El Hierro – Day 2

The face of El Hierran politics, Alpidio Armas.

This will just be a short update with the information that has come at hand.

There seems to be a full on war between Pevolca, Involcan and José Luis Barrera VP of the ICOG (Spannish Association of Geologists). Pevolca has stated that there are some reneval of tectonic earthquakes, with no risk for the population or any need for any measurments to be taken. They also point out that there is no increase in gases. They do though mention that they will be watching things. They have also stated that there is no inflation at El Hierro (GPS).

Involcan has stated there is inflation after studying the GPS system of Professor Sagiya from Nagoya. They also point out that the reason for Pevolca not being able to see any heightened gas levels is that they have not measured the gas since April 5.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/INSTITUTO-VOLCANOLÓGICO-DE-CANARIAS/134042953295772

José Luis Barrera and the ICOG have issued a statement that the more than 350 earthquakes are tectonic, but that they might be a run-up phase for renewed volcanic eruption. They also note that the activity is unusual.

http://www.europapress.es/comunicados/noticia-comunicado-colegio-geologos-muestra-incertidumbre-repunte-actividad-simica-hierro-20120626152109.html

Meanwhile in the real World

While the Spannish authorities and organisations are involved in their usuall pissing contest there are some things worthy of comment.

A little tidbit on the earthquakes during the 48 last hours…
Yesterday had the fifth highest recorded number of earthquakes (241), the highest recorded number is close to 454, and that was in August as the former wad of magma had it’s peak of arrival.
But what is really interesting is that if one take a look at how those quakes break down into size…
Yesterday first, then August number-record.
0-2M 55 (448)
2-3M 180 (6)
3<M 8 (0)

And that would have made yesterday into releasing 5 times as much energy and destroying about 32 times as much rock. It was the record of all time energywhise. This leads me to believe that the amound and speed of arrival is higher this time around. So, the last two days have had the largest accumulated seismic energy release since onset of activity at El Hierro. Energy record in short. And that is note noteworthy according to Pevolca.

LP Earthquakes

The earthquakes today has long amplitude component to them normally associated with magmatic movement into the cracks. These LP earthquakes is considered to be magmatic. There has during the last 8 hours been at least 3 of them. The 17.16 is one of them.
I believe this is onset of movement upwards of magma into the actual system of Tanganasoga.

First LP

Image by IGN. The First LP Earthquake.

Second LP

Image by IGN. The Secong LP Earthquake.

Third LP

Image by IGN. Third LP Earthquake, and what is most likely onset of a heavy magmatic intrusion upwards.

The third LP seems to have opened a conduit somewhere, most likely from the crustal boundary (MOHO) up to the chamber under Tanganasoga, or directly towards Bob. The Long Periodicity Earthquake is caused by an initial earthquake that opens up a fissure, sill or dyke, after that magma moves in to fill the opening, and that creates and unusual type of earthquakes.

Conclusion

There is no reason that I should recant on what I wrote yesterday. I still believe that there is a rather high risk of a new eruption at El Hierro. I still see no reason to not believe it will be in the southern part of the island, or out in the ocean south of La Restinga. I still feel that La Restinga is not entirely safe for it’s population.

Update

While I was writing this post the signal changed sufficiently for me to believe that there is risk that the eruption is either about to start, or has already started. We are all waiting for news, and think about the unprotected civilians in El Hierro.

CARL

El Hierro and the art of Bad Science

The first of the phreatomagmatic explotions that was caught on a picture back when the eruption was going at a much higher rate than today. It was most likely not a real phreatomagmatic explosion, it was more likely to have been a combination together with a massive gas release. But this is what will be in store most likely for the residents of La Restinga.

After releasing the sixth missive that volcanic vent affectionately known as Bob is dead, the authorities have now finished the monitoring of the volcano.

This declaration of cessation of activity is contrary to all known data. All released data point towards that the volcanic edifice is still growing at a rate of 10 to 15 meters per 2 weeks. There is still harmonic tremor associated with new magma arriving into the volcanic system from the deep. There was a steady and visible disturbance over the volcanic vent, and the gas-measurements are still above normal readings.

Instead of happily following what is happening the authorities have decided to shut down the web cameras, discontinue active monitoring, abandoning bathymetric scans of the volcanic edifice, and generally trying to hide that there is a volcano on the island of El Hierro.

This is most likely done due to political pressure to achieve a former state of touristic bliss, since it does not have any good scientific foundation.  The responsible organizations have instead chosen to only rely on data that supports cessation, disregarding contrary factual information. This is the Popperian “Art of Bad Science”.

Only problem here is that soon Bob will be hitting the threshold of where hydro magmatic activity will be clearly visible on the surface. Something that was caught on video a couple of days ago by our commentators in here. This activity will only grow during the upcoming weeks.

In 2 to 4 weeks the authorities will most likely have a set of rather distraught residents at La Restinga as they start to see ‘rooster-tail’ explosions surfacing on top of Bob. If activities then continue we are somewhere around 14 to 20 weeks before the volcano surfaces.

Now somebody with a bit of math skill will say, “What? It grows with more than five meters per week! It should be up faster”. Not really, this is due to a cone needing more material to grow, the higher it get. So, the speed of growing in height will decrease over time.

The authorities are probably betting/hoping that the eruption will finish within the next few weeks and save their collective behinds. Sadly they will just then issue a proclamation that the volcano have “re-awakened” to save them.

I am sadly reminded of George Orwell’s 1984, where the author describes “newspeak”, where the meaning of words changes as the powers that be see fit. I never thought I would see scientists involved in the Newspeak of Volcanoes.

I feel very much for the poor residents of La Restinga that in a short time will be scared uselessly and without cause out of scientists running the errands of political buffoons.

CARL

Sheepy Dalek – Nemesio learns to Vaporize!

Very happy man celebrating his discovery.

Involcans Presidente for Life, Nemesio Péréz, has discovered the Final Solution to the problem with Bob the Volcano. In a stroke of genius, he has discovered that you can use everything coming out of Bob in a Volcano Vaporizer to get magmatically stoned.

After the discovery he is believed to have said; “I see things in a new light, holy basalt dude!”

Volcano Vaporizer instructor Zaphod Beeblebrox in the process of instructing Nemesio at an unknown dormitory conference at Harvard. The teacher later said; "Basalt is heavy shit Dude!"

Nemesio discovered the Volcanic Vaporizer while attending a conference in an unknown dormitory at Harvard. He emediatly saw the possibility to solve all volcanic problems (and baldness) in the world with this final solution. Together with his teacher Zaphod Beeblebrox (above) he found that all samples taken from Bob was very vaporizable. In the testing all know samples from Bob was used up. It is believed that El Hierro will get an economic upswing from selling Bob material for vaporizing.

“I have found Bob to be very enjoyable. Rock on dude!” said the very happy volcanologist.

Involcans new press material with a very happy supermodel.

CARL

P.S. Volcan Café is against all forms of volcano imbibing, it is bad for health, may cause excessive weight-problems, harmonic tremoring and loss of GPS-data. D.S.

El Hierro – Raise your fist for Freedom of Information!

Sometimes people do and say things that make me wonder if we are a truly sentient species. Today the US is voting on the SOPA and discusses the PIPA. Both are laws that if enacted will seriously reduce the freedom of Internet for US citizens, and in a secondary way, the rest of us. Today Wikipedia are protesting against those laws through closing down the English part of the Wikipedia. An act I fully support.

Nemesio M. Pérez

To:GeoLurking

Dear Sir,
The Takeshi Sagiya’s GPS data from El Hierro is not a public data and is related to a research project in progress. I would appreciate if you can delete the videos based on this information which it has been taking from Takeshi Sagiya web page without his permission. Thank you in advance for your collaboration.
Nemesio M. Pérez (Scientific Coordinator INVOLCAN)

This is one of the greatest brain farts I have had the pleasure of mentally smelling. It is wrong on so many levels. First of all, it is not Nemesio M. Pérez that owns the GPS equipment. It is not INVOLCAN that owns the equipment. It is the University of Nagoya that owns it. So he does not have the right to claim, state, or ask anything. The one who could do it is Professor Sagiya, who happens to control the equipment.

Second of all, it is publicly published on the Internet. And as such it is free to use in Europe as long as his name is stated as the source.

Third, INVOLCAN, IGN & PEVOLCA is in the middle of an enormous crisis of trust. They have willfully misled people, blanketed out data, and done a wonderful job of trying to cover up their mistakes. And more over, they have been blatantly wrong in their predictions for the volcano at El Hierro so far. In most parts they are a risk for the safety of the citizens of El Hierro. The worst among their errors have been to declare the eruption to be dead without any proof thereof.

Nemesio M Pérez, Sir, you are just making an ass of yourself. Question is if it is out of jealousy? I would also like to state that by attacking GeoLurkings works, you are attacking a valued member of this community. Our little community (Blog) has 5 000 views on an average day. By going after GeoLurking you have attacked us all here. That is why I feel fine about writing a public post about your behavior Nemesio M. Pérez. And just so you know it, in here among the 5 000 daily views, GeoLurking is wildly more respected than you are. I hope you are happy about having lowered the opinion about your person quite like this.

Legal matters

Since the subject is up for discussion I will here state the position of this Blog.

I am a Swedish citizen. I am the duly appointed Publisher of this Blog. Under Swedish law I am protected by very strong publishing laws. Anyone who wishes to start a legal battle with me will have to do so in a Swedish Court of Law.

And by both Swedish and European law any information available from a Governmental Internet Site is fair game since it is Public material and as long as the source is given.

Any user who publishes here is automatically protected by Swedish Law. And I am protected by law to not give out names or email addresses for the users.

Anyone who tries to impinge on my freedom of expression, and my right to publish other peoples expressions will post haste be taken to a Swedish Court of Law. To put it bluntly, I can afford more lawyers than you can.

Personal note

The oppression of the Freedom on the Internet must end now. Also the willful suppression of scientific information from the Spanish so called “Competent Authorities” must end now. Information not only wants to be free, it must be free.

On an even more personal level I have another thing to say. I pay a lot of taxes and a part of them the Swedish Government sends to pay for the squandering Spanish Government. I just calculated how much of my taxes go to Spain. It is about the same as Nemesio M. Pérez yearly salary. I morally therefore feel that I am the one paying his salary. And since it is my money I feel free to say this. Nemesio M Pérez, shut up or I will stop paying you!

CARL