Bob – Why bother to stop erupting?

Photograph by Santiago Ferrero. Southern part of El Hierro.

The volcanic vent affectionately known as Bob, a part of the Tanganasoga Volcano, south of El Hierro has resumed its eruption. Many people have declared it dead, Pevolca, IGN and Nemesio Perez has together declared the volcano dead more than 20 times. Declaring an active volcano to be dead seems like a rather futile endeavor. Something the learned gentle-persons should have learned by now.

Yesterday reports started to come in that there was a visible disturbance in the waters south of La Restinga (El Hierro). About the same time there was a marked uptick in earthquake strength and number. The Earthquakes are deep, mainly between 15 and 25 kilometers in depth. The distribution of the earthquakes is well spread, this points towards it being a non-localized event, probably a shock-result as new magma arriving from the depth hits the underside of the crust.

Image by IGN. Earthquakes during the last 48 hours.

This is probably confirmed by the return of the 0.59Hz harmonic tremor visible at the CCAN and EOSO (Gran Canaria) SIL-station.

Image by IGN. Clear and visible harmonic tremor at 0.59Hz.

Today there have been reports at various sites (AVCAN among them) that there is now a visible stain, something that requires an ongoing eruptive process. Also, there is a photograph published at Earthquake Report showing a side scan SONAR image of the ongoing eruption.

Photograph of a sidescan SONAR image, source IGN (via Earthquake Report).

The image is very well defined, a sign of a large amount of coarser ashes and solids being suspended, and ejected upwards in the water. Light ashes and gases are less well defined than shown on the image. To the right one can see a spot where material is falling back onto the sea-floor. This is where the heavier aggregate looses buoyancy and gets separated from the lighter material.

Effects

I have written many times that as long as the eruption continues at Bob there is not any great risk for the island and its inhabitants. This is due to Bob functioning as a pressure release valve stopping pressure to build up enough for a catastrophic failure in the volcano proper’s overburden (the volcanic edifice of Tanganasoga).

The current spot of eruption is the original cone that started the eruption, not the later vent up on the ridge (a bit further to the right than the image shows). Last figure set the vent at 120 meters depth. The reason for it being lower now is that it is constructed mainly out of loose material (pillow-lava and tephra) that has both compacted due to its own weight, and been reduced in volume by the local currents in the water.

There is currently no indication that this new eruptive phase will stop any time soon since the earthquake activity is continuing to increase in frequency and strength.

Sadly due to the supression of GPS data by Involcan and its managing director Nemesio Perez there is no GPS data whatsoever that can be published. Due to this censorship we can not say anything about how and if the volcano is inflating. I find this behaviour despicable and dangerous for the residents of El Hierro. I would also state that it is sad that the webcams are now gone as a result of Alpidio Armas machinations.

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