hit the button before I did.

Subterranean DEW line

I interpreted the 400-600km deep quakes as breaking/flexing of the subducted plate. .. which is fine because the source of signal has been identified.

Given that energetic activity is taking place at 400 km depth, it takes time for the convection to carry it to the surface.

@32: earth rotational axis wobble has a period of 433 days. See Chandler Wobble page, Wikipedia.

@35 Not sure I'm following you on convective transfer of energy from deep quake upwards.

A sort of Subterranean DEW line does exist: a deep ocean boreholes seismic and geomagnetic monitoring network

(Japan) Ocean Hemispheric Network Project (OHP),
eri-ndc.eri.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ohp/index.html

Article abstract describing use of OHP borehole seismometers to model subduction beneath the Pacific and Philippine Plates.

Seismic Evidence for Sharp Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundaries of Oceanic Plates. Science, April 2009
Vol.324, pp.499-502.
www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/324/5926/499

Good graphics, via Figs Only hyperlink, right panel.

Graphic of the Lithosphere-Aesthenospere at divergent (spreading) ridges and volcanic/tectonic activity.
www.windows2universe.org/earth/images/earths_crust_gif_image.html&edu=h…

Hypothetically, thermal/geomagnetic pulses migrate upward through near-surface aesthenosphere upwellings, spreading forces propagate through the crust with tectonic release at fissures and also under adjacent volcanic centers.

Sorry to throw a spanner Passerby, but Diane referred to the phenomenon of *precession* - http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Sprecess.htm The - discovered by Hipparchos some 2000 years ago. According to this site, the period is 26,000 years but in older Astronomy textbooks, I've seen a figure of 27,000 years.

Leon 31: Just curious, here; the plot of that film sounds very like the corny disaster-movie classic "The Day The Earth Caught Fire" (except that there the nukes were American and Russian, and the detonation to put things right was under Siberia). Just shows that you can't keep a scary-but-ridiculous idea down.

Dunno if it's real, dunno if it's photoshoped, but this screen cap of EyjafjallajÃ¶kull coming up on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" is priceless.

http://i28.tinypic.com/4rakao.jpg

@ Lurking #38. Magic! I would love to have heard the host/questionmaster actually ask the question..... and the given alternatives!

@Passerby #36 and Henrik #37. I was referring to the procession (though I didn't know what to call it), and I didn't know about the wobble that takes 433 days. Thank you, gentlemen for letting me know what I was talking about. LOL

Passerby, what is the 433 day wobble all about? Will you go into a bit more detail on that? Thanks.

37: In her *exact words*
'BTW, the earth actually does have a wobble in its axis'

She didn't type the word 'precession'. I suppose she was referring to the Chile EQ that changed the LOD, but as Lurking pointed out, it's not a change in the rotational axis.

So I deliberately named one of a couple known free nutations. The decadeal-variation is called Markovitz Wobble. The primary excitation component appears to be atomospheric.

The Excitation of the Chandler Wobble (JPL, 2000)
trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/18398/1/99-1877.pdf

In 2006, the Wobble paused briefly for several weeks. Stopped all movement, and caused quite a bit of consternation.

Indeed, there appears to be a connection between the change in amplitude of the Wobble cycle and excess LOD over time. USDOD-Navy data webpage.

maia.usno.navy.mil/plot-eop.html

Unfortunately, doomsday prophesy idiots have decided that the wobble has arcane significance. *sigh* You have to wade through their drivel when searching for papers on the wobble trends over time.

Not surprisingly, several papers published in the past decade have related Chandler Wobble variation to significant earthquakes events at subduction zones.

Iceland under "attack":
"After EyjafÃ¶l goes dormant, giant mosquitoes threaten webcams!"
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/MdAiNiSdzXQIIY_KlJaHzA?feat=direct…
(from: http://www.simnet.is/jonfr500/earthquake/vefmyndeyjafjalen.html)

Diane, see the JPL paper and the Wikipage.

The mechanics of the Wobble are...complex. More so than the JPL paper suggests. This webpage supplies a reasonable laymans synopsis of Atmospheric Angular Momentum.

Atmospheric Angular Momentum
http://www.examiner.com/x-17371-Raleigh-Climate-Examiner~y2009m8d30-Atm…

It describes the piling up of air masses at mid-latitudes and effect on LOD. We are emerging from a low-AAM pattern that spanned the last 3 years.

Your original choice of wording was apt, as it does appear to pertain to variation in Wobble, rotation rate/LOD and plausibly, to earthquakes at subduction zones located under the air mass anomalies.

Others have posited Wobble causative components in glacial isotactic rebound and polar ice-cap melting.

I suspect that glacial rebound has more to do with intraplate fault earthquakes (New Madrid fault and St Laurence Seaway quakes) than with the Wobble.

Earthquakes: Climate and intraplate shocks. Nature July 29, 2010.

www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/full/466568a.html

Triggering of New Madrid seismicity by late-Pleistocene erosion. Nature 466: 608â611 (2010).
DOI:10.1038/nature09258
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7306/full/nature09258.html

I'm a bit skeptical of writing off the NMZ to a purely erosion activated feature. Granted, it probably played a large role in it, but there is a measurable slow wave zone underneath it.

From "Fossil flat-slab subduction beneath the Illinois basin, USA" Heather Bedle, Suzan van der Lee; Tectonophysics 424 (2006) 53â68

"b) a northeastâsouthwest transect that roughly aligns with the Mississippi River. All four cross-sections show the low velocity region beneath the Illinois basin in the uppermost mantle, and b) shows the slow upper mantle structure attributed to the Reelfoot Rift."

Part of Figure 6 from that document (the "b" part):

http://i32.tinypic.com/904tjt.png

lol films are films and Documentaries are facts i just never heard of nukes moving the Axis.in fact i watch two documentaries on the Haiti earthquake 2010 and 2004 boxing day Tsunami on sunday morning which i found very sad for both.thanks for all your info though intresting read and yeah this film was cheesy but good.

@45:
passingstrangeness.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/reelfootrift/

Interesting, a Mag 3 shake in Southern Louisiana, at 5 Km depth. Zero historical activity going back to 1900, hence an ultra low seismic hazard rating.

Manmade?

Leon was a bit off on the plot of the 2002 Sci-Fi dud, 'Scorcher'. The Chinese bomb tests supposedly cause a rupture at the lower mantle-core interface, shifted the mass of large plates, and the resulting 'immense pressure' is thus endangering Earth by catalyzing a 'global eruption'. *eyes rolling upward*

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorcher_%28film%29

Nothing about axial precession, the Sun, etc.

Axial precession is at one of the scale of polar motions, having a very long period and being associated with the Milankovitch_cycles that affect large shifts in climate, and nutation is at the other end that is thought to be caused by short quasi-periodic climate patterns.

I thought that it might be a 'teachable moment' to segue chitchat towards recent publications on the causes of polar nutation and possible relation to seismic and volcanic activity.

Polar Motion (Wikipedia): The slow drift, about 20 m since 1900, is partly due to motions in the Earth's core and mantle, and partly to the redistribution of water mass as the Greenland ice sheet melts, and to isostatic rebound, i.e. the slow rise of land that was formerly burdened with ice sheets or glaciers. The drift is roughly along the 80th meridian west.

strong Earthquake in Northern Norway today :

3,5 scale

http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/nordland/1.7233555

@#49 Thor,
Perhaps in the Norwegian scale of things is was big, otherwise, no. In the article, they even gave it a big M 5 splat on the map, and clearly, the article was about the feelings of exited people, "Wow! I was in an earthquake!"

The good point is that in the comments the people blame the gummint for the quake... ;)

Shop Holiday soon past, and the first geologists have begun opining that Lady E has not only hit the snooze button, but also turned the clock off as well.

@Kultsi - [50] Those that aren't blaming Statoil, that is. Waddya think... privatising EQs in .no is surely gunna make'em more expensive overall for the average Norwegian?

Rana Region EQ activity > post-glacial uplift, with local factors (last time this happened, I noted heavy precip preceded the event).

See abstract: Seismic activity, inferred crustal stresses and seismo-tectonics in the Rana region, Northern Norway. Quaternary Science Reviews (2000) 19(14-15):1423-1436.

Related paper you can read; The 31st of August 1819 LurÃ¸y earthquake revisited. Norwegian J Geol. (2004) 85:245-25.

www.geologi.no/data/f/0/07/60/7_22301_0/Bungum_et_al.pdf

@Passerby [47]

It wouldn't be the first time. Natural Gas production is all through that area.

The Wiggins Uplift is to the east of there, and from what I've read may be a fragment/shard from Gondwana.

According to "Alleghenian Reconstruction and Subsequent Evolution of the Gulf Of Mexico, Bahamas, and Proto-Caribbean" by Pindell in Tectonica, vol. 4, no. 1, January 1985:

"The probable suture zone, from east to west, lies between the Appalachians and the Mauritanides of western Africa; crosses Georgia between the Suwannee Basin and the Southern Appalachians; continues north of the Wiggins Arch and Sabine Uplift, following approximately the trend of the Gilber town-South Arkansas-Mexia graben system" (Pg 17)

http://i25.tinypic.com/2yudovb.png

Figure 1 from pg 2.

In the figure,
SU = Sabine Uplift
WA = Wiggins Arch
JD = Jackson Dome (old core of a volcano)
MU = Monroe Uplift

But, the basement there is anywhere from 8 to 10 km deep, so this event was up in the sedimentary layers above that at 5km depth.

Hmm...

Now ya made me ponder that a bit.

Roughly 81 myr ago, there was an impactor just North of Montgomery AL near a town now known as Wetumpka. The scar is still manifest on the landscape. Most opinion is that it hit in a shallow sea since most of the Mississippi embayment was... pretty much under water at the time.

I grew up in Jackson, and had always heard about there being an extinct volcano down there. Jackson was originally LeFluer's Bluff and was a trading post on the Pearl River. The whole area is hilly, something that was attributed to the old volcano by my peer group. (drunk teenagers) Most likely it was in part due to the really nasty "Yazoo Clay", which has a HUGE volume change as it absorbs water or dries out. Building foundations usually suffer quite a bit from that. In later years, I figured that this clay was from altered rock... but it turns out that it has more to do with whatever critters were living in that ancient sea.

So.. while digging around for info in that last post, I ran across this:

...Monroe and Toler (1937) described both extrusive and intrusive igneous rocks from the Jackson Dome. Harrelson and Bicker (1979), Harrelson (1981) and Saunders and Harrelson (1992) subsequently studied these igneous rocks. Harrelson (1981) interpreted that doming of the Jackson structure was initiated in the Jurassic, based ostensibly on stratigraphic relations. The doming, which was due to plutonism, continued through Early and mid-Cretaceous time until several volcanic vents opened to the surface, causing explosive volcanism. The volcanism continued almost to the end of the Cretaceous (Saunders and Harrelson, 1992). The volcano is capped by the Jackson âGas Rock,â a reef consisting of bryozoans, foraminifera, and corals (Harrelson, 1981). K-Ar geochronology indicates that the igneous rocks of the Jackson Dome range from 79.0 Â± 2.9 Ma to 69.2Â±2.9 Ma, although dates as young as 65.8 Â± 2.7 Ma (Cook, 1975) and as old as 91.3 Â± 3.4 Ma (Sundeen and Cook, 1977) are reported from other areas of Mississippi. These data indicate that the northern margin of the MISB was an area of intense tectonic activity throughout much of the latter part of the Mesozoic Era...

"Basin Analysis of the Mississippi Interior Salt Basin and Petroleum System Modeling of the Jurassic Smackover Formation, Eastern Gulf Coastal Plain", Ernest A. Mancini, University of Alabama, 1998.

So evidently, when Wetumpka got whacked by the meteor, there were already a lot of things going on with volcanoes and other seismic events.

As if we didn't have enough to worry about.

"Spacequakes" Discovered in Earth's Upper Atmosphere

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/07/100730-science-space-sp…

So, who is going to plot these? ;)

Yazoo clays = Pachuta Marls. Laid down in a marine environment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marl
a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Paper48317.html

Good general gab on Alabama Geology. I spent quite a bit of time at the Alabama Museum of Natural History (Smith Hall), back when it housed the Geological Survey, on the Univ. Alabama campus.

Tuscaloosa was a handy place to be, for geological diversity.

vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/VolcanicPast/Places/volcanic_past_alabama.html

I know the Black Warrior Basin and geology and soils of the Gulf Coast tolerably well.

Gawd I hate that "Volcanic Past" site. It has that "lets toss up a boilerplate to at least have something for them to look at" sort of appeal.

*shrug*

The State Geologic Survey has a decent geologic map. I didn't post another link that was dumbed down.

www.gsa.state.al.us/gsa/geo_mapping.html

UA Geological Sciences Dept has a better rendering:
http://www.geo.ua.edu/algeomap.php

The wiki page on geology of Alabama is too brief to be useful, but they do mention the Wetumpka impact. Confirmation of it's existence was published well after I had left 'Bama for the PNW.

Looks like 'Bama is going to be the next phase of a national rolling detailed seismological survey, for the next two years.

www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20100723/NEWS/100729880/1007?Title=State…

Smart idea, and not so far removed from the ocean crustal borehole program (OHP) that the Japanese are conducting throughout the western Pacific Plate and coastal Asia region.

@48 i think it was the actors in the film who said it. your site lead me to this site The national Academies press,Effects of nuclear-earth-penetrator weapons,and other weapons[2005] http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?records_id=11282

"...rolling detailed seismological..."

Very cool. Being in the armpit of Alabama we can't help but be included in the survey.... by proxy.

(P'cola)

You might consider contacting the PIs to help them scope out sites in southern AL. Might get you inside the project with respect to cranking through data (eg, paid position). You're obviously experienced at working up data.

The grad students are newbies. I've been locating/siting and planting remote environmental sensor systems for many years. They need pointers for safe sites that won't be molested - not an easy thing where the locals like to get drunk and shoot at new and interesting targets, like gubermint equipment housing, or solar panels to power them.

Just ask any of the HIGHLY UNDERPAID and UNDERVALUED USGS state water quality hydrology techs.

*Clint Eastwood squint*

Mobile is the armpit; the sugar sands of Pensacola Bay (Redneck Riviera) is heaven by comparison.

Nope... Pensacola spends all it's time trying to be Destin.

Well suited geologically for commerce (natural deep water bay), they do everything they can to drive it out so that they can put in condos and try to attract a tourist industry. Pensacola is truly wedged in the armpit, though it may not be the armpit.

Ref [62]

I'm probably ill suited for that position. My back road knowledge of Alabama is how to get across it when the roads are clogged with evacuees. MS back roads I had good working knowledge of, but that was 30 years ago. NW Florida I could do, I roam these roads on an almost daily basis... but I rarely get below 40 mph (have to make sure the traffic is clear on the other side of the combines and tractors that you occasionally run across) He##, I even found a Darlington Florida once. A few houses, some barns and a stop sign.

As for the shooting... I'd be more concerned about being related to any one there. Recently just North of Graceville FL up in AL, a recently laid off worker went on a spree taking out anyone who he had a grudge with ... including family. That went on for about 15 miles before they figured out how to track him down.

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A volcanic cruise through the Mariana Islands: Part 2

eklemetti — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:43:30 +0000

A volcanic cruise through the Mariana Islands: Part 2

Our tour of the Marianas begins SW of Guam. In this area the volcanoes are submerged and make up a region known as the Southern Seamount Province. Our first stop is Tracey Seamount, which lies 30 km west of Guam. Tracey is a ~2 km tall cone and volume of ~45 km³ It is one of the smaller volcanoes in the Mariana arc; Pagan, contains about 2200 km³ of material (Bloomer et al., 1989). It has a sector collapse on its western flank and resembles a submarine Mt. St. Helens. It was investigated by the ROV Hyper-Dolphin from the R/V Natsushima in Feb. 2009, which revealed that the cone is map up of alternating pyroclastics and dacite built on a basaltic-andesite base. A dome of dacite has formed in the collapse area. It is still considered active and that along with its proximity to Guam and its history of sector collapse suggest an underappreciated risk to the island.

Map of the volcanoes of the Marianas Islands.

Next up is West Rota. This is a large submarine caldera 40 km WNW of Rota. In fact it is the largest caldera in the IBM system, similar in size to Crater Lake in Oregon. Found in the caldera are large balls of rhyolite that are inferred to be rhyolite "balloons" that may have actually floated for a time after erupting (Stern et al. 2008). The youngest material dated so far is 37,000 years old, but there is evidence of current hydrothermal activity.

64 km of Rota and west of the main arc is the small but notable submarine volcano NW Rota 1. It is notable for being the site of the first directly observed deep submarine eruption. In 2001 it was dredged (my first cruise), but nothing unusual was noticed. In 2003 NOAA scientists detected an acidic plume above the summit. Subsequent dives by ROVs in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2009 found continued vigorous activity, including sulfur-rich plumes, occasional small explosions and density flows of tephra down the flanks. The material being erupted is basaltic-andesite and despite the non-stop activity, no evidence has ever been observed on the surface that anything is going on down below. NW Rota is also the home to a rich ecosystem of shrimp and other organisms that are dependent on sulfur-loving colonies of chemosynthetic bacteria.

Further to the north we enter the Central Island Province, but not all volcanoes here have breached the surface. In addition to a multitude of small submarinevolcanoes, there are several larger ones: Esmeralda Bank, Zealandia Bank, Ruby and East Diamante Seamount. Several of these have some historic record of possible activity (mostly disturbed, discolored water) and Diamante has noticeable hydrothermal activity.

The islands proper start (moving S to N) with the intriguing Anatahan, which consist of overlapping calderas

Morning view of Anatahan from my room, R/V Natsushima June 2009.

Anatahan had a significant eruption in 2003 and there is an interesting story about Japanese holdouts on the island at the end of WWII that was made into little-known movie.

Sarigan is next.

Sarigan Island in the Marianas.

Recently there was a submarine eruption south of Sarigan. A cruise underway at this moment may, if time permits, send an ROV to visit the presumed eruption site.

Guguan last erupted in the 19th century. Alamagan to the north has no definitive historic record of activity, although there was a false alarm in 1999. Pagan is one of the few islands (outside of the larger Saipan, Tinian, Rota and Guam) to have any population. Even minor activity there presents a concern due to this. Agrigan has a caldera that was the site of small eruption around 1917. The symmetrical cone of Ascuncion had reported activity early in the 20the century, but its northern neighbors, the Maug Islands, have no historic eruptions and are in fact the eroding remnants of a caldera. Further north we enter another seamount province, except for Uracas or Farallon de Pajaros. This particular volcano and its submarine neighbors seem to be particularly restless. North of FdP is considered to be the end of the Marianas and the start of the Bonin or Volcano Islands.

Guguan and Alamagan Islands in the Marianas. Image by Ed Kohut.

References
Bloomer, S. H., Stern, R. J., and Smoot, N. C. "Physical Volcanology of the Submarine Mariana and Volcano Arcs." Bull. Volcanology, 51, 210-224, 1989.

Gill, J., Klemperer, S., Stern, R., Tamura, Y., and Wiens, D. 2003. 'Subduction-Factory' Meeting Studies Izu-Bonin-Mariana Margin. Eos, v. 84, No. 1, p. 3

Stern, R.J., Fouch, M.J., and Klemperer, S., 2003. "An Overview of the Izu-Bonin-Mariana Subduction Factory" in J. Eiler and M. Hirschmann (eds.) Inside the Subduction Factory, Geophysical Monograph 138, American Geophysical Union, 175-222.

Stern, R.J., Tamura, Y., Embley, R.W., Ishizuku, O., Merle, S., Basu, N.K., Kawabata, H., and Bloomer, S.H., 2008. Evolution of West Rota Volcano, an extinct submarine volcano in the Southern Mariana Arc: Evidence from sea floor morphology, remotely operated vehicle observations and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar Geochronology. The Island Arc 17, 70-89.

eklemetti Fri, 07/16/2010 - 01:43

Thank you again, doc Ed!

A question, though: at what depths are these submarine volcanoes, and how does that affect the ejecta, or does it?

Agrigan (Agrihan to the natives) had VEI 4 eruption in 1917, according to SI-GVP.

I'm also going to question the cited population (Wikipage) of less than 10 in 2006. No reason to believe that the island has become depopulated since this casual report was written in 1992. The officially reported by the US Census Bureau as zero in 2000 and estimated to be less than 10 in 2005.

The island had been continuously inhabited for 48 years at the time the author visited. Family members who go onto high school return to the island later on. The Chamorro indigenous people are nearly all Roman Catholic and tend to have large families.

My guess is that CMNI is reluctant to officially recognize settlers who haven't been granted land ownership - political shenanigans.

cnminorthernislands.com/current_doc/agrihan.html

I doubt that the CMNI authorities would be over-happy about having to evacuate ten unofficial settlers on Agrigan/Agrihan in the event of volcanic unrest there. Not impossible, since they have had to evacuate two islands (Pagan and Anatahan) in the last thirty years, and Pagan gave the authorities, I rather suspect, a nasty scare -warning earthquakes were ignored, and the islanders were only evacuated AFTER the climactic explosion

A couple of questions for EKoh:
West Rota - if both plates in the Marianas are oceanic crust (no continental material) where did the large-volume rhyolite come from?
NW Rota 1 - if it is west of, ie behind, the main arc, are its products more alkaline than the main arc volcanoes?

There was NO 'nasty explosion'. There was some EQ activity that raised alarms, which is apparently not uncommon nor are volcanic exhalations, according to that article which is dated two years after the incident. An unknown number lived on the island before the 1990 evacuation and they all apparently returned and were slowly increasing in number as of 1992.

My bad, the islanders are Carolinians (people originating the Caroline Islands, 2 different atolls speaking different dialects who migrated for work in the 1880s) and at about 6,000 total in CMNI, are a small non-indigenous Micronesian population.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_islands
www.pacificworlds.com/cnmi/arrival/comeash.cfm

USFWS biologists are conducting survey work in the islands this summer, so we can find out through the science grapevine.

Bill Chadwick might be able to answer your question on the lavas at NW Rota-1, although I think he might be on the field expedition Ed mentioned.

nwrota2009.blogspot.com/

Ed will have to explain the details of this paper, it's complex.

Evolution of West Rota Volcano, an extinct submarine volcano in the southern Mariana Arc. Stern et al. (2008)
Island Arc 17:70â89.
http://www.utdallas.edu/~rjstern/pdfs/W.Rota.TIA08.pdf.

OT: June 2010 SciAm has an article about postperovskite. A denser form of perovskite that may account for the seismic seen at 2,600 km.

Really OT [@Passerby]:

"...My bad, the islanders are Carolinians (people originating the Caroline Islands, 2 different atolls speaking different dialects who migrated for work in the 1880s)..."

I'm glad you clarified that, for a moment I thought that there might be an Algonquian link.

Re: boo boo

Please insert "discontinuity" between "seismic" and "seen" in my last post.

I'll have time later this evening to answer your questions on NW-Rota. Passerby, Bill Chadwick is usually not on the JAMSTEC cruises, but I think Bob Embley is supposed to be. I'll see if I can get any updates from them regarding NW-Rota activity.

Ed Kohut

Right, Bill wasn't on the JAMSTEC mission (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), he was on the 2010 ROTA-NW expedition/NSF Vents Program at Sea, with the Jason ROV, and he was on the 2009 cruise as well:

nwrota2010.blogspot.com/2010/03/science-team.html
www.jamstec.go.jp/e/about/index.html

This large research group is part of longterm NSF program/project series to monitor and study the volcanology, chemistry and ecology of submarine vent systems.

The 2009 and 2010 expedition blogs are very cool to browse - and timely, with respect to Ed's series on Mariana Island Arc volcanism this week, but it's not the same expedition that Ed references in his post.

Sorry for the loon question.

What amount of stress does a subducting plate feel if "slab pull" is the main driving mechanism? Wouldn't there be a region somewhat away from the trench that experiences quakes related to the bending stress? Natch, it's actually a shallow bend towards the area of the trench, but is there a scenario where a segment could snap and create a new volcanically active region if not a full on large igneous province?

If it's too weird of a question, no biggie, I've been drinking.

The NW-Rota lavas are not that much different than typical Mariana Arc basalts in terms of alkalis. Within oceanic crust, the initial melts in spreading centers and the waning ones in hotspots tend to be more alkaline.
The Marianas arc is building continental crust, but the arc crust at this time is still relatively thin compared to Japan or New Zealand.
For the West Rota rhyolite, Stern et al. suggest that a basaltic magma provided heat to melt andesitic crust. Rhyolite is bery viscous and has difficulty reaching the surface in many arc volcanoes, but they suggest that the faults in the area provided pathways to the surface.
@9 Lurking, not a loon question at all. The slab pull and overall plate convergence create tremendous compressive stress in both the subducting and overriding plate, particularly in the forearc region. This stress creates thrust faults and they can build up a lot of strain or potential energy in between slips. When they go you can megathrust quakes with Magnitudes >9 and simultaneous uplift and subsidence on the coast and seafloor. This can produce tsunami. The 1960 Chile quake/tsunami, 1964 Alaska quake/tsunamiand the 2004 Indonesian quake/tsunami were all megathrust quakes. Just another reason why subduction zones are so important to understand.

Passerby 4: was that comment for me? I never mentioned a 'nasty explosion' -I said that the authorities were given a 'nasty scare' by the Pagan 1981 event. not quite the same thing, and a reasonable inference from the GVP 'Monthly Reports' for Pagan at the time. Nor did I say that the evacuation from Pagan in 1981 was permanent (because I have no information on that point) merely that, according to GVP, it took place

Passerby 8: Thanks for the links to the Rota blogs, they're going to be useful.

Ekoh: thanks for answering my queries about Rota rhyolite and the NW Rota basaltic andesites: on the latter, I asked because in other arcs volcanoes behind the volcanic front (eg Bogoslof and Batu Tara) are distinctively more alkaline, and was wondering if NWR-1 fell into that category. Obviously it doesn't.

The GVP monthly report was ambiguous on details of the evacuation. Certainly, Pagan was evacuated. Alamagan may also have been evacuated, but I can't find mention of Agrihan being evacuated in 1981, although we know it was populated at the time. Indeed, the extensive ash plume is described as traveling SSE, while Agrihan lies to the N of Pagan.

The subject was Agrihan, it's residents and the disjoint figures reported for it's population at various dates. I made no mention of Pagan.

Interesting things are happening in the Mariana Islands.

A new naval training base is under construction
www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=101400

and increased military presence has spurred interest in seismic detection in the islands, with the USGS and it's prime collaborator, SMU, planning to install and operate 4 (probably more later) multi-sensor field sites:

Volcano monitoring will target threats to Marianas. Feb 2010
www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?cat=1&newsID=97566

which is a Very Good Idea, given the uptick in volcanic activity in island and submarine volcanoes.

See: Table of recent eruptive activity at Northern Mariana volcanoes.

Interagency Operating Plan for Volcanic Ash Hazards to Aviation in the Pacific Region of the N Mariana Islands. June 2009 (updated Aug 09)

www.ofcm.gov/p35-nvaopa/regional_plans/Draft%20Framework%20MARIANAS%20P…

Sorry for the misunderstanding; I thought you were casting aspersions (as painful as a bash on the head from a lump of scoria)

Guess the main hazard on Guam would be tsunami, either earthquake-triggered or as the result of edifice collapse since many Marianas volcanoes are pretty 'high' mountains with respect to their base, even if only the summits (sometimes) appear above sea level. I don't know much about the geography of Guam, but isn't it fairly low-lying? Ash hazard for aircraft, of course, but not such a problem for subs, I would think

USDOD keeps it future plans on the QT, but with increasing tension between the US and Japan over pollution, noise and crowding issues on Okinawa, the general impression is that 'some' US military base operations in Japan are going to shift southward to Guam.

Submarine training ops in Guam is the US answer to increasing Chinese Naval military exercises in the Yellow Sea.

However, the primary concern is surveillance and routine USAF ops hazards from volcanic dust in the region; hence it's presence in the cooperative interagency agreement I cited, wherein they supply met capabilities for plume and storm monitoring.

Meanwhile, Ralph at The Volcanism Blog has posted on a Volcano Art exhibition. Worth a gander.

volcanism.wordpress.com/

Science and the movies - I love it!

At one point, wasn't there a Northern Marianas Volcano Observatory? I haven't seen that for a while, but one can still get updates of the Northern Marianas volcanoes at http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/nmi/activity/index.php

Note that Pagan is currently at Yellow alert. The GVP eruptive history page doesn't have an stop date listed for the eruption that began on April 15, 2009, so perhaps this current unrest there is still considered a part of that eruption?

You're thinking of the USGS NMI webpage:

volcanoes.usgs.gov/nmi/activity/

And yes, according the update posted by the USGS duty officer for NMI (out of HVO), activity is ongoing at Pagan, but at low levels...for now.

The webpage will be expanded when the expanded monitoring system comes online.

Sooner would be better.

Off topic, but there was a 3.5 at Long Valley just an hour ago. Not very large but bigger than what's been going on the past few months, located inside the caldera rim.

Jen, I saw that. It seems a bit unusual as we haven't seen one of that magnitude for some time. I'll be watching that area as I usually check it every day.

On the open thread, I posted the info on two quakes on New Britian Is. One was 6.9 and the other was 6.8.

New Britain area EQ was upgraded to a 7.3 (occurred at 13:35 UTC)

Passerby, I just saw that. I was checking out other things and checked again. I don't think I would want to be there right now.

Dr. K,

An OT; do think the quakes on New Britian will have any affect on Rabal? I know that they can affect a volcano, but that doesn't mean they will. I just would like to hear your opinion.

Any opinions on the Alaska quakes? Relativly close to Cleveland and really strong...

@ Diane, don't forget all the other major volcanoes on New Britain, Dakataua for instance (http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0502-04=), that are much closer to the epicenters and worth a look at (that said these quakes are tectonic thrust events and don't seem to be related to volcanism).

Bruce: I recall reading of some research -in that general part of the world- where the authors suggested a correlation between major earthquakes at depth and subsequent eruptions..but even if that applied in this case, and I'm not sure it does, for the same reasons as you, the interval between the two events was on a timescale of many months. I'll have to look it up..it's in my "library" (two shelves!)....somewhere

Mike, sounds tantalizing!! The region has certainly been extremely active. BTW, I've since realized Pago is much closer to the epicenters than Dakataua. Both of these volcanoes have had VEI 6 eruptions in the Holocene and are more or less in direct line with the epicenters of these quakes. I wonder how far down the plate boundary the rupture extended. The epicenter of the M7.3 event was at 53 km depth. As a rough guess the plate boundary is probably about 100 km under Pago which lies 40 km to the north of the epicenter.

To put it really crudely; even if the rupture extended down the boundary to underneath Pago this does not translate into the sudden provision of new melt even though of course the constant subduction of the plate releases a steady supply of volatiles. I guess that a much more critical relationship between large tectonic earthquakes and volcanic activity lies in the mechanics of the conduit and any magma chambers closer to the surface (though I now prefer the term mushy reservoirs after all I learnt about Eyjaf!!), i.e. local faulting and stress relationships in response to the tectonic movement could facilitate or thwart eruptive activity, which I guess is stating the obvious ... sorry for the long rant going nowhere ;-)

pardon, misusing terms. I meant hypocenter and not epicenter.

The pictures of Anatahan or Guguan would have been great "mystery volcano photos" :)

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center reported a 6+ earthquake on Russian coast that happened approximately 9 hours ago and was not even mentioned by USGS. How come?

2010-07-18 13:42:35.8 (9hr 22min ago)
49.12 N 139.72 E 33 km6.0 (MAG) KHABAROVSKIY KRAY, RUSSIA

http://www.emsc-csem.org/#2

@Renato Rio [27]

Probably the same reason that many SIL reported quakes, even the 3+ ones, don't make it in there. It's also the reason that I can't make any definitive statements about some of the stuff I plot. I don't know the rhyme or reason for the different data sets.

Not everyone plays with the same deck of cards.

Re: www.emsc-csem.org

What a novel idea. "Export to CSV" generates a semicolon separated file. Gee, whoda thunk.

At least it generates an exportable file of some sort, most sites don't even do that.

Bruce #22, just checked a better map and the quakes on New Britian are a bit far from Rabal. I am not familiar with the other volcanoes on the island. Need to do some studying. :-) I know the quake was techtonic/thrust, though if it was strong enough and close enough, I would think it could set off an eruption if one was ready to start or close to it.

I am not too saavy on the relationship of the depth of the quake and the plate boundary. They were on the island just a few kms from the shoreline (or so it appears) and how far from the plate boundary is that part of the island not only horizontally, but vertically as well? I am curious.

#30 @Diane For what I 've been reading from past eruptions, I think there's enough reason for concern here, even though the EQ's have a tectonic origin and are not right under the caldera itself. There are two active vents involved (Wikipedia): Tavurvur and Vulcan which had two destructive eruptions in a recent past, just after similar EQs. This is the humble opinion of a non expert. :)

Overlapping coordinated networks have regional 'authorities and their partners' that specialize in monitoring and reporting for that region.

Map of the USGS Global Monitoring Network (US consortium)
earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/gsn/

The Big Picture is handled through many centralized data collection and notification systems.

An example list, but not comprehensive:
fullspectralimaging.net/edms.aspx

The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System is one of the best known. GDACS employs JCS, the Asgard automated event collection and dissemination netork.
http://www.gdacs.org/sources.asp

You can subscribe to and received RSS alerts for any of the EQ reporting agencies.

IDEO was a failed attempt; it was meant to monitor seismic signals for the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty.
www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~richards/EARTHmat.html

The US backed out of ratification. The NSF, however, had already started on it own Global Seismic Network under Neal Lane in the 90s and would be integrated into the USGS seismic system under the IRIS program:

http://geophysics.ou.edu/solid_earth/readings/global_seismograph_networ…

and by 2008 had exceeded it's original goals
geophysics.ou.edu/solid_earth/readings/global_seismograph_network.html

2009 report on the NSF GSN
adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFM.U51C0021B

Meanwhile, in the 90s, WHOI embarked on an ambitious project to build large seafloor seismic monitoring networks:
www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2388

to fill the gap in the global sesimic monitoring of the open oceans and coastal environments. We're talked about this program here, but it was some time ago.

USGS has sparse station coverage for Europe, by necessity.

@20 Diane,
Local tectonic quakes would probably not have affect on an eruption, unless things were ready to go. Very large quake, like the 1960 Chile quake redistribute a lot of strain over large area. Although that may not immediately cause an eruption, it has been suggested that it could affect magma deeper in the system. Boris or someone else who works on eruption mechanisms would have a better handle on it.

@26. I actually gave Erik a picture I took of Sarigan a while back and some one identified it right off the bat!

Ed Kohut

@Passerby

Thanks for the info. I just marked it up as a conspiracy. See, at only 33km deep, it's obviously evidence of the ongoing secret nuke test program disguised to look like a deep seismic event. Granted, 108,267 feet is deeper than the current drilling record... and the ambient temperature is conservatively in the 2012Â°F (1100Â°C) range just from the average gradient...

[Note to all, I'm joking]

Back to Passerby, I'm not joking about the usefulness of your data. I had always been puzzled about that. Thanks again.

#33 @EKoh Thanks a lot for your precious intervention. What I was trying to say about these volcanoes is that, to me, they look pretty much "ready to go". But this is mere speculation.

@Passerby: Thank you very much for the links . I didn't have any idea that there were different coverages on EQs. Not for a 6.0. Very useful explanation, indeed.

@Lurking: If that's the case, I'm curious: who would be running the nuclear program? The Chinese or the Russians? There was a big one in Taiwan a little earlier. Could that explain? ;)

There are fairly frequent explosions happening on the Sakurajima webcam right now if anyone is interested. You need to be a little patient to see the flying bombs and ash plumes but the camera often zooms in for some great closeups.

motsfo, are you still reading this? The weather's cleared enough around Redoubt to see it. It's still steaming? Has it been steaming since the eruption stopped? I'm thinking that if it's taking this long to cool down, Eyjaf will be steaming for quite a while.

(you have a) Curious sense of humor, Lurking (did I detect a touch of Raving's cynicism there?).

LDEO is still running, but at a more modest scale. The monitoring group has annual meeting and published proceedings, and updates.

www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/Monitoring/

Fortuitous use of CNTB treaty monitoring data includes large industrial explosion and major mining accident forensic investigations.

Happy to provide useful links that provides a bit of background / clarification on various topics here.

Just as a side note the thoro cam is especially perfect right now...clear good resolution and a nice white plume

Do you happen to know if the seismic network that did the preliminary intercept on the Kurst mishap was plugged into that info share? I thought that was one of the sharper collateral uses of technology at the time. Before that all I had read about was the use of SOSUS data to track whales and eruptions.

As an aside, recently there was a news report that the mine investigators were still having trouble at the VA mine disaster, and back on the 16th, there was a Mag 3.6. Nothing freaky until you realize that that's pretty much the same mountain range and that it's still experiencing quite a bit of stress... squeezing the rocks. The day before the mine incident there had been a quake about 45 to 60 miles north of the mine. Not that it caused it, but it demonstrated that the rocks were under stress. My guess is that this enhanced the movement of gases in the rock structures.

As for Raving's cynicism. I have my own people to doubt and axes to grind. None of them reside on this blog. On one hand, I'm hoping for a light schedule next week so I can play with more plots, on the other, I never turn down work. Even if it's driving 240 miles round trip to change a 2 cent fuse. I was a bit shocked at that one.

@EKoh

Thank you for your informative posts.

You mentioned that Pagan has sector collapse but that it reside underwater. Are the mechanics of that pretty much the same as the St. Helens event? I would think that the density of the water / buoyancy would impart different critical angles (angle of repose) for the slope, but I may be wrong.

@ Diane, you and me are in the same boat here, trying to understand the interaction between seismic events and local volcanoes. The things I learnt this week (thanks EKoh!) were that the volcanic front tends to occur along the line marked out by where the subducting slab reaches a depth of somewhere between 80 to 120 km, so you can pretty well assume that the plate boundary has reached this depth where you see a line of volcanoes. If you couple this knowledge with the charts of historic seismicity from USGS you can get a rough handle on the plate boundary.

BTW, I don't know if you've discovered this page on slab models at USGS. It's fantastic:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/data/slab/

And if you want some juicy research into imaging plate boundaries in terms of their relevance for volcanism this work on New Zealand got me really excited a few years ago (check out the pdfs for excellent summaries)
http://www.gns.cri.nz/research/tectonics/subduction.html

@Passerby

##$@@$%... you point at some of the most distracting stuff.

While poking around the www.ldeo.columbia.edu site, I ran across a link to NE US events from March 2009 till July 2010. Well, I had to plot them. Interesting plot. And, it has a quake stack. I never expected to find one in the NE US.

i28.tinypic.com/25hzhhz.png

Slewing up to an overhead view, it appears to be next to Albany NY.

i30.tinypic.com/2s01g1w.png

Not having an explanation... I dug around for some sort of clue. A Magnetic Anomaly chart of that region. (derived from overlaying a segment of pubs.usgs.gov/sm/mag_map/mag_s.pdf on Google Earth)

You can see the Ramapo fault arcing up through New Jersey, but it's not on that structure, so I don't know what it is. This whole region is a collection of squashed volcanic arcs/islands that have been accreted onto North America, uplifted, eroded, shaved off rifted, glaciated.... you name it. Why there would be a near vertical quake stack there is beyond me.

On Google Earth, it's a gentle valley next to a hill. Maybe with a cow or two hanging out for good measure.

Anyone have any ideas?

Err, forgot the link to the Mag Anomaly map.

http://i32.tinypic.com/33c7mgz.png

@Lurking:
It is amazing how much quakes a large mine can produce.
Since I live "close" (relatively speaking) to the worlds 2 largest pit-mines I have a fair knowledge about the level of seismic events they produce.

The Kirunavaara mine regularly produces quakes between 1 and 3,5. The principles on mountain stress is fairly well known. The only thing people are waiting for now is when they will have to let the former mountain rest.
With a new 1300+ meter level in the making it will sooner or later become interesting times. As you all of course know the mountain stress increases with depth of the mine. And pretty much it is unknown territory since no one has ever operated a mine at that depth and with the enormous speed of iron ore blasted out of the ground from that depth.

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirunavaara

www.lkab.com

@Carl, Mining

What sort of geological event caused such a large high concentration of iron ore? In the wilds of Russia's mining region are the Siberian Traps, and in a sector of Canada rich in copper, there was an impact event whose crater melt concentrated the ore. Was this just mountain building?

@41:
Hunting Hilltowns earthquakes (April 29, 2010)
www.timesunion.com/ASPStories/story.asp?StoryID=926208

Seismologists studying this activity are from LDEO
(Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory)

The article says: local fault system that originates near Lake George.

Geology of the Lake George/Adirondaks
www.lakegeorgeassociation.org/html/geology.htm

Do not know if LDEO was plugged into the 2000 Kursk OSCAR-2 submarine disaster investigation, but presume so indirectly, as the initial explosion caused ~6-7 torpedo warheads to ignite, causing the fatal secondary ruptures that sank the vessel.

@Lurking #47 http://epubl.luth.se/1404-5494/2005/46/LTU-HIP-EX-0546-SE.pdf gives the following explanation (2.1 Geology):

The ferro-apatite iron ore body is about 1,900 million years old and the area is part of the Sveco-Karelian Orogen Complex. The body, some 4km long by 80-90 m width on average and more than 1Â½ km deep (indications are it runs to a depth in excess of 2 km), is angled at 65-70 degrees towards the east. On one side, the surrounding rock consists of thrachy-andesitic vulcanites, mostly lavas. On the other, rhyo-dacite, often pyroclastic in nature.

The genesis is thought to be either magmatic or hydrothermal. The characterisitics of the ore body itself, texture and geochemistry, indicate a magmatic origin.

It is also the largest homogenous body of Iron ore currently known. Apologies for errors in translation, due to my lack of petrological schooling.

Dr K #33, thank you for answering my question. I figured that was the case. There seems to be the thought that if a quake occurs within a certain distance from a volcano, there will be an eruption or the quake will affect it for a later time. I guess it just depends on the magnitude, location, depth, and whether a volcano in the area is ready to go anyway. Thank you again for an interesting presentation on the Marianas.

Bruce #43, thank you so much for those links. I saved them in my favorites and I will be doing some reading. I had no idea there was a page from the USGS on subduction zones. The maps will help me see what is going on and the link to the study will be a help in understanding this stuff.

I wish I had taken more geology!!

ÃÃ³rÃ³lfsfell cam is showing a vigorous steam plume, but not so white.
BTW What happened to MÃºlakot cams?

A stack of earthquakes in Long Valley now. All right on top of each other, inside the caldera just to the West of Lake Crowley. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/special/Long_Va…

Look at the Mammoth Lakes seismograph:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/monitoring/helicorders/nca/94/latest/

>What happened to MÃºlakot cams?

*sigh* Webcam access was cut-off, after we crashed their server yet again last week. I think they got fed up with us, but there may be other reasons. Mulakot was a serendipitous view, never intended to support volcano monitoring from a globally distributed audience.

I'm not positive, but the steam seems to going down the hill following the old lava path--

Jen-- thanks for the heads up. I was thinking about going to Lava Beds Nat Monumnet next month, but perhaps long valley will be a little more interesting. :-)

Yeah, on thorolscam it looks like there may have been a lake breach.

@Renato -
The steaming is, indeed, vigorous - new water from the glacier; how and how much, I cannot say.

Yes, MÃºlakot webcams are off limits; they tightened the server access, which is a good move, securitywise: giving all the world access to your security camera views is not a good thing. At the moment there is only one view available and it sure does not point towards EyjafjallajÃ¶kull. The other cams might be available as well, but I've limited my hacking to just a direct view of that one feed's picture.

@parclair [56] -
You are right, only it's water that goes down the lava trench and the still-hot lava boils it away.

The reason for the steam being dark is heavy cloud cover.

@Lurking:

KirunafÃ¤lten and MalmfÃ¤lten Ironore fields are the largest and second largest iron ore-fields in the world.

The Kirunavaara-mine was from the beginning an 852 metre high mountain, today the mountain is gone and after a brief period of open pit mining they went down below, today they are preparing to start a level at 1350 metres below ground level.

Both the towns of Kiruna and Malmberget is being moved because of the risk of collaps is so large from the respective mines. The name of Malmberget mine is Kaptensgruvan (Captain's mine). The Captain's Hole is the worlds largest fault sink pit created by a blocking subsurface mine.

These 2 ore-fields (and a number of other ore-fields in the neighbourhood not being mined yet) was created 1,9 million years ago due to volcanic activity. Odd composition of the lava since the ore is above 50%FE, rich in phosphor and low on silicates and highly magnetitic.

The Kiruna-ore is a slanted slab 4km wide, 80m thick and confirmed to be 2 kilometres deep. No bottom is known to exist for it, and general assumption is that it continues pretty much continuously downwards without interuption. The geologists believe that the ore-body widens into a magma chamber at between 2 and 3 kilometres depth and some new bore-holes seem to validate this assumption. The chemical composition is the same for all of the known ore-bodies except the Luossavaara-ore. So most geologist believe that the known ore-fields join up deep down into one supermassive ore-body large enough to fill the entire planets need of iron ore for thousands of years.

If you ever want to see a mine... Go there, everything is one such a stumpingly min-boggling scale that the entire mind just go "Duh!"

Did I say that the mines are almost entirely automatic and run from above ground?
Of course this is the home of the rather famous Swedish Steel(TM) ;)

Sorry all for the redundant posting above, I missed that the other resident swede had answered upon our little national pride;)
He even bothered to get a source and I just used my tired old head and the memory of the geological reports I've read on the subject.
My interest in the mines are the unusually high tectonic activity.

Carl, (Intl Mines Inc etc, etc), definitely not redundant but rather, complementary, with lots of added and very interesting information. Heder!

Very true. The magma chamber referenced in post [61], is that as in "old" magma chamber? I doubt that anyone would even attempt to mine an active one. At a temp gradient of 1Â°C/30m that places the 3Km depth right at boiling. (I know the gradient varies depending on geology, this is just an eyeball guess)

Speaking of which... I have always wondered what an authoritative value is for the crust's average temperature gradient. The one I used is just some "thing" that ran across on the Internet while trying to debunk a "secret underground base" thread on another site. (BTW Passerby, that's where I came up with that idea) My logic was that it couldn't stay secret for very flippin' long with the amount of thermal energy that they would have to get rid of... no matter how advanced of a magical cooling system that they used. I think the gradient that I used was based on accounts of a silver mine out West.

I took a look at that mine in Google Earth and see that (at the time of the imagery) that it was mainly a trench cut through where the mountain was at. But if you make an assumption of a cone 852 meters high and 1000 meters across, then an inverted cone 1350 deep, that works out to about 6.9 billion metric tones if the rock has the density of basalt.

Now that's a lot of dirt. Has there been a noticeable change in seismically?

Gaffed by auto correct yet again.

*sigh.... "seismicity"

Wow Erik, this is a great volcano-mystery photo. Really difficult with many traps. I still think it could be Piton de la Fournaise, but this ist whishful-thinking. But I donÂ´t think it is Surtsey (no bamboo there). I compares fotos of Katia and Maurice Krafft and she had definetely little jug ears. And the hair of the guy in the middle could be Maurice Krafft because of the curly hair. I know they have been at the eruption at Heimaey but not at Surtsey. So it could be Eldfell, but I have never seen such a cone there. So if it is Katia and Maurice there, it could only be Piton de la Fournaise (which would have the nice side-effect, that I would habe win my first Volcano-Mystery contest) or Hawaii. Unfortunately there are also people form Island with jug ears, so IÂ´m afraid Boris Behncke could be right!

@Lurking in 64:

Yes that would be a 1,9 million year old magma chamber, if it really is a magma chamber there. It is still just a theory partly validated by one drilling. But it looks good. If I am correct it would be the first old magma chamber that was mined.

The gradient is lower in the Scandian mountains. Way lower. If I remember correctly the temperature at 1050 meters is 22 degres celcius with ambient rock temperature ten meters below surface being at 4... Would be around 1 degree per 75 meters.

The density is higher for iron ore than for basalt. The weight is 4.9 to 5.2 grams per kubic centimetre, basalt is 3. Generally the other stone around it is mostly granite.

The weight in ore (not counting grey-stone) hoisted out of the defunct mountain is actually 3.043.000.000 ton. The "mountain" you see on google earth is not the mountain, it is stapled grey-stone (mostly granite).

There has been a tremendous change. From pretty much seismically stable to daily seismic events ranging from 1 - 3.5. They thing the seismic event when the lake is going to fall down into the mine might exceed 5. And yes, they are prepared for a rather big lake falling down.

#60 @Kultsi, HyvÃ¤Ã¤ iltapÃ¤ivÃ¤Ã¤ ja kiitos!

#66 @Thomas: I've just copied and pasted your post to the other thread. Hope you're luky, my friend...

#37 @myke livers I've been watching at times Sakurajima webcams and I was lucky to see one small explosion. There are various cameras in the website, would you suggest one providing a better view? It takes a loong time to complete the buffering.

http://kagoshima-live.com/en/sakurajima.html

#70 @mike lyvers. My bad. :)

@41 (again): see answer, 48. I presume you were looking for a probable seismicity source.

@70 - try this link for the Japanese volcano. If the weather is good, you'll see some great roiling clouds of ash. http://tinyurl.com/23s47nv

#73 @santarosarita: Thank you very much for the link. Works great for me!

Yeah I uh... read 48. What about it?

Alright... another question comes to mind. I realize that the relative density of the oceanic crust is responsible for the it loosing out and becoming subducted in a convergence zone verses continental crust. I have also read that the Farallon plate made a shallow dive as it passed under North America. While poking around at the Aleutians quakes, I noted that the dip/dive angle seems a bit steep... the same for the Marianas. Is the dive angle a function of just how old (and dense) the oceanic crust happens to be, or is there another mechanism that decides that?

This one is the best Sakurajima webcam and it is erupting right now: http://webcam-svo2.pr.kyoto-u.ac.jp/local/camera.html

PS I had a quick look at it last night and saw quite a spray of glowing bombs!

@Mike, thank you very much for the link. It's easy to understand why there are so many cameras aimed at this spectacular volcano (not talking about who's sponsoring them) ;)
I'll wait till it gets dark to watch the show.

The tuna fishing on the reefs near Saipan is excellent. If you're the sort who like deep sea fish like marlin, you can catch 'em around there too. My colleagues observe the volcano(es) while I devour the fishies - occasionally they manage to drag me away from the table and get me to do some work.

@76 Lurking,
that's exactly the current thinking. The older the crust, the cooler and more dense it becomes. Young hot crust, such as you get in Cascadia, is more buoyant and has more difficulty.

EKoh 81: so presumably that's why (from your diagram in Part 1) the Jurassic-age oceanic crust of one plate was subducted below the younger Eocene oceanic crust of the other? Or are there other factors at work?

#27 #28 @Lurking: KHABAROVSKIY KRAY, RUSSIA EQ has been removed from EMSC. No traces, no explanation. (???)

Hmm... three possibilities.

1) Analysis of the waveform showed that it was an intercept of a different quake form somewhere else or noise, such as can be found from a bolide exploding (simultaneous intercepts on multiple seismos)

2) Super-Secret underground testing, ignored by other countries since they don't want the hassle or the political problems involved in dealing with it

3) Aliens.

I vote for #1.

#84 Very interesting, indeed. Seismicity has been very high over the last days. Waves are getting interlaced, seismographs go bamboozled. I only think it's weird considering a mag. 6 quake. And it stayed there for almost 24 hours until they noticed. OK. There have been no after shocks after this one, so probably just a misinterpretation of the signals.

@85

Well, there was an event not too long ago that put a tsunami alert out for Florida and the East coast from a MASSIVE quake in or around Hispaniola. Turns out it was some one doing tests on some reporting equipment and the auto alert portion of it did what it was supposed to. But there was no quake.

It's not like some idiot held an electric razor up to the underwater microphone while their ship was steaming in formation...

(from what I understand, it sounds just like a torpedo... which explains why everybody broke formation at the same time)

#86 Yes, I remember that one. A 8+ in Dominican Republic, but it was quickly deleted. But this one... humm... a torpedo... that sounds quite possible... like on the edge of a bowling lane :)

And there was another shallow 2.0 at BÃ¡sar... maybe an UFO colliding with the glacier. :)

@Renato Rio [86]

Ooops... I forgot, there is a 4th possibility.

Graboids.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100814/

#89 Graboids! Could never have imagined... :)

@Lurking:

I loved the documentary TV-series on the Graboids:)

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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/

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Monday Musings: Marianas eruption, Yasur disruptions and the Guatemalan double whammy

eklemetti — Mon, 31 May 2010 09:56:08 +0000

Monday Musings: Marianas eruption, Yasur disruptions and the Guatemalan double whammy

Quick news on Memorial Day (in the US at least):

Ash soaked by rain from Tropical Storm Agatha on the roofs of homes in Guatemala after the late May eruption of Pacaya.

Sixteen scientists were evacuated from islands in the northern Marianas due to the eruption of the unnamed submarine volcano south of Sarigan Island. The eruption is continuing to be monitored closely by the USGS and National Weather Service as the plume - which is most steam with minor ash - could disrupt air traffic in/around Saipan. The latest USGS CNMI update:

Seismicity at a single nearby station on Sarigan Island declined soon after the eruption of a large steam and ash cloud from a submarine vent 11 km (7 miles) south of Sarigan Volcano early yesterday. Satellite images show no sign of ongoing activity. An EMO observer aboard an overflight yesterday reported a large area of debris floating in the sea south of the island, and a stationary area of discoloration in the water, presumably above the vent. The crew on Sarigan reported passage of a small wave (less than 0.5 m) following onset of the eruption yesterday.

UPDATE 5/31/2010 3:30 PM EDT: A few more details on the eruption from CNN.
Yasur in Vanuatu has experienced some increased activity, prompting warnings about disruptions of air traffic in the South Pacific. Only minor disruptions to/from New Caledonia are expected as the ash plume only reaches 1.8 km (6,000 feet), but right now when it comes to volcanoes, aviation is the only thing on their minds. No evacuations of local villagers near the volcano have been issued due to the current eruptive activity at Yasur.
Updating the news on the eruption of Pacaya and the arrival of Tropical Storm Agatha to Guatemala, the country has asked for international aid to recover from the duo of natural disasters. Severe flooding and landslides have occurred across much of the middle of Central America - and in Guatemala, ash-laden roofs have collapsed due to the weight of the ash and water mix. Pacaya is still erupting, adding more ash to the mess - with 14 people confirmed dead and over 50 missing.

eklemetti Mon, 05/31/2010 - 05:56

And little news from EyjafjÃ¶ll. The tremor increased these last 36h especially at hvo station and mainly in the 0.5-2 Hz band and slightly in the 2-4Hz band. Slight increase in the 0.5-1 Hz band for the hau station. Insignificant variations for esk, god and mid stations.

We uploaded the SEMs (SEM = Scanning Elektron Mikroskope, we got a FEI Phenom) i did on the Eyjafjalla ash to a Flikr account. So in case you want to check it out...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/sets/72157624173361596/

Can someone explain please. The picture here shows what looks like ash http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/349/screenhunter03may312005.jpg am I wrong? Or is it snowing in the middle of summer?

And on this cam further away its the strangest cloudformation i have ever seen. Or is it also an ash cloud?
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/7766/screenhunter04may312006.jpg

Darriel: The top view looks like raindrops on the camera lens (possibly dirty with ash??). Bottom pic certainly looks like an ash plume at the right hand side; which might not mean a new eruption, could be a dust/ash plume from avalanching down the crater wall. Anybody got any better ideas?

@#3/4: There are most likely raindrops, which are mixed with dust. There is storm today in this area, so you are not seeing clouds but ash, which is in the air again. The area was hit by heavy ashfalls in the last days of the eruption.

http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/stodvaplott.html

Of all the 1-2Hz tremor graphs (green lines), the largest in absolute scale is now HVO, on the southeastern side of Katla. (Incidentally, a close second is ESK, on the southwestern side of Katla.)

Forgot to mention before; the Turrialba webcam is working again

Of the 2-4Hz (blue line) graphs, ESK is by far the highest reading.

Map of tremor stations can be found at http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/tremor.html

@3 It could well be snow in the middle of summer. Ther was snow on the Cuillins down to 1000ft only about a week ago and we are a lot further south. The bottom pic looks a lot like snow falling from a heavy cloud. At least that's what it looks like when we have it.

@Birgit #2, those micrographs are awesome. I found some of them really interesting in the formation and the gas holes in some filled with smaller particles. What did you use to coat them with and are these backscatter or normal? I can't remember all the ways you can view a sample (after all it was 1981 when I got my 2 yr tech degree in em/sem!) I am just curious to know what you did to prepare the samples.

Another question I have is about the FEI Phenom. What is it?

Thanks for posting the micrographs. It is so cool to see what came out of Eyjaf and all the different forms of the ash. One of the pics that I found really weird was one that was a rectangle and appeared to have two differen substances in it. Have you done any microprobe work or xray analysis? I'm not sure what I am thinking here as that would be hard to do on ash as you would most likely get charging of the sample and if you coated it with gold or some other metal that would affect what sort of graph you would get. It would probably take a lot of carbon to prevent that and it probably wouldn't work anyway.

Thanks again for posting those pics. Neat stuff.

#2 @Birgitt, Ich gratuliere Ihnen fÃ¼r die Zartheit Ihrer Sammlung.
Very touching to see ash samples collected in Iceland by our fellow JÃ³n Frimann and there they are, in Austria, reunited in a museum.
I can't tell you how precious this is to all of us from all parts of the world who were here together watching and discussing the wonders of this country and its awesome volcanoes.
Thank you!

Birgit, I figured out that the FEI Phenom is an SEM. Let me know what you can do with it that is different from other scanners, if anything. I am curious.

Just got through checking out the pics and I think the airlines need to see this stuff. Can you imagine breathing it?! Not good.

Thanks again for posting.

Poor Guatemala. They have a tough time now.

Some interesting seismic activity on Iceland I see. I wonder what happens next?

@Birgit #2: Are you sure that the first image in the set is ash and not an AT-AT walker?

@Daniel #3: As far as I can tell, it's either ash or dust. It's too brownish to be snow.

@Matthias, #13: Thats right. Earlier I when I heard about ashfalls in the vicinity of active volcanoes, I thought that this is not too bad. Since I now experienced this myself, I know that this is much more serious.

Awesome activity in Turrialba crater now.
http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/videoturri.html

@Chris, Reykjavik #15: I was just about to ask how often Iceland's capital city had experienced ash falls like this, and you unawarely answered my question. I'm surprised. With so many volcanoes around... Good for you. Thanks. :)

#16 Renato thanks for the link to Turrialba. Does anybody know if the "blue" column is actually blue or a trick of the light on normal steam. If it is blue is that a sign of Sulphur Dioxide degassing?

#18 Your welcome, Gordon. There was some speculation on gas colors over here a couple of days ago, due to the strange blue haze around EyjafjÃ¶ll, but no final conclusion whether it was or was not SO2.

@Renato, #17: In Reykjavik we had almost no ash falling - just a little bit to cover the cars and the raise the concentration for fine particles above the critical concentrations.
I witnessed the massive ashfalls, when I visited the area.

#20 Chris: Yes... I think you posted a very interesting video on this "expedition". Was that you? Sorry if I'm not so sure...
I was curious, because my grandma used to tell me stories about big amounts of ash on furniture when Dezcabezado volcano erupted in Chile/Argentina border, back in the 30 's. She lived near Brasilia, thousands of miles away from the mountain. So, I thought it would have been bad in Reykjavik, from EyjafjÃ¶ll.

#19 @Gordon: I think it's a trick of light, now it has all the rainbow into it. Beautiful!
BTW: I 've just remembered that the "blue fog" had something to do with the color of the leaves... I'm not sure...

Hey guys, Turrialba right now is displaying a great show of colours by sunset. It's live.
http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/videoturri.html

For those interested in tremor plots:
http://www.ovsicori.una.ac.cr/sismologia/sismogramas_linea.htm

I wonder if the effect is just light refracted through water droplets or some kind of ionization due to chemicals in the ash plume?

The change of colour through to purple together with the position of the sun, and the loss of colour now with the onset of cloud cover, makes me pretty sure now that it's refracted light through steam.

#25 Whatever it was, still amazing, don't you think? Just waiting to see if any lava flows ' showing...

@Renato, #21: We had a lot of luck with the wind directions - other parts of the country and europe have been less lucky.

#27 @Chris, Reykjavik: Hopefully it's over for now. A pity, though, for us lurkers.
NÃ¦sta ferÃ° mÃn til EvrÃ³pu myndi vissulega fela Ã landinu. HvaÃ°a a dÃ¡samlegur landi!

Erik,
I'll contact some people to see if I can get some more infor on the eruption in the Marianas.
There is a small, unnamed seamount just to the south of Sarigan near its flank, however if the position on the report is correct it may from a larger separate volcano a bit further south.

Not only volcanoes generate craters: a poor man-made sewage drainage system can do worse.
"In the northern part of Guatemala City, the downpour created a giant sinkhole that swallowed up a space larger than the area of a street intersection. Residents told CNN that a three-story building and a house fell into the hole."
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/05/31/honduras.storm.emergen…

I am curious what the more knowledgeable make of that diagonal line of quakes points towards Katla.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2qid0ye.png

@20 Chris, Reykjavik Do you often get winds from the SE in Reykjavik? I suspect only when Low passes south or High passes north for the most of the year. Normal winds are out of the SW no?
Oh and nice pictures too. All from Iceland?

After Agatha swept through Guatemala, a sinkhole opened up. I have never seen one look quite like this before. They are blaming it on a poor sewage system. All I can say is "wow!" what a crazy hole!

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/05/31/honduras.storm.emergency/i…

#32 @Dan, FL: Talking about winds, I was just reading about forecasts on oil spill. Still no good news. I'm so sorry, but still hoping...

@34 Renato We are just waiting for when, not if. We' re hitting the times of offshore winds throughout the summer now.

On a positive note for our beach community though, this will be opening here soon. And he made this decision after the news of the oil spill. :)
http://www.margaritavillehotel.com/

@34, 35, 36...

I had a grim thought last night. That chemical dispersant is meant to break up the clumps and wads of crude so it is less of a visible impact.

In 1997, Hurricane Nora swept across the Baja and managed to topple a few trailers in Arizona. In American Meteorological Society's Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, it was reported that plankton were found in the ice crystal of the cirrus clouds... over Oklahoma.

So.. how will cropland respond to a mixture of crude oil, 2-Butoxyethanol (a paint thinner), organic sulfonic acid salts (not your normal salt, NaCl), propylene glycol and in another version of dispersant, hydrotreated light petroleum distillates.

Yeah Buddy...

#35
@ Dan, take these my, somehow bitter, words as a comfort: thousands of years from now, there will not remain a single oil drop in the Gulf, and none of us, humans, to gaze at surviving Beauty.
For now, let us return to the volcanoes, and get some sense of humbleness.
#31
@Lurking, with your graphs, you're digging our way through the mysteries underlying Icelandic volcanoes! Thanks.

#36 OMG!!!!

Activity at the Tungurahua volcano in central Ecuador maintains its intensity with a âvery importantâ number of explosions after the âbig oneâ recorded last week, said today the director of the Geophysical Institute (IG) of the National Polytechnic School, Hugo Yepes.
âThe trend has unfortunately not been to decline, as we'd expected, but rather maintained and we see a little more energy in some of the explosions, ie, theyâre getting a little stronger,â he said.
âAt the moment, the volcano activity (...) has changed and that change is entirely related to explosions that are timely, there is a loud noise, a great shot and vibration of windows,â
Yepes interview with Channel Teleamazonas.

Recent development on Tungurahua activity (Spanish)(Nice pics)
"Incandescent bombs reach 1,5 km"
http://www.prensaescrita.com/adiario.php?codigo=AME&pagina=http://www.e…

@41 Renaldo Are you one of those people I'm jealous of that is multi-lingual? ;)
I didn't see anything about Tungurahua on the link you provided.
Pretty cool about the Jimmy Buffet hotel isn't it. Don't know how occupancy will be, but if it's got a Parrothead fashioned bar locals here will fill it up. :)

@all. Speaking of geologic crises-- there's one building in Pakistan. Several months ago, a landslide dammed a river in the mountain country. This has created an enormous lake behind fairly poorly packed soil. The gov't has tried to build a spillway in the dam in advance of the spring melt. The whole thing is coming to a head as we speak. I've been following it on http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/
I've been following landslides because, after all, what are pyroclastic flows and lahars but ....;-) And, this blog covers the dynamics of various types of landslides.

@ lurking 31, that is odd-looking, isn't it? It's like a straight line plot. Hmm.

@34 That sinkhole looks like a dry cenote.

@40 Renato-- wow, those are wonderful pictures of Tungurahua volcan. The first one looks like a classic pre-camera painting of a volcano--

@Dan-- I don't read spanish either (it's on my list of to-dos. I do speak bad spanglish;-) But, I just scroll through the headlines 'till I find the headline or copy with the name of the volcano and click on the headline.

I think you people will be needing some Parrot headed Margueritas, my friend!
Sorry about the link, Dan. Try this:
http://www.elcomercio.com/2010-05-31/Noticias/Pais/Noticia-Principal/31…
Hehehe! I love Google translator!!!!

@Parclair #43:
I loved the dry cenote theory!!!
I think I'm switching my default language on Google Transl. from Icelandic to Spanish.
Though I keep one tab tight locked on ÃÃ³rÃ³lfsfell cam.

Thanks Renaldo I missed the article in Spanish and English. Must be getting tired.

Thanks Renato - geeez Told you I was getting tired.

@Dan, Fla. You've really got my sympathies. I finally tried to read an article about the spill in the Wall Street Journal, and couldn't make it past the first few paragraphs; I was at risk of breaking my teeth from clenching.

On a positive note, my sister, who spent many hours cleaning up animals after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska is heading to the gulf to help clean the animals there. I'm certain that she's not the only experienced cleaner heading in your direction. (That is such a miserable phrase "experienced cleaner". There should be no experience in these matters.)

#47 @Dan: Have another sip of your Marguerita and take a look at the other thread. News about ChaitÃ©n and Kamtchakta.
ChaitÃ©n has been upgraded to one of the 15 deadliest. Radiocarbons and witnesses of a huge eruption that occurred 320 years ago!

For those wanting to break away from active stuff......The view on the ÃÃ³rÃ³ camera at the moment is breathtaking - simply beautiful. She's puffing gently into a blue sky.

yes indeed wonderful. HvolsvÃ¶llur looks nice too.

http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/stodvaplott.html
shows that the tremor has slightly decreased, but hwo knows if the tremors don't get higher again. ;)

@Dan, #32: Actually I would guess that the wind goes more into the south-eastern direction. Yesterday it was different and we had a noticeble cover of ash on the cars this morning.
Thanks for the photos - they are all taken here in Iceland.

@34,43 Good morning over here - I showed the pic to geologist who immediately said "must be in limestone, karst country."

Since there is not much graphic material of the recent eruptions all over the globe available, I thought you'd like to see old Mamma Etna in her most glorious days - thanks to a new slides scanner I have now the possibility to make some of my best photographs shine in all their beauty. This is just the beginning, I've got to choose the best photos out of about 15,000 slides covering 15 years (1989-2004) of encounters with Etna and the other Italian volcanoes ...

www.flickr.com/photos/etnaboris/

Enjoy!

http://www.mulakot.net/images/myndavelar/14flugv.jpg
plume showing nicely also on Hvolsvelli cam

Hi Gina, think everyone is over on the new thread now..
New post
http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2010/06/bezymianny_cleveland_and_tung…

Posted by: parclair | June 1, 2010 2:26 PM

Hey your site looks a little bit strange in Firefox on my laptop with Linux .

My friend and I were just talking about this article, she is continually looking for to prove me totally! I am going to present her this write-up not to mention rub it in just a little!

New undersea eruption underway in the northern Mariana Island

eklemetti — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:06:56 +0000

New undersea eruption underway in the northern Mariana Island

Sarigan Island in the northern Mariana Islands. An undersea eruption appears to be underway south of the island.

Thanks to the watchful eye of Eruptions readers, we had an inkling of this eruption the other day, but now we have confirmation that an undersea eruption is underway in the northern Mariana Islands. The exact volcano erupting is unknown, but it appears to be between Anatahan and Sarigan (see below) - both active volcanoes in the Marianas - at a depth of 300 meters. The eruption has been described by the USGS as hot water vapor and an ash plume that might have reached as high as 12 km (40,000 feet) while observers/residents on Sarigan Island heard a large explosions and minor ash over weekend. The eruption has prompted the leader of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to declare a state of emergency.

Map of the Mariana Islands.

Anatahan had its first historical eruption in 2003 and erupted as recently as 2008. Sarigan has not had any known historical eruptions, but two seismic swarms were centered at the volcano in August 2005. Holocene lava flows on the flanks of the volcano are the only signs of geologically recent activity at Sarigan. Some of you might also remember Sarigan as Mystery Volcano Photo #4.

eklemetti Sun, 05/30/2010 - 17:06

Tags

I've been following this at the USGS one new thing I learned is that this is a Commonwealth of the US. That was a shock I keep learning at this blog a little bit of everything amazing at my age.

Uh-42,000 now down to the surface. Hit the large graphics button.

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/ARCH10/ANAT/2010E291430.html

Heard of Anahatan Erik but this Sarigan...? Where is Huila ? Its sky munching too.

no webcams for this volcanoe 2 islands were evacuated 7 people on one and 9 on the other. The did report a shockwave too.

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/nmi/activity/index.php

I visited Sarigan in July of last year.

In an area of ocean north of Sarigan we came across a film of yellow sulfur covering the water. I've also heard stories of fishermen coming across spots where the water was bubbling out gas from somewhere below.

Heaven forbid, but if we were ever to enter into another period of relative worldwide inactivity, I'd be game for another Volcano Mystery Photo. With all the new readers, the competition might be rather stiff!

There were three (3) EQ's of note in the Anatahan area yesterday; here is the link to the third and largest of the sequence: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2010wway.php

Re: Plate Tectonics

Here is a nice little teaching-aid to the above which some may find interesting.(E.g. helps to explain: faulting/volcanoes/ridges/rifts/linear lakes etc. using useful maps.)

Click here: http://geology.com/plate-tectonics.shtml

@Angelo: were you there for a fishing competition? That's a pretty remote island.

@Renee: Yes, CNMI (a collection of islands) is a US Commonwealth while nearby Guam (a single island) is a US Territory. Some time in the past the CNMI was self-governing but due to widespread abuse the US Congress restricted the government's powers and still largely controls the islands. One of the islands (Farallon de Medinilla) is a bombing range and sea vessels aren't allowed near it. The nuclear attacks on Japan were launched from the CNMI's largest island Tinian.

Re: Izu-Bonin Mariana Arc

Some might like this link, too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izu-Bonin-Mariana_Arc

Anyone in the vicinity of this northern Mariana sub-aqua eruption might be greeted to a version of this sort of unusual sight!

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/maiken.asp

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/new-pacific-island.shtml

A correction to my English for my previous post (no. 11)

"greeted BY/treated TO". BOTH apply here!

We've got another case of how the news media bring things to new dimensions: "Giant ash cloud threatens flights in the Pacific" (www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ibYovadURnETqAD0Vx2BWnx66m8Q). The source of the "giant" cloud is Yasur in Vanuatu, and reading the full report, you learn that the ash plume is about 1800 m tall. That's not really gigantic to be honest. But what is true is that Yasur, another of those volcanoes treated a bit like a "tourist toy volcano", seems to show considerably increased activity, and access to the active crater has been prohibited.

OT, Tremor rises steadily http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/stodvaplott.html

@Dagmar, Appears to be ocean and wind noise. Just normal background noise. There is a storm system approaching Iceland, so the plots are going rise until it passes over.

@JÃ³n #15, thank you as always for keeping us from misinterpreting signals that might be anything from volcansim/magma movement, human activity, and meteorological conditions!

@Dagmar #14, always look at the long-term graph in order to see the current levels of tremor in comparison with the levels during the eruption: hraun.vedur.is/ja/Katla2009/gosplott.html

(Boris): I seem to recall reading that Yasur's status as a tourist attraction has in the recent past been promoted by the Vanautu government..probably as a source of tourist money, since the country is notably impoverished (but has plenty of active volcanoes) A South Pacific equivalent to Stromboli, except that Yasur is NOT Stromboli

(Erik): Re the Sarigan -or near Sarigan- eruption. A 12km ash column from a vent 300m, that's over 900 feet, below the surface? Given the inhibiting effect of even a shallow depth of water, that must have been some blast, surely?

@mike don #17, also Stromboli is a volcano to be taken VERY serious. Like Yasur (and any other volcano) it is capable of producing very powerful and dangerous explosive activity. Furthermore, every few years to decades, Stromboli delivers lava flows into the sea (last times, 2002-2003 and 2007). An explosion on 5 April 2003 covered the entire summit area - where a few months earlier there would be hundreds of visitors every day - with about 0.5 m of pyroclastics. Luckily all acess to the volcano had been prohibited for several months, because a violent explosion was expected. Also during the past 12 months there have been a number of quite strong explosions, and access to the summit is currently forbidden.

Boris, I wasn't intending to imply that Stromboli shouldn't be taken seriously..but just to note that unlike Stromboli, Yasur doesn't have a convenient natural 'viewing platform' -tourists at Yasur would actually be on the crater rim (and the access road to the summit brings them to a point near the most active vent) And there are no 'refuge' shelters on Yasur to protect against inconvenient bombs, exposure is near complete

Thanks Boris and JÃ³n!

@Mike, I know you weren't intending to downplay Stromboli :-D ... I just wanted to make clear to everybody else that Stromboli is a potentially very dangerous volcano, but you're right, access to Yasur is much more easy (already because it's just one-third the height of Stromboli) and visitors get to the very crater rim, whereas at Stromboli the activity can be viewed from somewhat greater and slightly safer distance. Shelters have been built at Stromboli after many events when tourists at the summit were showered with ejecta from "larger-than-normal" explosions in the 1990s, one death in 2001, and the very large 2003 explosion.

@Boris - Hi! I was in Stromboli back in March and activity there was pretty spectacular and as you mentioned the summit area was off limits. But from the 400m vantage point the view was still great.

I'm hoping to get to Vanuatu in July if activity is still strong and hopefully capture the show in full HD. I'll certainly post any results here if I get anything good.

James.

@JÃ³n, What about HAU and SNB station? Is it also affected by meteorology? That is the plot which seems to be rising the most.

Winds are currently at around 6-8m/s according to the wind speed meter on your helicorders page so I guess that would cause the waves from the atlantic to affect the southern most stations but the ones inland?

Good morning volcano world - sorry I have to be gone all day, will catch up tonite...thanks for all these new posts, very interesting.

Sorry for beeing "pushy" but i am by nature curious. :-) Always pushing and try to dig deeper in answers.

There seems to be alot of seismic activity. In the last 48 hours there has been 132 recorded tremors of different magnitude all over iceland. At the same time the tremor charts shoot almost straight up and continues to do so.

As i wrote previously the winds seem to keep at a stable level around 5-10m/s and that explains alot of action in the coastal regions. But still i find HAU and SNB to be a bit strange since the tremors keep increasing at a steady rate all the time (looks like a skislope).

Aye, there's a tad more creaking and groaning than often before.

#26) What is going on with Lady E?? The 10 min Tremor Plots keep increasing. The Mulakot web-cam show what looks like a thin coating of ash on the persons home in pictures #2 & #4. The THOR and the HVO web-cams are shrouded in a very low cloud of either ash or ash??

Is there any local reports from that area? Thanks :O)!!

@Robert, #27: There is a storm going over this area - so the ash which is deposited in the area is blown again into the air. This happened already last week, see here: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=44095

I wasn't fishing, I was Scuba diving. The trip I went on will be featured in a story in Outside Magazine next month. The issue comes out on June 8. It is the July issue. We visited all of the islands in the archipelago and dove the crater of one of the underwater volcanoes.

I agree with #27, definitely looks like ash at Mulakot, would Daniel's quote @23 of a wind speed of 6-8m/s be enough to pick up and transport existing deposits?

The origin of hotmail?

http://www.vanuatupost.vu/YasurVolcanoLaunched.html

#23 #28 The 6-8m/sec wind is near 10-15 MPH. That is an adequate speed to stir up the layers of ash and dust.

#28, has there been any word in the news, or on local radio about the increasing tremor movement in Iceland? Any reports from the great people living near Lady E? The tremor plots may be influenced by the waves of the sea and the wind, however it appears that the tremor plots for all the seismic locations around Lady E are continually increasing. The Iceland Met will put out an update tomorrow :O(..

I want to say the people in Iceland and Sweden are a real pleasure to communicate with. You are all very polite and quite candid in your responses and your English is excellent. Thanks :O)!!!

Folks the HVOL web-cam has cleared partially, it appears a very large ash plume is rising from the clouds surrounding Lady E!!

@Robert, #32: No, just about ash blowing through the air and causing fine particle contaminations far, far above the critical values.

I am new to this site and what a great place to visit! No arguing here...just great information for geology nuts like myself. Thank you all sooooo much for making this an educational site with honest insights.

#34/ Thanks for the quick response, If you hear or see anything new on Lady E, please keep us updated.

Off the Weather Underground Weather Blog I frequent, there was a post of the Vanautu Volcano posted below:

31. AussieStorm 2:25 PM GMT on May 31, 2010 Hide this comment.
Ash cloud threatens Pacific flights

* From correspondents in Auckland
* From: AFP
* May 31, 2010 7:45PM

A GIANT plume of volcanic ash is threatening villagers in Vanuatu and disrupting flights in the Pacific, scientists and officials say.

Forecasters in New Zealand said the cloud, spewing from Vanuatu's Mount Yasur volcano, was about 1800 metres high and covered an area of about 340 square kilometres.

Tourists have been urged to stay away from the volcano on Tanna island, which has disrupted domestic flights in neighbouring New Caledonia.

Peter Korisa of the National Disaster Management Office, who is on Tanna to assess the situation, said lava and hot rocks had been spewing from the volcano and ash was raining down on nearby villages.

"There are 6000 people in the villages around the volcano, we're not moving them out yet," Mr Korisa said.

"All tourists and tourist operators have been asked to not access the volcano. The access is restricted."

Tristan Oakley, an aviation forecaster with New Zealand's Meteorological Service, said authorities had issued an advisory and it was up to airlines to avoid the affected area or cancel flights if necessary.

The plume has forced New Caledonia's AirCal to cancel two internal flights and delay another, although disruption remains tiny compared to the havoc recently seen in Europe - including a week-long shutdown in the continent's north in April.

Air Vanuatu local supervisor David Dick said flights were still running between the South Pacific country's capital, Port Vila, and Tanna island, while tourism officials also said the industry was unaffected.

However, Australia on Friday issued a travel advisory saying visitors were now barred from the volcano.

"Public access to the volcano is now strictly prohibited and people living in the risk zone should move to safer areas," the advisory said.

Vanuatu was rocked by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Friday, prompting a brief tsunami warning.

The archipelago, which lies between Australia and Fiji and north of New Zealand, was hit by three major quakes in October 2009.

Being new to the volcano watching world I'm curious as to the amount of volcanic activity in the past 30 or so days. Is this normal? I've been trying to find what the average is for yearly eruptions but I'm having no luck. I'm hoping one of the great minds here can clue me in. :o)

I found a site, "Global Volcanism Program" www.volcano.si.edu which has a study listed on annual eruptions and shows that the average is 50-70 per year and has been fairly consistent since 1960. Hope this helps.

John ~ Thanks! I'm off to read more. :)

1 m/s equals ca. 2.24 mph or 1.94 knots. You can check that by noting that 1 m/s = 3600 m/hr (3.6 km/hr) and then applying the appropriate conversion factors: 1 statute mile = 1609 metres and 1 nautical mile = 1852 metres. Too bad you Merkins aren't using the Scandinavian statute mile. One of them is 10 km sharp.

Interesting pdf article (12 pages) with lots of background information and maps on the Marianas.
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/20_4/20…

In Iceland: Earthquake swarm around 8 hours ago at Kistufell (part of the Bardarbunga/Grimsvotn/Laki/Vatnajokull system). Also, a few earthquakes on a mountain 14 km west of Hekla

Forgive me if someone posted this already, three threads are flummoxing me--

Nat Geo article on the charged ash from Eyjafjallajokul

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100527-science-environm…

The full research article on the self-recharging ash plume, Environ. Res. Lett. article by Harrison and Mathers, May 2010.

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024004/fulltext

New post:

http://scienceblogs.com/eruptions/2010/05/monday_musings_marianas_erupt…

It is very sad that most people are not aware that the USA has territories and islands. In the Caribbean it's the US Virgen islands and Puerto Rico and most don't realize that they are also US Citizens.

@Daniel, swe. It has been awhile since I did see a volcano tremor on my sensor and IMO plots. Now I just see background noise. There might be slightly higher background noise on some of EyjafjallajÃ¶kull sensors due to geo-thermal activity in EyjafjallajÃ¶kull. But that is about it.

The small unconfirmed (at the moment) eruption over the weekend appears to have lasted only few hours. It is long over now.

Now there is wind and the ocean on the tremor plots. Like normal when nothing is happening.

@Gordon 31 - oh, very good... : )

Great Pics. The reports caused a little scare on Saipan for a moment.

http://pacificnurse.blogspot.com

Good artcile, but it would be better if in future you can share more about this topic. Keep posting.

So I attempted subscribing to your Feed, and it kicked back a "Unreachable" error... Can you tell me if it's me or the file?

Friday Flotsam: the cost of Vesuvius erupting, dome collapse at Colima and the deepest volcanic vents

eklemetti — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 08:54:40 +0000

Friday Flotsam: the cost of Vesuvius erupting, dome collapse at Colima and the deepest volcanic vents

Hard to believe, but there is other volcano-related news in the world ...

So, with all deference to Eyjafjallajokull, here it is:

Dome collapse on Colima in Mexico, image taken March 30, 2010.

The new Smithsonian/USGS GVP Weekly Volcano Activity Report was issued, with news about increasing signs of activity at Egon in Indonesia, a possible plume at Miyakejima in Japan and more dome growth at Soufriere Hills.
A study on the economic effect of a new Vesuvius eruption was released and the finding show the potential for a staggering $24 billion of economic damage directly related to an eruption. This was part of a list of the top 10 most "dangerous" volcanoes in Europe based on insurance risk, where Vesuvius sat #1 and the Campei Flegrei was #2.
Colima in Mexico has been active over the past few weeks, and Colima Online posted images of the small dome-collapse pyroclastic flows generated by the explosions. Just reminds us that eruptions are going on all the time, even if they're not in the news.
If you're into undersea volcanism, a recent expedition visited what is believed to be the deepest known hydrothermal field, in the Cayman Trough between Cuba and Jamaica. The hydrothermal vents at the ocean's floor were producing strong black smokers of hot, mineral-rich fluids - all related to magma underneath the sea floor in the Caribbean.
The seismicity at Redoubt in Alaska is all but gone, indicating that whatever started the earthquakes wasn't directly leading to an new eruption.
And remember, the 30th anniversary of the May 1980 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens is around the corner. Are you ready?

eklemetti Fri, 04/16/2010 - 04:54

Tags

Global Volcanism Program

Smithsonian Institution

volcanoes and the economy

volcanoes in the media

volcanoes and the economy

volcanoes in the media

I guess insurance companies live by calculating and ranking risk, but there is no accurate way to determine that a Vesuvius eruption would cause more damage than one from the Campei Flegrei system. Sorta like arguing whether its worse to land on land or water after falling 30,000 feet.

If you were not already here, SciBorg would have to invent you.

Thanks, thanks.

Oddly enough, considering the media uproar last month over it, Marsili did not make the list, which does include 3 volcanoes in the Caribbean, 3 in the Azores, and 1 in Iceland (see "Marketwatch" article on this at http://preview.tinyurl.com/y5bz5zl .) The other listed volcano that's actually on the contiguous European land mass is Etna.

As for 30,000-plus-foot falls, a good argument has been made that it's better to aim for land than water; this is what one should read on the way down before making the decision: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4344036

yes, but you can make a good estimate of how many people and how much stuff is exposed to the potential effects of an eruption and then devise rational plans to minimize the damage from the more likely eruptive scenarios. Which could be more useful for some than arguing about splat sizes.

KLIUCHEVSKOI Central Kamchatka, is puffing away again.

http://data.emsd.iks.ru/videokry/kly.jpg

Another reasonably large earthquake has occurred on the Aleutian Chain today, approximately same mag (mid-5 mag) and location as this time yesterday. Something is up, although AVO is not reporting seismic activity at Shishaldin.

Boris will be happy, Etna comes in at #4, she deserves respect that old lady (Vulcano #12 and Stromboli #13 also make the list). And you have to say that Eyjaf is in good company since Helca is #9 and Katla #15. In the mining business this is known as a 'good address'.

I would like to point out that there has been absolutely no new dome growth at SoufriÃ¨re Hills Volcano since the partial collapse event on 11 February 2010. The multiple small areas of incandescence observed on the volcano are located within the collapse scar. They are related to ongoing fumarole activity and fractures in the scar headwall.

Not just St. Helens, a lot of other notorious eruptions have their, err, "birthdays" coming up in the next few weeks; El Chichon, Pelee 1902 (and St Vincent the same year), Pagan 1982, Chaiten of course; and the Big One, Tambora 1815, 195 years ago on May 10. Not as catchy an anniversary as 30 years, true.

(annoyingly, the Iceland eruption got going just as my internet connection went belly-up, so I haven't been able to join in..I'm at an internet cafe today)

In honor of the St. Helens anniversary, I'd heartily recommend a reading, between now and May 18th, of the book "Volcano Cowboys: The Rocky Evolution of a Dangerous Science" by Dick Thompson. It's not a brand-new book (2002), but it really shows how that 1980 eruption got things going with the development of the USGS volcano observatories. It discusses other eruptions, too--most notably Mount Pinatubo, but others as well--as it shows the development of modern volcanology. I found it in the local library but there is a preview of it on Google Books, and it is still for sale at Amazon and elsewhere. Excellent!

Hi Erik,
I just wanted to say that your volcano coverage has been fantastic. Keep up the good work.

I used to be simply browsing for related blog posts for my venture analysis and I occurred to discover yours. Thanks for the useful data!

You are a very intelligent person!

Insightful blog:D I will require some time to think about the stuff..

Submarine volcano off Italy may be a tsunami threat

eklemetti — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:47:33 +0000

Submarine volcano off Italy may be a tsunami threat

Map showing the location of submarine volcano Marsili, near the Italian coast. Image from INGV.

The subject of submarine volcanism near Italy has come up before here on Eruptions but now it has made the jump into the worldwide media after some claims made by Enzo Boschi, president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

The long and short of what I can tell from the articles is that Marsili, a submarine volcano in the Tyrrhenian Sea, could be a threat to create a significant tsunami that would hit Italy (amongst other Mediterranean countries). The volcano lies only 150 km / 90 miles to the southwest of Naples and is under ~450 meters / 1500 feet below sea level. The fear is that an eruption of Marsili would cause part of the edifice to collapse, producing what could amount (in a worst-case situation) to an undersea version of the Mt. Saint Helens 1980 eruption. It could also just suffer from edifice collapse, producing a tsunami similiar to what happened at Unzen in Japan in 1792.

Now I am no expert on the state of research on some of these submarine Italian volcanoes, but some of the articles seem to suggest that the volcano is "ready to erupt". My favorite line might be from an AFP article that states "The Marsili volcano, which is bursting with magma, has "fragile walls" that could collapse". I've never heard of a volcano as being "bursting with magma," but I fear something could have been lost in translation along the way. The evidence presented in the article does suggest that Marsili could be more of a threat to Italy than previously thought, but I fear that the following quote from Boschi is being liberally interpreted:

"Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions. All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time."

(my emphasis).

Now, I read that final phrase as meaning that it is an active volcano, thus future activity is likely - it could be soon, it could be hundreds or thousands of years from now, but the volcano is likely not extinct. However, my guess is that many of the news outlets read that phrase as "it is going to erupt very soon!"

If you want to see some excellent dissection of the Marsili reports, head on over to the Volcanism Blog. You can also see some additional comments on this news from Boris Behncke. For now, I think we can all agree that Marsili should be on our radar as a volcanic threat to Italy, but some of the headlines out here (e.g., "Volcano tsunami could engulf Italian coast 'at any time'"), as usual, are a little over-the-top.

{Thanks to Aldo Pombino for some of the links in this post.}

eklemetti Tue, 03/30/2010 - 02:47

Tags

volcanoes in the media

volcanoes in the media

There was a comment in the previous thread that said "Marsili may be waking up", following the surge of news reports. I should rectify that currently there is no sign of Marsili waking up (also because there is no instrument to record such signs even if they existed), although in 2006 quite intense seismic activity was recorded by temporarily deployed ocean-bottom seismometers. These signals may have been related to eruptive activity (amongst others, it included the famous "tornillo" events that Galeras volcano in Colombia is notorious for). The concern is that it *may* wake up sooner or later, we don't know anything at all about its current state because it is not monitored and all this humdrum about Marsili is an effort to get funding for monitoring. Which in my opinion is definitely warranted - and if in a previous comment I said that Marsili was not on the high priority list, that referred not so much to the INGV than to Civil Defense and the authorities (and more generally, the public as such). I think the INGV would be happy to be capable of monitoring ALL volcanoes that have the least little bit of a probability of erupting, and funding is far from sufficient, go figure in Berlusconiland. We've got a number of volcanoes that should not be considered totally extinct, and which are not specificaly monitored, such as the huge calderas of Sabatini and Vulsini in Latium, not far from Rome. Even at Etna, a couple of seismic stations recently had to be disactivated due to lack of funding, and they were closest to the area where shortly thereafter, in December 2009, one of the most energetic seismic swarms in recent decades was recorded (without, fortunately, resulting in an eruption).

Again, I consider the chance of a catastrophic event at Marsili relatively small but the possibility exists, and this warrants monitoring and some planning by Civil Defense and authorities.

When you are in a managerial position, you learn very quickly how to handle journalists, to make them report what you want reported, or you do not last long at all. To me, it looks very much as Director Boschi has very skilfully exploited this opportunity by a clever choice of words - "could + at any time", which to a journalist would mean "will + very soon". At the same time, he has kept his own back free as he can fall back on what he actually said and cannot be held responsible for journalistic interpretation. Dr Behncke on another thread here commented upon this and said that it sounded as if Director Boschi was out for funding for further research.

Let us congratulate Director Boschi and hope he receives the funding!

@Boris, politics, as usual, in Italia. :-D I do understand some of that and we have discussed it before. I knew a man that lived across the street from the Vatican and he had no use for voting here in the US, though he did register, but too late to vote! I wish he was still with us (he had liver cancer, stage 4)as he was a very intelligent and decent man that had good views on things. I miss him.

Anyway, maybe funding will occur "sooner or later".

Maybe I better clarify that. He grew up across the street from the Vatican.

Hi boris, very good.
If the Boschi interview will be useful for finding money to make a monitoring system of this volcano I will be very happy.

>However, my guess is that many of the news outlets read that phrase as "it is going to erupt very soon!"<

Probably true. Back in another life I stationed as a reservist at a US Coast Guard command center. Since we directed search and rescue for the district we often had to field media questions. One thing we were told by public affairs was "never speculate", because that could be reported as a definitive statement. For example is a fishing boat went missing, we might suspect (among other things) a large hatch left open in bad weather. But if you said on the record (before any investigation) that was a possibility, it could be reported as, "Coast Guard blames hatch in missing trawler."

The problem with volcanoes and other natural phenomena is that we have to speculate about what will happen. However, as Erik and Boris have said many times we must emphasize the most likely events and point out the difference between informed speculation and wild fearmongering.

However, this still won't end the sensationalism due to the nature of news reporting. It will be a never ending battle.

Ulrich D put up a link on the most recent Iceland Update topic - http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/marsili-seamount-tsunami-thre… - where the following quote occurs:

"Boris Behncke of the INGV discussed Marsiliâs activity in the course of his Q&A on Dr Klemettiâs Eruptions blog last year, but also remarked that monitoring Marsili was not a priority for the INGV [UPDATE: in fact that is not what Boris meant. He meant that Marsili has not been a priority for the Italian authorities, Civil Defence, and the Italian public, rather than the INGV - see his comment at Eruptions]."

It is yet another illustration of how careful the professional must be when expressing an opinion in print, even if it's "only" on a blog. Also, congratulations to both our host and Dr Behncke for being quoted!

Quite apart from the positioning that comes with media exposure, I think there is indeed a woeful ignorance of the threat of seamounts in general. It's very much a case of out of sight, out of mind. And Marsali looks like a pretty good case in point.

There is a whole string of them between along the Kermadec Ridge and some of these have some pretty whopping calderas on them. McCauley Island is sheathed in a pretty substantial ignimbrite cover. I bear this in mind when we calculate the relative frequences of major eruptions. I reckon you could at least double that number if all submarine eruptions were considered. The only question is how many of them are close enough to the surface to turn into subaerial jobs. Might be quite surprising.

First of all, I found a headline about Marsili on the Daily Telegraph that is pure delight. Not only could southern Italy be engulfed, it could be sunk. We should no longer envy California.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7535373/Volcano-…

Oh yes, as someone working in this sort of business you have to be extremely careful in choosing your wording. When Etna erupted in 2001, some of the emitted lavas carried abundant chunks of sedimentary rock (sandstone) with them, which had been entrained when the ascending magma broke through a prominent and well-known layer of sandstone that lies below the base of the volcano. I told reporters, in an attempt to be not-too-scientific, that these rocks were older than Etna, and upon further questioning, stated that Etna had an age of about half a million years. Next day the news was all over Italy, saying that Dr. Boris Behncke had discovered that "sandstone half a million years old" had been erupted from Etna. (These sandstones are actually many many millions of years old.) Luckily this was not a really serious incident, it brought me a few smirks from some colleagues, but on that occasion I noted for the first time how easily things you say can end up in the news media in a very contorted way. I guess my boss Boschi and many other experienced colleagues could write a book about such episodes.

Wishing I could reply to a specific post. To EKoh.. God loves the Coasties and so do I. ;-) Your work there is not unappreciated.As for funding, any means to achieve that end is acceptable in my book even if it means lending credence to the doomsday screaming journalists. IMHO.

""A rupture of the walls would let loose millions of cubic metres of material capable of generating a very powerful wave," Mr Boschi said."
(Daily Telegraph article)

If this is indeed Director Boschi verbatim, it's pretty conclusive that he is out politicking for funds - "millions of cubic metres" seems far more impressive than "1/1000 of a cubic kilometre", doesn't it... :)

Erik, maybe sometime you could provide a description of how submarine volcanoes are actually being monitored. This would be particularly interesting to the engineers and other gear-heads that follow your blog. I've seen various different descriptions in various journals, but the technology seems to be immature compared to the land/space based monitoring we're more accustomed to (I'm thinking about the spiders on St. Helens). As noted before, if Mr. Boschi's remarks shake loose more funding for this kind of work it could result in many direct and secondary benefits for volcanologists in Italy are around the world.

We would rather pay for popcorn than monitoring.
Best!motsfo

More than ever before, journalists seem to be coming from the ranks of frustrated novelist/screenwriter wannabes. The news isn't as exciting as a fictional tome or a disaster flick, a la "2012"? Simply 'embroider' the words a bit......et voila!--the great American novel masquerading as a news story. The news media can't blame THIS kind of writing on a science-illiterate public. Leading your audience around by the nose with sci-fi tales instead of sober science reporting is an abusive, self- aggrandizing, "Gee, maybe THIS will get me that Pulitzer" brand of journalism. As for those who seem to say that anything done to get funding is A-OK? Since when is it OK to scare the populace half to death by consorting with the sensationalistic press? Maybe there currently IS no better way, but that still doesn't make it RIGHT.

I think that I have understood why Boschi has said these words.
in Italy science research situation is in a very dramatic stage. More, Boschi has been involved in a war against mr.Bortolaso, the chief of the civil defense, now blamed for corruption. He wanted to take from INGV the seismometers net.
Many italan people suffer of under-information because quite all the news in TV are made by Berlusconi-friendly journalist and many people does not read papers. These journalists show another country in which all is good and there is no crises. The government has an old mind, made by attorney-at-law, literature man or businessmen without any scientific knowledge (and the most blame science as unuseful: letters and art are more important).
So a scientist has only one way to obtain money: he must demostrate that there is a danger.

Just for the record, here's a verbatim and complete translation of the original interview with Boschi on Corriere della Sera, with a tiny little bit of editing [brackets]. It does have a couple of pompous and fuzzy bits to it, and the title reads "The undersea volcano in the Tyrrhenian [sea] is again cause of fear"; that's actually the most sensationalistic part of it. See for yourself.

âIt could happen tomorrow. The latest research tells us that the volcanic edifice is unstable and its flanks are fragile. We have furthermore measured the magma chamber which has formed during the past few years and which has large dimensions. All this indicates that the volcano is active and could erupt suddenly.â
Enzo Boschi, president of the INGV, even though cautious, sounds concerned when telling of the results of the latest research campaign carried out on the Marsili [seamount], the largest volcano of Europe, lying undersea off the coast of the [Italian region] Campania.
From the seafloor it rises to a height of 3000 m and its cratered summit lies 450 m below the sea-level. Its impressive structure is 70 km long and 30 km wide. It is a hidden monster whose real face has been revealed only thanks to bathymetric surveys. Around it a number of hydrothermal emissions have been observed, with a frequency that is more elevated lately, and these, together with the weak structure of the volcano slopes, could cause collapses that would be of more serious concern than a possible eruption. Two events, fortunately of small magnitude, have been recorded recently.
âThe rapid collapse of a significant quantity of materialâ, explains Boschi, âwould trigger a powerful tsunami that would affect the coasts of Campania, Calabria, and Sicily, provoking a disasterâ. The instruments have revealed the shape of the chamber of incandescent magma within Marsili, which has grown and reached a size of 4 x 2 km [height? width? length?]. It is like a boiling kettle with its lid well shut.
Since years Marsili has been under heightened surveillance, after emitting ominous signs. Its history is lost in time and the time of its last eruption is unknown: certainly it occurred long ago. But the signs it has given have stimulated research and the [results of the] latest campaign initiated in February with the vessel Urania of the Italian Research Council, has led to heightened concern. Landslide deposits that were discovered point to an instability that must not be ignored. âThe failure of the slopesâ, says Boschi, âwould mobilize millions of cubic meters of material capable of triggering a massive wave. The indicators that have been revealed are very clear now, but still we cannot make any forecasts. The risk is real but difficult to evaluate.â
The reason for this [difficulty] lies in the geographical position of the volcano [deep below the sea-level]. Etna, over the past few years, has been covered with a dense network of instruments capable of giving warning when an eruption is imminent, at least with a bit of a lead time. Marsili is not only below the sea, but it also lacks this sort of instrumentation ready to listen to its signs of bad intentions. It is necessary to install a network of seismometers around the volcanic edifice, linked to a control center on land. But all this is beyond our financial capacities. With the currently available [economic] resources, a few instruments could be afforded, but not the dense network that is warranted.
âWhat is neededâ, concludes Boschi, âis a system of continuous monitoring, to guarantee reliability. But it is expensive and complicated to install. What is certain is that at any time something irremediable could happen but we have no means to recognize it [in time].â

This is nothing new in journalism. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, my father was in charge of training the Apollo program astronauts in geology. He took them to various locations in the pacific northwest including Newberry Caldera, the three sisters, etc. They had a press conference to answer questions about the trip from the local press. When asked about why they were up in the cascades, my dad answered something to the effect of "we think the recent volcanic deposits from the dormant volcanoes in the cascades may be similar to what they will see on the moon."

When the reporter tried to correct him by saying the volcanoes were extinct, dad said that no, they were just dormant and could erupt again. That led the reporter to start questioning him about which ones were dormant and how soon they could erupt. My dad kept trying to deflect them by saying that there would be lots of warning signs and we would know days or weeks ahead of time. But the reporter persisted and finally got him to admit that it was theoretically possible that My Hood could erupt next week. The next question was what would happen if it did, to which dad answered "it would dump a lot of ash on Portland".

The headline in the paper the next day was "NASA Geologist Predicts Mt Hood to Erupt, Portland to be Buried in Ash!". Dad got a stern talking to from Deke Slayton the next day about not getting off topic with the press...

Not much has changed since then in journalism.

Boris - thanks for posting that translation!

Tex - that is a great story! Thanks for sharing it.

Actually, what are the risks of seamounts in terms of severity and frequency?

off the top of my head:
caldera collapse forming a tsunami
flank collapse forming a tsunami
large explosive eruption causing a tsunami and possible ashfall (or pf also causing a - you guessed it - tsunami)
(... what am I missing ?)
ergo.. the greatest risk is probably that of a major eruption causing a tsunami which as everyone above has stressed is very unlikely. However, wouldn't this risk best be countered by a tsunami warning network like the one in the Pacific? Is there anything comparable in the Med? I think the Germans were instrumental in installing the system in the Indian Ocean, it would be ironic if a European country were to ignore the risk at home.
Finally how high is the tsunami risk in the Med actually? There is a lot of seismic activity in the eastern Med and I would have thought the topography (closed body of water) would accentuate the impact of any tsunami.

@Bruce, the Mediterranean is a classical tsunami environment with a long, long history of devastating tsunamis. Most of them are earthquake related, but several large volcano-induced tsunamis are also known. Stromboli in the Aeolian Islands off northern Sicily has undergone repeated partial flank collapse in the past millennia, each probably generating a major tsunami; a small collapse in December 2002 caused a tsunami 10 m high when it flooded the lower portions of Stromboli island, causing considerable damage. Santorini during its ~1650 BC ("Minoan") eruption produced tsunamis in the eastern Mediterranean that may have even left a trace in the Bible, and a large flank collapse of Etna about 8000 years ago is suspected to have generated a similarly massive if not even larger tsunami. Historical earthquakes have regularly been followed by tsunamis, from Spain to the Middle East. The most recent of these events was the 1908 Messina (Sicily) earthquake with 80,000 to 100,000 fatalities, many of them due to a large tsunami. So yes, this is a high-tsunami-risk area, and after the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster there was much talk about establishing a tsunami warning system in the Mediterranean but I haven't heard too much about this lately. This may be in part due to my incapability of following all developments in the field. So I hope I just missed that bit. But it's not been much in the news, which is why I suspect nothing much has happened, given the current crisis and the stark disinterest in particular of the Italian government toward research.

Another problem with the Mediterranean is its size. With tsunamis you need a decent amount of ocean between you and the wave-triggering event to get some warning. The Mediterranean is simply not that big. At least with the Straits of Gibraltar any tsunami will have a limited shoreline it is able to hit and do significant damage to.

Looking at the figures for that volcano and the distance to the Italian coast it is simply inconceivable that a warning could be provided in time to do anything beyond superficial good. If anything this volcano could be said to present more of a danger to Naples than Vesuvius, Campi Flegri or Ischia do in some scenarios. At least with those three volcanoes there are monitoring stations which are likely give at least some warning of an upswing in activity. With this monster there could be a flank-collapse event and the first people would know of it would be the withdrawing of the sea on the Italian coast prior to the tsunami hitting.

I couldn't find a realistic cutoff for depth, regarding tsunami risk, but the vast majority of these destructive waves are caused by earthquake or coastal or submarine landslide, with much less risk associated with submarine volcano and least risk from large extra-terrestrial bolide collision with the sea surface at critical marine depth.

I did find quite a few citations that state that many seamonts are too deep to cause tsunami.

Looking at Italy's economy
http://italyeconomicinfo.blogspot.com/

And knowing that, like the US and other nations facing substantial public debt, quite a bit of it (private finance initiative canoodling) still lies hidden from public inspection.

The Marsili SeaMount may be a ticking time-bomb, but as Erik flatly states, the duration before failure is unknown. The Italian economy is near zero growth, it has succumbed like many others to the lure of securitisation instruments or asset finance transactions to finance costly public support programs.

Maintaining status quo for geological monitoring may be as Good as It Gets, for the time being.

If they want to be creative, INGV could explore relatively low-cost sensor-probe deployment by remote robotic modules, with program development under joint programmatic support from International Big Science (space, climate, earth science agencies) with similar need. Japan, Canada, US, Europe and UK, China, Russia and even Iceland would have vested interest in this type of monitoring effort if it could be made global, to share costs and monitoring load.

The driver? Assess a subset of submarine volcanic activity with the goal of estimating CO2 offset by iron and mineral nutrient emissions-fed algae. Recent reports suggest this mechanism is a substantial player in carbon dioxide sequestration in the oceans. Climate modeling efforts will need better submarine volcano emissions estimates, and in return, the geologists, geochemists and volcano-heads get seismic, gas and GPS data.

Tsunami warning system in the Mediterranean:

March 24, 2010. Harris Corporation's Maritime Technology and Services to Aid New Tsunami Warning System in Mediterranean Sea.

http://www.harris.com/view_pressrelease.asp?act=lookup&pr_id=2931

'This system will consist of an array of seismometers and very sensitive pressure sensors installed on several hundred kilometers of seafloor and connected to a Harris OceanNetâ¢ buoy moored about 80 kilometers off the southern coast of Cyprus. The buoy is one element of the Offshore Communications Backbone (OCB) project that Harris is developing with CSnet. OCB is a modular, expandable system of seafloor equipment, power, communications and services for long-term, deep-ocean observation.'

'Harris is supporting CSnet International, Inc., whose CSnet (CYPRUS) Ltd. affiliate is teamed with the Oceanography Centre of Cyprus to develop and deploy a prototype Tsunami Warning and Early Response system for Cyprus (TWERC).'

Project went on the books in 2008, set for deployment in 2011.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1685238820080416

Boris, you may want to have your boss get in contact these folks to see if there are plans to put sensors near the seamount chain that would aide INGV monitoring efforts.

If so, you may want to craft a carefully-worded statement to HAND to the press, as an agency response to growing public concern over the seamount.

@passerby, sounds like the underwater version of swords into plowshares. Not so much money anymore in deploying military sensors, so why not use much of the same technology for the public safety market.

@Mots, I think you hit the nail on the head! ;-D

Could anyone tell me if this is just noise or something more? quake. utah.edu/helicorder/ymr_webi.htm
There is a bit of a signal at surrounding stations also.

And now for something completely different.
Koryaksky is quite stunning right now. No eruption beautiful on a good clear day.
http://www.kscnet.ru/ivs/kvert/video_camera/koryak/koryak.htm

@Someguy. Looks like wind noise to me. I, however am not a Volcanologist.

I am not an expert either but I do keep an eye on those seismographs and check them several times a day, every day and I have been checking them that way for the past 5 years. I think it's some noise, some real...it looks like they may have ice on some of the antennas too. There have been 2 quakes in the past 24 hrs close to Mammoth Hot Springs that didn't even register on that webicorder. I think several of them are not working correctly and haven't for about a week....The activity has been picking up there over the past few days though....look back at yesterday for YMR and you will see a lot of activity and it wasn't just noise.

I know some strange signals come from this station usually during drive times. This has been the nicest weather day in a while so it would surprise me that wind or ice noise would be causing this today.

There is a recent scientific paper on that, showing Marsili is a collapse-prone volcano. I think it is where "the fragile walls" come from. Access to geophysical research letter is required to read the paper:
Caratori Tontini, F., Cocchi, L., Muccini, F., Carmisciano, C., Marani, M., Bonatti, E., Ligi, M., Boschi, E. (2010), Potential-field modeling of collapse-prone submarine volcanoes in the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy), Geophysical Research Letters, 37, L03305, doi:10.1029/2009GL041757.

Chris Rowan, over at Highly Allochthonus blog, was nattering today about Aquila area Bufo toads maybe not being such reliable seismometers. He links back to a former post that describes the unexpected stretching tectonics involved in the lethal Aquila 2009 earthquake. You would expect an EQ compression mechanism, but this is a complex back-arc system. Good graphic, excellent explanation. See:

http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2009/04/tectonics_of_the_it…

Boris Behncke...thanks for the write up...i would think that something 70km x 30km x 3km should be monitored...now!

"Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magma chamber is of sizeable dimensions. All that tells us that the volcano is active and could begin erupting at any time." - that is so true. I think you put alot of effort in this presentation. It was very informative!

It appears like you are creating difficulties yourself by wanting to resolve this challenge rather than taking a look at why their is a trouble within the 1st spot

It appears like you're producing problems oneself by attempting to resolve this situation as opposed to taking a look at why

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Rockin' on the Reykjanes Ridge, Iceland

eklemetti — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:38:32 +0000

Rockin' on the Reykjanes Ridge, Iceland

The Icelandic coast of Reykjanes where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge comes above sea level.

A number of Eruptions readers have noticed that seismicity along the Reykjanes Ridge that runs to the southwest of Iceland onto the island has increased over the last few days. Sure enough, checking the Icelandic Met Office page on seismicity on the island finds a lot of earthquakes on the southwest peninsula that is the manifestation of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge hitting the hotspot-related Icelandic landmass. The interaction between the Iceland plume and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is complex, with a step in the mid-ocean ridge across the island.

There are no recently active volcanoes on the peninsula just south of Reykjavik - most are to the east, such as Krafla, GrimsvÃ¶tn and Hekla, but the Reykjanes Ridge is part of the SW rift zone, so obviously a place where volcanism could occur. The Reykjanes Ridge is known to have submarine volcanism off the coast of Iceland, with young lava flows discovered in 1992 after seismic swarms. There are many geothermal prospects in this part of Iceland - part of the energy infrastructure of the island nation - along with known basaltic fields. The last known eruption on the of the rift system was in 1879, although there have been numerous eruptions noticed since humans arrived on Iceland in the 9th century, especially at the excellently named submarine Reykjaneshryggur. An eruption in 1830 produced a VEI 3 eruption that might have formed a temporary island. A number of suspected submarine eruptions may have occurred along the Reykjanes near Iceland since 1879. {See a great summary of more eruptions in Iceland in the comments below from Cat Dynamics' Stein Siggurdsson.}

The last eruption on Iceland was at GrÃmsvÃ¶tn in 2004, a VEI 3 eruption that produced a jÃ¶kulhlaup - glacial outburst flood produced by a volcanic eruption. You can see some great images of the event, including pictures of the plume from the eruption taken from aircraft on this website - albeit that the descriptions are in Icelandic. There is even video from the eruption, again in Icelandic (but accompanied by Queen).

{Hat tip to Eruptions readers Mattias Larsson and Boris Behncke for info on this new activity in Iceland.}

eklemetti Thu, 02/18/2010 - 10:38

Er, the Iceland has been populated since the 9th century.

There were a series of eruptions on the Reykjanes ridge shortly after colonization, the so-called "landnÃ¡msgos", you can see the fresh lava fields as you drive from the airport to ReykjavÃk. There were 4-5 major eruptions and about a dozen minor eruptions from 875-1340 CE.

The eruptions tend to come at intervals of approximately 1,000 years and last for 2-300 years.

There were underwater eruptions in 1926 and 1973

There were major eruptions off the southwest cost in 1963 (Surtsey) and 1973 (Heimaey) - on the main ridge, not Reykjanes, but historical records suggest submarine eruptions at two spots off Reykjanes in: 1211, 1226, 1231, 1238, 1240, 1422 and 1583; and 1783, 1830 and 1879 respectively.

Thanks for the info Steinn! It is going to be interesting to follow the earthquake activity during the coming days. I guess time will tell if this is something serious or not, but at least Iceland is making itself noticed.

When discussing possible future eruptions on Iceland I think Katla volcano, hidden under the MÃ½rdalsjÃ¶kull glacier, should be mentioned. From what I understand Katla is one of the volcanos that can be expected to erupt during a near future. What makes it even more interesting is that Katla also have a history of quite large eruptions. Some interesting info on Katla http://iceland.vefur.is/iceland_nature/Volcanoes_in_Iceland/katla.htm
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1702-03=

Hmmm. Maybe a discussion or blurb on Iceland is due, unless it has already been talked about.

Thank you, Steinn and Mattias for the info you provided. It will be interesting to watch what happens.

Thanks Diane and Erik, I was a little bit lucky when I found out about the earthquake swarm. By the way some more interesting activity right now. An earthquake swarm has just started under VatnajÃ¶kull. :)

A friend of mine raised a good point,

looking at this igneous province on the map you provided, Erik, which shows lava flows reaching past the Faroes towards Scotland, well, wouldn't this imply some serious lava flow from the hot spot but at depth under the ocean. Is this possible? Wouldnt't the combination of depth and cooling seawater frustrate the creation of an igneous province at that depth?

An apocryphal tale perhaps?

An officer on the US naval base in Keflavik claims that when the glaciar run in 1996 started four of his friends were on the bridge crossing SkeiÃ°arÃ¡ in a Volkswagen beetle. All of them dissapeared and have never been found. This story has not been confirmed but the officer claims that it was kept from the press by the US and Icelandic governments.

http://iceland.vefur.is/iceland_nature/Volcanoes_in_Iceland/katla.htm

whats the big news here theres live volcanos all over

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Submarine eruption near Japan

eklemetti — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:45:29 +0000

Submarine eruption near Japan

The plume from submarine volcano Fukutoku-Okanoba, erupting in February 2010.

Almost a year after the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai eruption, where an undersea volcano sprang forth from the deep - quite spectacularly, we have new footage of another undersea eruption. Fukutoku-Okanoba, off the coast of Minami Iwo, started to erupt yesterday (or, at least, erupt enough to manifest a plume out of the ocean). A Japanese coast guard vessel was able to capture the plume on video as it reached 100 m / ~300 feet. The plume appears to be dominated by white steam along with some grey ash mixed in. Additional footage shows the water stained brown/tan with ash and volcanic debris from the eruption as well.

Fukutoku-Okanoba is actually a quite active submarine volcano, last erupting in 2005. The sea is often discolored near the volcano and a number of ephemeral islands have formed due to its activity over the last 100 years - my favorite being Shin-Iwo-jima, or "New Sulfur Island" in 1904. Most of the eruptions appear to be VEI 0-2 based on what manifests at the surface, however the 1904 eruption was VEI 3, producing significant andesitic (intermediate) ash and lava. The summit of the volcano lies only 14 m / ~50 feet below the ocean surface.

eklemetti Thu, 02/04/2010 - 02:45

Tags

volcanoes in the media

submarine eruption

undersea eruption

eruption video

volcanoes in the media

Awesome.

What does VEI 0-2 mean etc. Is there a chart to look at that explains the various designations?

VEI stands for "Volcanic Explosivity Index" - its like the Richter Scale, but for volcanoes:

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/images/pglossary/vei.php

Fantastic post, Dr. Klemetti. Thank you!

I was on Iwo Jima in 1946-1947 I would like to talk to any one that was there. Call 609-647-1444 Thanks
S/Sgt. GW Rosson

I would like to hear from any one that was on Iwo Jima.
S/Sgt. GW Rosson

Interesting photos of Iwo-Jima.

My father-in-law fought in the South Pacific with the marines, on Iwo Jima and elsewhere. On summer holiday one year, I happened to query him about his wartime experiences, about 1985. I remember that his face went blank and he broke eye-contact to look away, clearly signaling that he wasn't prepared to discuss it.

His wife found me later on and while she was smiling, she was visibly upset. She told me never to ask about the war, ever. It always raised horrific memories and these inevitably invoked recurrent nightmares from which he would awake shouting and drenched in sweat, and then he would not sleep for several days for fear of reliving the experiences, again.

My father-in-law had a 35-year career in law enforcement, first in the police and then the FBI; he had seen plenty of 'bad'. He never had problems talking about any of career and had many interesting stories to tell; he was an excellent raconteur.

Whatever personal experiences this man had of the storming of Iwo, it must have been bad enough to cause lasting and severe emotional trauma. I have read and heard similar reports of men who refused to discuss the battle or the aftermath.

I think, Staff Sargent Rosson, that the few Iwo survivors remaining who might read your posts, won't be taking up your offer for contact.

Iwo photos, from the air.
http://www.iwojima.com/today.htm

Any one who was on Iwo Jima in 1946 email me on Rosonotes@aol.com. THANKS FOR NOW.
S/Sgt. GW Roson

I still have a lot of infro. on Iwo Jima, I need some email on this.( Come on boys )Lets hear from you ALL!!!!! Like I said before I was there in 1946-1947. At that time there were a there. I could write on this for a hour or so and still would have a lot more to say. Call me on 309-647-1444 or email me on Rossonotes@aol.com Thanks
As ever S/Sgt. GW Rosson

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