Tolbachik still not giving up

Attention to active volcanoes tends to go down the longer they are active. The only time you hear something about Kilauea for example is when something like a lava lake drains, new lava fountains show up or when a piece of property is destroyed by the ever-present lava flows, which are in itself one of the most exciting things a volcanophile can see. No change means no news, even though the non-changing phenomenon is highly interesting in itself. The same goes for Tolbachik by now.

Great photograph of the eruption by Airpano.

KVERT reports no significant change in activity at Tolbachik recently, which means volcanic tremor is still high and very fluid basaltic lava is still erupting in Kilauea-style lava flows. But, it has been like this for a while now.

Ever since the 27th of November, 2012, Tolbachik has been erupting, which is 101 days today. Lava flows have reached as far as 20 km away from the southern/southwestern flank of Tolbachik (Tolbachinsky Dol), so the question is how long this somewhat unusual basaltic volcano located on the Kamchatka peninsula can keep this activity going. And by unusual I mean: having characteristics of a basaltic shield volcano in a subduction zone environment, like the Alaskan Westdahl volcano and the Nicaraguan Masaya volcano.

Overview of the 1975/1976 eruption. Image by kscnet.ru

The so-called great eruption of 1975 had a erupted lava volume of 1.2 km3 over the course of some 530 days in total, also on the southwest flank. Lava erupted along a 28 km long fissure, reminding of the rift zones found on volcanoes on Hawaii and the Canary Islands. Activity started at the summit, moving down by creating the northern cones along the fissure a few days later. After some 72 days, a subsidence caldera was formed at the summit crater and activity ended in the northern cones after which the southern cone formed many kilometers south of the northern cones. The southern cone produced low-viscosity basalt for the remainder of the eruption.

Scoria and volcanic bombs from a 1975 cinder cone in the background. Photo by Oleg Volynets (Institute of Volcanology, Petropavlovsk)

Activity before 1975 was occurring very frequently at the central vent of the stratovolcano-part of the volcanic complex. About every year or so, explosive eruptions were reported at the central vent, from around 1955 to 1975 until the big eruption occured, after which this type of behavior abruptly ended. The previous comparable eruption happened in 1940, where a small amount of lava was erupted at the southwest flank. Of special interest is a series of eruptions around 1000 years ago and also 1500 years ago, each time producing comparable amounts of lava to the 1975 eruption from the same SW flank, spaced roughly 50 years apart. Apparently  this volcano can alternate between periods of repeated eruption patterns that are quite different from each other, separated by longer periods of relative inactivity.

The current activity has started on the southern flank, north of the 1975 northern cones, along the same fissure/rift of the 1975 eruption. Several new cones were constructed in the first few weeks of the eruption and the very fluid lava has been flowing constantly ever since. Looking at the past, it will not be surprising to see this eruption lasting for quite a while longer, and possibly changing location of the eruptive center along the ‘rift’zone. However, it is impossible to know what will happen the next months, given that some estimates in late December were already up to 1 km3 of eruptive material. In short, we should continue to keep an eye on it.

Lava flows consuming a Kamchatka forest.

Also note this excellent post by GeoLurking on Tolbachik: http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/ruminarian-ii-tolbachik/

Last but not least, a great video (in French, but the images speak for themselves) pointed to by Bruce Stout

El Nathan

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Update:

Name those Volcanoes Riddle

No 1 – Its name commemorates the exploits of  two intrepid 17th century ghost hunters. They were priests. SOLVED
No 2 – 3rd most N of the DV 16. SOLVED
No 3 – Local public disorder and an official resignation followed the IDS’s £10m post eruption assistance offer. It was British aid. SOLVED
No 4 – In 1984 it was little wonder that the heroes asked where are we now? SOLVED

Added to the post by Spica

Ruminarian IV – You asked for it.

CAVEAT: I am not a Geologist, Seismologist, Ornithologist, Hematologist, Banker (I have a soul), Congressman (I knew my parents), Auto Mechanic (well, professionally I’m not) or formally trained in any of this. I am an amateur, just like you. In other words, take it with a grain of salt, I can be wrong.

This sort of falls in with my previous “It’s a Gas” post from August 14th of LAST year (Originally “this” year, but the Mayan Doom thing came and went and went before this post made it out… it is 2012 that it refers to.)

The other day, I was a bit stoked by finally locating an SO2 dataset for the southern hemisphere. I knew it was out there, many times data from that have been mentioned in various papers. The data set is from the Taylor Dome, located at latitude 77.66°S. GISP, the source for the Northern data set is at around 65°N. Plotted together (with the Taylor Dome set inverted so that each can be clearly seen), you get a reasonably decent look at SO2 for both hemispheres.

Note that both of these plots are for Total SO2, and not just Volcanic SO2. All we are interested in are the peaks/spikes. (Likely volcanic in origin).

Interesting things in the plot:

52.9 BC shows a sizable spike in the Northern plot. According to GVP, Apoyeque in Nicaragua went up around this time with a VEI-6, so it’s a candidate (± 100 years).

78.2 AD could be Vesuvius, there is enough slop in the resolution to where it could be a fit with the 79 AD (historical record) eruption that killed Pliny the Elder (and gave us the archetype for a Plinian Eruption based on the writings of Pliny the Younger). An additional candidate (or co-emitter) could be Furnas in Portugal (80 AD ± 100 years) Both of them are listed as (or likely) VEI-5.

640.1 AD may be Shiveluch. GVP places an event there at 650 AD ± 40 years.

1612 BC is quite interesting. There is a monster spike in the Southern Hemisphere, and smaller one in the Northern hemisphere. GVP places the Santorini VEI-7 in this time frame, but logic says that it should have had the greatest effect in the northern hemisphere… so what happened about this time in the south? Fuego (Guatemala), Chacana (Ecuador), and Taapaca (Chile) all erupted with unknown VEI around 1580 BC, (± 75, 10, 75 years respectively), so any or all of them could be a candidate.

Since we are now in the southern hemisphere, that topic that came up when I posted the original plot: “Where is Taupo?” To put it simply… it ain’t there. Taupo went big in 230 AD at VEI-6. Yet not a blip. It also had a large event in 1460 BC (± 40 years), again.. nothing in the SO2 record to speak of.

dfm noted that the Taylor Dome series may be stunted in what it can record due to the “roaring 40s.”

For those of you that don’t know… 40°S latitude is notorious for it’s storms and high winds… it’s fairly persistent feature of that latitude. There is almost no land along that latitude… maybe 1100 km total out of 30,384 km of latitudinal track. It’s also right at the boundary of the Southern Hadley Cell and the Southern Mid-Latitude Cell.

At the surface, stuff north of the boundary tends to flow north, stuff south tends to flow south. That is, unless you shove the plume up towards the stratosphere where the flows reverse… and then if it gets to the stratosphere, well, things are different there. The stratosphere is above something called the “Tropopause.” The Tropopause is the very top of the troposphere. All weather that we encounter… Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Thunderstorms, Derechos, Typhoons, Monsoons, Lightning, Gales, Gusts, Waterspouts, Snow, Sleet, Rain, Hail… are products of the troposphere. The stratosphere is above that. It’s called the stratosphere due to it being layered… layered in temperature. The reason it is layered, is that not a lot goes on there. Well, not a lot of mixing, at least as compared to the one below it. Yet stuff still goes on there. This is the region where SO2 in a volcanic column is converted to Sulfate and can operate as a screen, reflecting sunlight.

You can see the boundary region in an averaged tropopause height plot. The red region around the equator are the two Hadley cells straddling the equator. Just north and south of these two regions are the mid-latitude cells that run to about 50°N and 50°S. Beyond there and you are into the Polar cells.

So… did Taupo produce an SO2 signal but both GISP and Taylor Dome ice miss it?

In Bolivia, there is a “extinct” stratovolcano called Nevado Sajama. GVP doesn’t have a listing for it, so that implies that it has had no Holocene activity. Davidson et al (1995) places the Nazca Plate Benioff Zone at between 150 to 175 km under the volcano, so it is likely that it is outside (barely) the region that produces magma for arc volcanism. However, that paper also lists Sajama as a Holocene volcano. Some of the ejecta from it overlies 2.2 mya material. So its last activity is at least younger than that. But the thing about Sajama that we care about, is that it has glaciers.

From the Sajama Ice Core descriptor:

In June-July 1997, two ice cores to bedrock were recovered from the summit of the extinct Sajama volcano, Bolivia (18°S, 69°W, elevation 6540 m) and were subsequently transported back in a frozen state to the cold room facility at the Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC).

This record goes back to about 23000 BC. It only has 100 year resolution, but it at least gives us a peek at something inside the Southern Hadley cell.

An important note: This is Sulfate, not SO2. Sulfate is the end product after SO2 is converted through interaction with water and radicals.

But we are still left with the question of where is the Taupo SO2 signal? The best bet? There isn’t one.

In a previous post on the topic of the TVZ, we found that Taupo’s last eruption showed almost no zonation. Zonation is where different levels of the magma chamber have chemical signatures representative of the crystal formation process that was present at the time of the eruption. As the eruption progresses, different groups of signatures come out as the point source of the eruption gets to them. With no zonation, the likely reason is that that chamber was well mixed and highly dynamic. Convective currents were keeping everything stirred up really well and the chamber was very homogenous. It doesn’t explain the lack of SO2, but it may lend a clue. (something for you and I to ponder)

Is it possible that since Taupo is under a lake, that the SO2 was leached out early in the eruption by the large quantity of water?

Havre Seamount in the Kermadec Islands of New Zealand erupted (significantly) in July of this year… here is the Aura OMI Level 3 SO2 vertical column for that period. (May through August in order to make sure we caught it)

Hmm… nada. Up north around Vanuatu there are emissions, but nothing in the Havre Seamount area. It doesn’t prove the point, but it supports the idea of the SO2 being leached early.

Now we move on to 1258. It shows up on the GISP data set, but not in the Taylor Dome set. It also seems to be missing from the Sajama core, but as noted, it has a 100 year resolution and could still miss it. No matter how you slice it, there is still that glaring item about it showing up in the North Hemisphere, but not the South. If it were an equatorial event, one would expect a coincidental signal in both sets…. weather permitting. Zooming in on that year, sure enough, there is a signal in both sets.

But the northern signal is 6.4 times the size of the southern one. Whoever comes up with the source for the 1258 SO2 spike is going to have to address that. If not, it will be a rather large monkey wrench to deal with .

And now for something completely different. (maybe…)

Ever hear of e-folding? How about continuous interest compounding on a banking instrument? They are related. E-folding comes to us from the world of atomic physics. Continuous interest compounding comes to us from … banks. Both have to do with how you figure out how much “stuff” you have after a certain amount of time.

The top equation would be used to find out how much “stuff” you would have left in a half life equation with a given decay rate of “r” time. “t” is the amount of elapsed time.

The bottom equation does the same thing, but instead of the rate to wind up with “half”, it’s the rate to wind up with 1/e. “e” being a natural logarithm. (about 2.718281828)

The only reason I bring it up, is because Bluth et al (1997) did in their paper “Stratospheric Loading of Sulfur from Explosive Volcanic Eruptions” They come up with the conclusion, that SO2 blown into the atmosphere, is converted to sulfate at an e-folding rate of 35 days. That means that after 35 days, 1/e of the material will be left. (about 36.7%). Sulfate, on the other hand, shows an e-folding rate of about 12 months for the really prolific SO2 eruptions, and 6 months for the more moderate emitting eruptions. In both cases, wintertime sulfate removal rates are slowed down by about 20%.

Not having a handy eruption to run the equations on… let’s go back to my fictitious Mt Gibbons. For the sake of argument, Mt Gibbons erupted 1.0 Mt of SO2. Here is how it would play out according to Bluth et al.

What this plot does, is to apply the SO2 conversion and the Sulfate removal rates simultaneously (well, as close as I can get) to the eruption… which for the model, is assumed to be one large ejection of the SO2. As you can see, peak loading occurs about 2 to 3 months after the eruption.

Where the model fails, is when the SO2 is emitted over time, as in a series of SO2 emissions. Keep that in mind as you ponder how this works.

Okay.. that’s the show. Hopefully you weren’t bored by the post.

Enjoy!

GEOLURKING.

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OT side note for the true purveyors of arcane bits of knowledge.

Refer back to the Tropopause graphic. Notice anything interesting about it? Hint: Earth’s aphelion is in the first week of July. Thats the furthest point of our orbit. Perihelion, or the closest we get to the Sun is in the first week of January.

Now notice the tropopause heights at each time of the year. In January, the equatorial regions swell quite a bit, and then this flattens towards the poles in mid-year, around July. At that point, the poles are more inflated than during perihelion.

Essentially, the orbit of the Earth drives an oscillation in the atmospheric thickness.

No reason to note it other than it’s quite cool to see it plotted out.

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“Stratospheric Loading of Sulfur from Explosive Volcanic Eruptions” Bluth et al (1997)

http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~raman/papers/BluthJG.pdf

“Late Cenozoic magmatism of the Bolivian Altiplano” Davidson et al (1995)

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00286937?LI=true#page-1

Sajama Ice Core Data

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/trop/sajama/sc1-100a.txt

Apocalypsathon; Post 21/12/12 Appeal…

I think Tyler Mannison found this one…

Send your urgent and much needed donations for those poor unfortunate endotheworlders who were not wiped out (they must be devastated) to schteve’sschwissbanking.ch

Please spare a thought and a dime for those not raptured up to heaven in the recent non- apocalypse; give generously, it’s nearly christmas after all…

Since this didn’t happen everywhere all at once…

I intend to set up a refuge high in the hills of La Gomera with a nice piece of (terraced) land and a look out tower; we’ll charge post 2012ers top- whack to come and contemplate… Me n’ Lizzie will be there most of the year looking after the goats and generally taking care of the place (and going for long walks and jaunts to El Hierro and stuff.) So once again Volcanocafers please dig deep for this very worthy cause…

Somewhere like this, Pico del Teide is in the distance…

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/La_Gomera_1.jpg/1280px-La_Gomera_1.jpg

But seriously, and since we are still here; a genuine appeal (and some of my highlights):

This rather special place was started by Carl and Ursula after a group Volcanoholics decided they wanted their own place with their own rules… Those that wanted to go multidisciniplary, collaborative and friendly came here and (boy!) the discussion was, and still is, far ranging… The Welcome page and blog rules are here:

http://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/volcano-cafe/

The average post rate is ~ one every 3 days, (that includes before and after Carl statistics…) some volcanoblogs manage more, but usually these are brief updates. What we get here are crafted pieces, made by amateurs in their spare time…

The hit rate is around ~150 visits per hour; this doesn’t include dragon visits…

I won’t lie to you; a blogpost can be quite a bit of work, depending on your skills… Carl once mentioned that he could write a 1200 word opera review in 20 minutes, and Geolurking seems to be able to get something revolutionary on tectonics done in only slightly more time…

Birgit deserves her own paragraph; she can research, compile, edit, post and get an intelligent layman up to speed on a particular subject in less time than it takes a crocodile to swallow an unwary victim!!!

Me? I’m at the other end of the scale; maybe 20 hours work on Teneguia Technicalities and Context, but that did include editing with wordpress which was a first for me… Don’t let me scare you, I can be quite ambitious…

I am asking everyone to keep the posts coming; think of it as an extended comment and you will do fine…

This one’s for our resident geologist… The little engine that could x

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Snowdon_Mountain_Railway_No_6.jpg/1280px-Snowdon_Mountain_Railway_No_6.jpg

Visits to volcanoes “a la Ukviggen” are always popular; (Mount Snowdon anyone? The narrow gauge, rack and pinion railway is the only one of it’s kind in the UK.) as are summaries of your favorites; (Karenz on Sakurajima is a very good example.) and memories of eruptions that were special to you; (Bobbi’s piece on Redoubt is a classic, and don’t forget Newby’s uncle on Erebus.)

Ascending eruption cloud from Redoubt Volcano as viewed to the west from the Kenai Peninsula April 21, 1990 (R. Clucas)

For the more ambitious how about an original piece of research? (Irpsit wrote a fascinating series about a big hole!!!) Controversial stuff is great, got an alternate theory? (Peter Cobbold on El Hierro is excellent.) What about something inter- disciplinary? (Diana Barnes on Scheeps helping to revive volcanic badlands is wonderful!) Technicalities more your bag? (Wagabond on marine seimic sounding; great insights.) Plotters, hows about “beefing up” a special plot? (Plotting for Beginners 2 may get done one day, but feel free to jump in!!!)

One of Birgit’s awesome SEM images of material from El Hierro…

If none of these inspire how about something outrageously off topic for the Scheeepy Dalek?

Nothing is like the smell of a Motorcade in Depresneyville in the morning. Remember that when people shoot at you, they just wish to greet you welcome to Ukraine.

So please, go and do yr research, track down the info on yr chosen subject and write something up… Include the standard Volcanocafe disclaimer and a reasonable list of references; and you’re done…

Posts are best submitted as plain text word documents; attached to an email. Pictures should be separately/ individually attached; most formats are fine but please no psd, crw or nef (they are too big and probably not supported by WP either; they need to be converted first). Jpg, gif, png, tiff are commonly supported formats and will do well.

However; when I asked Sissel about this, she said: “Just send it, I will edit what is neccessary!” (another inspirational blogger; remember The Little Prince?)

Have you ever made a comment that you (later) wished you’d saved for a guestpost? Then we want to hear from you; (give us as much detail as possible: approx dates, subject, etc. and we will go digging) dragons can search all 70,000 comments and extract that moment of inspiration…

My top tip (I know it’s environmentally unfriendly) is to print out the papers that you are really interested in; the references for yr article; that kinda thing…

Posts and comments are the lifeblood of the blog, there are (almost) no stupid questions or statements.

So there you have it, no more excuses for not handing in your homework!!!

With Love and Respect,

Schteve x

Links to inspirational articles:

• El Hierro : a tectonic compression/relaxation mechanism? Author Peter Cobbold ,September 19^th.
• A Volcanic ‘Grand Tour’ Part 1 Author UKViggen, October 26^th.
• Sakura-jima: Why is She Nearly Always Erupting? Author KarenZ, October 31^th.
• Redoubt Author Bobbi, October 16^th.
• The (ash) history of Iceland, in my backyard – Part I Author: Irpsit July 25th.
• Edinburgh – Volcanic heart of Scotland  Author: Alan C, February 28^th.
• Welcome to Ukraine – You’re arrested! (Sheepy Dalek Russian Style)  Author: Carl, December 9^th.
• Some points on El Hierro seismic  Author: WAGABOND, December 6^th.
• Biology, Sheep, and Human Survival  Author: Diana Barnes, November 21^st.
• Images of El Hierros magmatic system  Author: Geolurking, November 27^th.
• The Little Prince  Author: The Behemoth Dragon (aka Sissel), December 13^th.
• Mount Erebus, Ross Island and the Age of Exploration  Author: Newby, December 3^rd.

Hurray, it’s DOOMSDAY!

A Sheepy Dalek SPECIAL on 21 december 2012

Alignment of the planets december 2012. Source unknown.

Today is the day we have been waiting for for years: the very last day of the Mayan calendar. The planets will align, a sunspot maximum will occur, the poles will shift, Nibiru will collide with the earth, the lizards will come, it will be a very unusual day..  Please report on the disasters that happen around you today so we all stay well informed on this once-in-a-lifetime-event! And if the world is still turning at riddletime, the post will be updated with evil riddles – that is, if the riddles manage to get here; if the electric grids still work and internet still exists.

Preview of Mercury, Venus, and Saturn above the piramides of Giza tonight. “Doomsayers are linking the reportedly planetary alignment to the reportedly end of the world on December.” Source: http://www.braincontour.com/2012/08/20/planetary-alignment-on-december-2012-with-giza-pyramids/

Diana Barnes:
My morning rumination….
I have arranged all my volcano cams in time order so that I can watch the end of the world through the time Zones before mine. To Renato, Lurking and others in the USA can I remind you to switch on your screen shots videos to record it for posterity as you are over the other side of the Atlantic and will see more than us.

Irpsit:
My crazy story (actually true): when I was 17, many years ago, I was observing the stars and with a telescope in the country forest. First I start seeing something like a light was seeming on the sky but as I looked there was nothing (I though it could have been someone with a flashlight nearby pointing upwards). Suddently I saw a very bright light was shining upon me. Just like the impression of having a car appearing suddently on you on the middle of the night (but on the sky!). As I looked above I saw what looked like a metallic disk shaped objects with 5 bright lights around it. It was gently flying left to right for a few seconds without making any noise and then disappeared suddently. I was shocked and freaked out because until then I would laugh at such stories. 2 days later the tv news reported an ufo observed in a few places, but those places were mostly 80km away and the reports were about 2 hours ealier. I was even more surprised to hear of that strange event. This is the craziest  story of my life. As an amateur astronomer and weatherman I was absolutely stunned by having experienced such event. After it I knew there is either 1) alien tech visiting our planet or 2) manmade undisclosed tech. Unless I propose option 3: a simultaneous mass illusion just on that specific day, induced by either unknown natural phenomena or unknown tech.

JulesP:
Irpsit – you are not alone. Just not something one generally admits to, lest everyone else thinks you are nuts! I had a very similar experience and if it was not for the fact that several other people with me all saw the same thing, I would have questioned myself… and there is probably a good logical and earthbound explanation. That said, I personally believe that on balance of probability a) we are most certainly not alone in the universe and b) civilisations older and more advanced than us may very well have figured out the fabric and mechanics of space enough to produce wormholes and bend space-time, such that they could cover the distances… we just don’t understand how yet. Just IMHO.

tgmccoy:
Same here – I saw something (actually several things) that I can’t quite explain away before and after becoming a Professional pilot. I’m not convinced that what I ( a disc) saw was entirely alien or was one of ours.. I have no idea. -but then again the Cherokee say they are from the Sirius system..

DebbieZ:
When I was about 10 yrs old I thought I had seen a UFO from my bedroom window ´… but my form teacher told me it was probably Saturn that I had seen that night!

Newby:

Sissel:
During the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, the 23th of May 2010, I saw a bright spot in the sky on the thermal camera (FLIR). The spot moved very slowly to the right. It was several times the brightest spot on the image. The daylight cam showed nothing unusual. At last I had captured an UFO! YES! – I realized that I had to make some screenshots of it. Three pictures were made – at 21:08, 21:48 and 22:18:

So I sent the pictures to Mila for confirmation. Guess what they answered? “Thank you for your intrerest in our webcameras. I looked in to this and yes your pictures are real.” Yippeee!! What do you think it was?  Answer here.

Sagebrusher:
One of my favorite animations of a 500km-wide asteroid hitting the earth..

GeoLurking: The version I like is set to Pink Floyd’s “The Great Gig in the Sky”

The scenario presented in the video is a 500 km wide asteroid. Using the impact effects calculator, and plugging in likely values (rocky roid, 17 km/s, 45° angle of impact) Seismic event – Richter Scale Magnitude: 13.2 Average thickness of the melt pool – 133 km. Final Crater – 3340 km diameter 3.4 km deep. The change in the Earth’s tilt is less than 0.05°. Within 5000 km of the impact, the radiant flux is 4220 times greater than the Sun. Peak overpressure is 141 bars = 2000 psi (at 3 psi dynamic overpressure your eardrums rupture… at 2 psi dynamic overpressure, a wood frame house will explode) Multistory steel-framed office-type buildings will suffer extreme frame distortion, incipient collapse. Highway truss bridges will collapse. Highway girder bridges will collapse. And the wind will be 3010 m/s = 6740 mph. This is the original, non glitzy version of the program. Data only, the way I like it.

If you want to recalculate this yourself, have a look at http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/

The makers of the 2012 movie: “Now we don’t just have a few casinos crumbling, but we also have this huge chasm that’s running straight through the Vegas strip.”
Source: http://www.filmoa.com/video/destruction-of-las-vegas-2012

Diana Barnes:
I have managed to survive several world endings,1960, 1966, 1976, 1988, 2000–and both the world and I are still here…..I think!
.. The most dramatic was in 1960, when sitting in the school library , on the alloted hour of Noon, there was a mighty flash of lightning and a great rumble of thunder. Being only 16 years old, we at first jumped with fright, then since, unfortunately the school was still standing and the bell went for lunch time, we headed off to the dining room! It was very dramatic and I will never forget it!

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/people-await-end-of-the-world/query/01544300

GeoLoco:
Why I have become a 21.12.2012 doomsday-priest
It must have been around 2004, maybe 2005. A cold morning, November if memory serves. Someone had illegally built a terrace on top of an unstable rock-wall. We knew the case as we had evacuated a house in the neighborhood because of that very problem. We were 2 as our decisions there would anyway end up in some trial, and 2 always know more than one. The dude with me was the only one I would actually call a “mentor” in my professional career. I now consider him a friend. We still laugh when we think of that day. We come to the place that we have to check, look if there’s a car or something, ring the door, call “hello? heeeeelloooooo?” – nothing. So we jump over the fence and start analyzing the context. How was the terrace funded, on what part of the unstable rock, how exactly does the rock look at this precise part of the wall… Suddenly the terrace door into the house opens. Oops. Stands inside the doorframe an old strange guy (~80). It’s 8.20 a.m. We instantly get a smell of garlic sausage and cheap red wine. Both of us stand like paralyzed – expecting the guy to pull out his old army rifle or whatever to chase us off his ground. But no. His face is neutral when he says as first words: “un coup de rouge?” (familiar for “want a glass of red wine”?) Me being the one for “communication” (my friend always gladly let’s me fight with people, and listens delightfully, altough he’s a brilliant negotiator – he loves standing besides and analyzing the strategies of others): “Good morning Sir. Thank you very much for that kind offer, but not during work – which leads me to beg your pardon for our intrusion. We are the dudes from xxx and here to have a look at that new construction.” The guy:”I’m a specialist in the interpretation of facial morphologies. I like your morphology a lot young man. (my friend holds holds his smile and goes hiding behind the corner of the house, from where he shoots photos of me struggling with the specimen) Your forehead shows you’re of high intelligence, your chin shows you’re of strongest character, your ears show you have a good heart and your lips show you are sexually equilibrated, not like those Africans with their big mouthes (I’m sorry, this is total bullshit to me, but it’s how he said it).” He comes close and turns around me inspecting my head. “Truly a brilliant head morphology. Mmmmh and large shoulders. Men have to have large shoulders.” “Ehm, well, I’m not very tall but actually quite ok with my morphology, thank you Sir. But coming back to natural hazards…” “What? Hazards? Hm. A long time ago, a veeeery bright French scientist said it all about hazards. You remember the 1999 Lothar storm? That was nothing, NOTHING, compared to what is to come!!! In 2012, huuuge catastrophes are going to come over us and tear our mountains apart and down. Believe me young man, we don’t have 10 years left before the end. Do you, working in that domain, know that? You shall see I tell you he truth.” “Well Sir, that might be, but my preoccupation right now is your safety and thus the stability of that terrace.” “Then do what you have to do. Truly a remarkable morphology. I trust you.” And back through his door he disappeared the same way as he appeared. My colleague and I stood baffled. Discussed our conclusions and then debriefed intensely, laughing our asses off, while going back to our office.
I was so captured by that experience that I couldn’t go back to office stuff immediately. So I googled 2012. And that was opening the box of Pandorra. All that 2012ers. Meteorites, Yellowstone, Alien invasion, numerologist, astronomical statistics, The Maya, Mardok, Nibiru, Planet X, THE poleshiftera, consolidations of all kinds… All pointing towards 2012. Geeez this was clearly to become my playground and source for years of repetitive jokes. Imagine me reading that Hollywood was gonna film that… I was like a Jack Russel having consumed Ben Johnson’s morning milk… Friday is my day. Really. I’m feeling like Eric Cartman when he sees Ben Affleck’s parents the first time. I’ll be speechless and unable to adequately piss the doomsdayers off. But that does not matter. For many reasons of will be my day and I’ll have a big grin over my face most of the day. And if the lizards come, I’ll just protect the ones I love and fight to my last breath! Ha!!!

The next evolution in hairstyles:  the Gecko Mohawk

Let us take a look at the latest Breaking News:

DOOMSDAY — BREAKING NEWS — FOR 21 DECEMBER 2012:

KarenZ:
The UK’s reaction to doomsday (but then again it is not new to us as we had the domesday):

“Britons have largely ‘kept calm and carried on’ – although some ‘Doomsday preppers’ are ready for the worst ………….. The London Fire Brigade spokesman advised: “Fit a smoke alarm on each level of your home, then at least you might stand a chance of knowing that the end of the world is nigh ahead of those who don’t …………………….. The AA said: “Before heading off, take time to do the basic checks on your car and allow extra time for your journey.””

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/mayan-apocalypse-2012–how-the-world-s-believers-are-preparing-for-the-end-135520325.html

Found at: http://www.exitmundi.nl/exitmundi.htm

Renato Rio:
My contribution to Friday’s fun: Carmen Miranda – a Portuguese born girl who came to Rio to become the so called “Brazilian bombshell”.
This song is an irreverent popular poem from Assis Valente composer, which was a hit before she made up her way to America.
The video is just an animated image of another of her performances and the lyrics are pasted below (with a little help from Google) so you guys and girls can grasp a little bit of Brazilian spirit. which Carmen understood so well.

… And the world didn’t come to an end
(Assis Valente)

It’s been announced and assured that the world was coming to an end.
So, my people at home started to pray.
Supposedly, the sun would rise before dawn;
Because of that, tonight, uphill on the favela, there was no batucada.

I believed this bullshit:
I thought the world was going to end!
And immediately I tried to say goodbye
And take advantage of the fact:
I kissed the mouth of those, whom I should not,
I grabbed the hand of those, whom I did not know,
I danced the samba in swimsuit,
However, the world didn’t come to an end.

I picked up a guy whom I couldn’t stand
And forgave his ingratitude;
And to celebrate the event
I spent with him over five hundred bucks.
Now I heard that the dude walks
Saying something that had not happened
Yeah! There will be noise and confusion, oh, there will,
Because the world has just not come to an end!

WILL THERE BE A DECEMBER 22ND? NASA says yes. The space agency is so sure that the world will not end due to a Mayan Apocalypse on Dec. 21, 2012, that they’ve already produced a video about the day after. Watch it today to be sure you can!

Reports of disasters already start to come in. Please, follow up so we do not miss anything!!

Pyter:
Galactic alignment already causing climate change around the world – link here                NB click British flag for very good English translation.

Irpsit:
I just hurted myself a while ago, while walking over the icy ground in front of my house. In my ass! Now I have a frozen bread as a way to prevent the swelling of my ass.

Sissel assisted by Spica

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POST UPDATE: And even Doomsday could not keep our Evil Ones from sending us riddles.
To celebrate the season and the winter solstice, here is ALAN’s evil riddle:

You may like a silver coin in the christmas pudding, but you’d hate to find this in an apple pie.

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And this is SUZIE’s evil riddle – Name those Volcanoes! Six volcanoes to trace, six points to earn!!

Number one has a forest at its base that statistically ranks a ‘macabre’ second
Number two is sometimes referred to as the first one of America
Number threes’ most recent eruption officially started at 17.30 and ceased at 07.00 7 days later
Number four, although officially termed a stratovolcano, could be considered a mutant one
Number five has a structure that resembles a large UGG
Number six is actually more than 50 ancient ones, spread over 417,000 sq mi

We know as little about the answers as you do. Good luck and have fun!

Ruminarian III – Holey Musings (calderas)

Where to start where to start… It’s pretty messed up when you have two or three related topics buzzing around and you don’t know how to either piece them together, or how to talk about one without spoiling another.

I guess the first thing to talk about… are craters. When stuff is ejected from the ground, it will form a pile around the opening and material will stack up. If this is a vent or fissure, it eventually makes a scoria cone and over the millennia, it can grow into an actual volcano. That opening at the top, and the material piled around it… is not what I’m talking about. That’s a crater.

What I actually want to talk about is a caldera. But I had to get the two into focus. When a cavity forms and the overlying roof cannot support it’s own mass, it will subside or collapse into it. This is the general basics of how you get a caldera. As you can see, the formation of the two (crater vs caldera) is a bit different. If you go out searching the Internet for Caldera Types, one site you will hit will be IOP Science. According to “IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 3 (2008) 012021 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/3/1/012021” there are three general types of calderas; Summit calderas, Classic calderas and Graben calderas.

That last one should make your ears perk up.

explosive volcano-tectonic collapse structures from which large-volume, ignimbrite-forming eruptions occurred through several fissural vents along the graben master faults and the intra-graben block faults, causing the collapse of the whole graben or of a sector of it

For examples, they list Sierra Madre Occidental, La Pacana, some stuff in the Pyrenees, and Toba. (but they are not that sure about Toba). Either way, the system seems to erupt along the boundry of the graben, material evacuated from underneath, and the block(s) drop into the now emptied out space. It’s still a graben, but a somewhat more violently forming graben. Not really a volcano per se.. more like a chunk of land fell into a hole.

As noted in the various posts. Nisyros has had some attention, though mainly because we noticed it. The actual potential volcano mentioned by Prof. Dr. Övgün Ahmet of ERCAN is about 65 km further east between Simi and Bozburun. My estimate for the location is approximately 36.638°N – 27.956°E based on an eyeball of the seismic activity.

How this involves Nisyros.. well, that’s a bit iffy. Notice my plot from the other day about the Kos ring-fault. That spit of land east of Nisyros is Datça, a district of Turkey, and passes directly north of the suspected new volcano. It’s also part of the southern boundary of the Gokova Graben

I’m not saying that the Gokova Graben is a graben caldera, but having a set of large caldera structures on one end definitely makes you think about it. If Dr Ahmet’s volcano does get on with the show, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Other than the oddball coincidence that I noted, there is no indication that anything catastrophic is in the works. It’s just a learning artifact when you discover something new.

Now.. back to the IOP article…

They mention that there are three collapse styles. Piston, Trap-door, and Piece-meal. Not that it’s is any great revelation, but it’s nice to have confirmation of the styles that we have heard about. Many times I have gone chasing after caldera outlines only to come up with semi-circles… such as in SE Spain:

The interesting part about these three, are that the two northern ones are mineralized, and the southern one is not. Mineralization of a caldera means that fluids percolating through the material have concentrated minerals into ore deposits that could be of value if mined. Los Frailes (the one that is not mineralized) could have produced up to about 51 km³ of material if my size estimate is correct. Part of the caldera is eroded out and open to the sea. The other ones… well, it’s hard to even guess at what the extents were. Logically, the opposite side of the chamber should represent the other boundary, but that adds more layers of uncertainty to a guestimate (wrap your noggin around that one) .. so I didn’t even try.

All three of these formed between 6.5 to 11.7 million years ago… or sometime towards the end of Bruneau-Jarbridge eruption and somewhat mostly during the Picabo and Twin Falls volcanic field events of the Yellostone Hotspot in North America. (no, not saying they are related… that’s just the time frame)

The driving mechanism of all of the Capo de Gata features appears to be driven by Eurasian Plate / African Plate activity and jostling in the Alboran Basin.

As a quick side note, the Carboneras Fault Zone bounds these systems on the west, and tracks out into the Alboran Basin. For the most part, it experiences left lateral motion.

Why did I mention these systems? Well, the two northern ones are possible examples of trap door calderas. Yellowstone (and a few others) we already know about… piston collapse. That’s where the roof comes down pretty much as one unit. Peicemeal is just that… sections drop… but not all at once. All types of calderas can experience each type of collapse.

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Figure 9 of “Overview of Production at the Mori Geothermal Field, Japan” Hanano et al (2005)

Now we get.. weird. Ever hear of a Maar? A Maar typically forms as a narrow cone eruption and usually involves magma interaction with ground water. Another similar shape, are Kimberlite pipes. The point of origin for Kimberlite pipes is much deeper than Maars, which is why you can get diamond bearing rocks from them. Yet they are similar in shape. Another place where you can see this, is in “Nigorikawa type” calderas. These are probably best thought of as a parent type for both Kimberlite Pipes and Maars, though likely they differ on scale. Sunagohara and Nigorikawa are examples of the structure. More of a breccia, ash and dome filled funnel than anything else.

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I’ve done a bit of estimating of the eruptive volume from various caldera sized. As you know, my formula only gets you into the ball-park as a rough estimate of what it may have produced. Why does it have a lot of slop? From the various types and styles that I have mentioned.

If you wish to play with it, here ya go.

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WARNING: Math here.

log(y) = C(0) + C(1)*log(x) + C(2)*(log(x))^2+ …
(log() = common logarithm)
Coefficients
C(00) = 0.582919757481
C(01) = 0.736205400529

Correlation coefficient is 0.891470429364
Standard error about the line (natural logarithm) = 0.689818420719

The Excel version is Km³ =10^(0.582919757481+0.736205400529*LOG(Ellipsoidal Area))

For the ellipsoidal area:
a=Long axis / 2
b=Short axis /2

Area = a * b * Pi()

END OF MATH STUFF, you may resume normal reading.

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It plots out like this:

It is important to realize that this formula does not mean that any one eruption was that size. Just that over the life of the caldera’s formation, that’s a reasonable estimate of what came out of the hole… that the roof then collapsed into. Different caldera styles can skew that value and make it even more inaccurate. It’s just for getting a ball park figure.

If you wish to take this a step further and estimate SO2 emission, I don’t recommend it. Taupo had a significant eruption 26,500 years ago, and the NGRIP ice core barely even blipped. Antarctica may show something, but I have yet to find it. Just because you have a large eruption, it doesn’t mean the SO2 bloom will be as large.

The formula is somewhat generic, using data that you guys have provided, backed up by some really nice lists such as the supporting table for “Sulfur dioxide initiates global climate change in four ways” by Peter L. Ward (2009)

http://tetontectonics.org/Climate/SO2InitiatesClimateChange.pdf

http://www.tetontectonics.org/Climate/Ward2009TableS1.pdf

And more on Los Frailes and the other two calderas mentioned in this article.

http://www.springerlink.com/index/j55110300r6777j7.pdf

And the IOP article of … dubious usefulness. (okay, it was a reference for the three types and styles, I’ll give ‘em that.)

http://iopscience.iop.org/1755-1315/3/1/012021/pdf/ees8_3_012021.pdf

Other things of three:

GEOLURKING

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And now the Sheepy Dalek part!

Name That Volcano Riddle!
I’d had a stressful day struggling with some cinematic effects software.
Back at home I tried to relax, a Jazz/Fusion band was playing softly in the background and a delicious bowl of Mexican food was steaming on the table.
Then the army decided to dispose of some explosive ordnance – so much for peace and quiet!!

Hints will be provided later. One Ding, One Point, One Volcano!

ALan´s Evil Riddle!

This old girlie apple on a fence, could be a great tragedy!
What am I?
What tragedy?

2 dings / 2 points.

Sissel and Spica

ps: We do not know the answers. Hints will be provided by riddlemasters.