Alans evil riddle #24 was published on Friday post.
If I am πrl then my cousins are +/- me!
What am I?
What do we look like?
What is our origin?
.
.
Answers: Kelda : Cone-in-cone structures in limestone.
Cone-in-cone structures are secondary sedimentary structures that form in association with deeper burial and diagenesis. They consist of concentric inter-bedded cones of calcite or more rarely gypsum, siderite or pyrite. Although several mechanisms may be responsible for the formation of cone-in-cone structures, displacive crystal mechanism is preferred. It accounts for the most uniform and consistent explanation of growth and why cone-in-cone can occur with such variable composition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone-in-cone_structures
Cone-in-cone structures are identifiable by their distinctive conical appearance. They are composed of concentric cones nested inside each other. The actual composition of the cones is variable and dependent on the environment in which they were formed, with the majority of the cone-in-cone structures being composed of calcite with thin layers of clay between cones. There are also, more rarely, structures composed of siderite, gypsum, pyrite. There are also some instances of cone-in-cone occurring within coals. Often the cone-in-cone will be found as features of calcite layers within a shale., and rarely within a dedolomite (calcitized dolomite)
Winners: Kelda 3 points
Name that volcano riddle.
I am the largest of the group of 3 –
I am the legendary 1 of 3 –
I am closely associated with an ancient 3 –
I am the sacred ritual source of 3.
The answer to Suzies riddle was Olympus Mons.
The highest volcano and mountain in the entire solar system. I am not an expert on Martian volcanoes but have the privilege to present them to visitors with a special program called Uniview in my museum rather often. So i am not so very happy about this riddle, though i am really graetful Suzie is supplying me with riddles and helps keeping the blog alive in times when there is not much up for us vocanoholics. And the rest of the gang enjoyed the riddle and learned many new things hunting for the correct answer. The reason why i am not happy about this answer is, because Olympus Mons is not the largest of the 3 but lies close to the 3 volcanoes which are almost the same size called Tharsis Montes.
So here is what i (think) i know about Olympus Mons.
It is almost 26 km high and i heard it reaches this spectacular hight because Mars does not have plate tectonics and so the volcano stayed above that hotspot for a long time and did not move away as it would have if it would lie on earth. Nasa announced not so long ago that the last eruption might be only a few million years in the past.
But this is just my layman knowledge and might be wrong.
Here is an excerpt on Mars written by Alan and you can also find it at https://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/we-are-not-alone-out-there/
Mars
Unlike the almost totally volcano covered surface of Venus, Mars has volcanism concentrated in 4 provinces together with extensive volcanic plains. One of the greatest shield volcanoes so far located in the Solar System, Olympus Mons, with a basal diameter around 600km (Iceland has a width – from Snaefellsness to Egilsstaðir – of around 500km) with a height of some 25000m is located in the Tharsis Province. The vast size has been attributed to the presence of a very long-lived mantle hotspot and a lack of plate tectonics, the latter as having prevented Hawaii reaching similar proportions. The periphery of Mons Olympus is a cliff-like edge some 8km in height the origin of this feature as yet unknown. High resolution images show fresh surfaces to flows, as recent as 20 million years has beed suggested.
Image Wikipedia, NASA/JPL. Comparative diagram to scale between Hawaii and Olympus Mons.Image Wikipedeia, NASA/JPL. Tharsis Province.
Olympus Mons off to the apparent north-west of 3 volcanoes – Arsia Mons, Pavonia Mons and (top) Ascraeus Mons. The green coloured area to the ‘north and west’ of Olympus Mons is a vast lava field from this feature.
Alba Mons, also on Tharsis – the very large red region at the top of the diagram above, is perhaps less obvious than Olympus Mons, having a very shallow slope around 0.5 degree and 7km high, but the volcanism covers a much greater area, with flow fields of highly fluid lava extending up to 1300km from the eruptive centres. The age of this structure has been suggested at c3.2×10^9 years.
Images for some Martian structures can be seen here:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/mvolcan/volcanoes_index.shtml
Map of Mars: http://www.joelertola.com/grfx/mars/mars_lg.jpg
Alan found 2 papers: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2011/pdf/2202.pdf
http://www.universetoday.com/15588/the-largest-volcano-in-the-solar-system/
I collected some quotes by GeoLurking which might be interesting for you. We were wondering at that time if Olympus Mons was visible with the naked eye :
0.4 minarc x 60 = 24 arc-seconds.
In the travels of Earth and Mars about their respective orbits, at the closest, they get to about 0.37 AU, or 55,917,844 kilometers. Max distance is 2.68 AU, or about 400,256,033 km.
At minimum Earth-Mars range, the crater on Olympus Mons is about 0.30 arc-seconds across for the long axis, 0.23 arc-seconds for the short axis.
At minimum Earth-Mars range, the Tharsis mountains are about 5.7 arc-seconds long, and the entire edifice of Olympus Mons is 2.02 arc-seconds, cliff face to cliff face.
At minimum Earth-Mars range, something on the surface would have to extend for 6506 kilometers in order to achieve 24 arc-seconds of angular separation from one end to the other, to be discernible with the perfect.. un-aided eye.
The 451 km diameter Huygens crater is within 571 km of dead center alignment with the Olympus Mons antipode. (the crater rim is within 314 km) and it is 915 km from the centerline for the antipodes for the Tharsis mountains… on the opposite direction.
Given the number of smaller and later impacts that cover it’s ejecta field… it’s has to be pretty old.
Based on crater accumulation rates… the estimated age of Olympus Mons is somewhere between 0.1 and 1.1 billion years, with a best estimate of 0.4 billion.
Syrtis Major Planitia 2.6 to 3.8 billion, best estimated 3.5 billion.
(Note: Billion -> 1 x 10^9)
http://cmex.ihmc.us/sitecat/sitecat2/crater.htm
Nearby… are dikes. Hellas Planitia is a probable flood basalt feature… whether the dikes are related to either one is up for debate. They don’t seem to be aligned with Huygens crater, merely running past it.
Huygens-Hellas giant dike system
http://www.planetary.brown.edu/m42/m42_21.pdf
I gave the answer though it was ment as a joke when i said it 1 minute before KarenZ. I have not yet decided if i want to have this point or give it to KarenZ.
I also do not know if Suzie wants to hand out more points for some others because for example Ursula found a lot out about the ritual mentioned in the riddle.
Spica
VolcanoCafé 
The last post was, as the name said, posted on Friday. And i want to try and stick with our habit, publishing a post every few days. Schteves really nice post on Teneguia will go in on Wednesday. best regards Spica.
On work I deal daily with teeth and the volcanoes are my big(great) passion after the work
by the Suzie of riddles I have learnt a lot on my volcano search on the Internet,
also the Postings after the riddle were not exciting(thrilling) less
big(great) praise to You, you are an enrichment(expansion) for me 🙂
Thank you Spica for keeping things going so well! 🙂
Not worried about the points. I just posted Olympus Mons as it was listed on Wiki’s page for Everest (atmospheric pressure comparison) 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everest
BTW sent you another post.
Thanks, answers! I have a terribly slow internetconnection right now. Bleh.
Hi Spica, or should I say Linzer Vulcan Frau x
I’m working on a slightly more technical follow up, it’ll probably be done before plotting for beginners 2…
@ All, please, if you can write a comment, you can write a post…Don’t copy/ paste great huge chunks of things, and try to provide references, but otherwise “go for tiger” as a great friend of mine used to say…
The articles I have submitted have been word documents with either the images provided as links; (in the text, where you want them) or; for original images; attached, with indications in the text for where they are to go.
It’s as easy as that; just think of it as a comment with more thinking/ pondering 😀
P.S. Spica, if there’s a better format for submissions, tell me/ us x
I can press a button with Google saying edit online, then i can copy paste it over here. That normally works. When something went wrong it was wordpress lately. Because i can absolutely not understand that a post looks ok when checked in preview and that suddenly changes when you only press the publish button 2 weeks later.
If I were you; I’d be tempted to fix with a hammer when wordpress plays up 😀
If I can ever think of anything interesting to say… I’ll make one. As you can see by my included info in this one… sometimes my subject can wander into the land of minutia.
Over on WUWT, they had a post about stochastic vs deterministic properties of Earths long range climate and orbital forcing. The wild part about it is that this wanders off into chaos theory. My head tends to get fuzzy and I doze off. What they did, was to take a lot of temperature records, and temperature proxies, running the analysis against the standard deviations of the data in each record. (essentially normalizing it) and then run the Hurst number diagnostics. Fascinating read… if you can stay awake. Again, this is math just outside my ability to comprehend.
In summary, they found what is probably a good clear signature of orbital forcing on the different records.
See what I mean? A bit… tedious.
On a plus side, I did learn something while typing this. That standard deviation thing is quite similar to the how the Wikipedia article claims you calculate it. I didn’t catch that earlier.
Bah.. time to go torment the dog with the laser.
Just so you don’t think I that far out to lunch… that whole angular resolution thing was almost already calculated in my spreadsheets. I had run a quick and dirty analysis of the beamwidth of hand-held traffic radar guns in order to find out what sort of vehicle separation they could resolve at different ranges. A handy thing to know on the Interstate. (After all, my formal training is in Electronic Warfare) I’ve done similar analysis of how wide a speed difference error an unaided human can probably resolve based on info from a Psychology coursebook that I still have. In a nutshell, if you stay within about 5 to 8 mph (8 to 13 kph) of the posted limit… odds are in your favor that it won’t be noticed. You just have to be able to get back down to the posted limit with as little excitement as possible… in other words, no nosedives or brake lights. The key is to not be noticed.
And yes… “civilian chaff clouds” work just fine. Those are the speedy people who have to get there now. Let them. As long as they are hauling arse in front of you, and you aren’t perceived as being “with” them, Highway Patrol will usually notice them first.
Plus, if they have an accident you will have plenty of time to stay back out of their way as the catastrophe unfolds.
Our UK roads must appear odd to drivers from the USA. The main road at the bottom of our lane is a perfect example of “Speed crushing” and can be entertaining!. As it approaches the road has been running though open countryside but a speed limit of 30 mph. This is ignored by road hogs and speed freaks.
Just around the longish bend towards our lane juncton is a small traffic island to help locals cross over the road to the church.
Those who don’t know the road and speed usually end up graunched into the bollards on the island. T here used to be bollards with lights but they didn’t last the week.Now there is a tall lamp post that tends to buckle fenders!
When I drive along this stretch myself I can relax knowing the @##~hole who just overtook me is about to be brought up short!
I also notice that all who overtake me (I am keeping within the speed limit as being local , I know where the traffic cops hide) gain absolutely no time as the three sets of traffic lights and pedestrian/school crossing further on allows the slower of us drivers to catch up with the would be Jeremy Clarkson’s of the world.
(If you don’t know who that is, either Google or rest assured you really wouldn’t like to be a similar character! He is everything I dislike in a man . ….But that is just my opinion and he may be really pleasant in real life.!)
It really doesn’t need much maths to work out journey times and if there is a deadline then allow at least 1 hour.
I used to drive all over the country when I had my business. I know the pressures of being somewhere for an important sales meeting. Dangerous , risk taking driving is not worth it. If the road doesn’t get you a heart attack eventually will.
I am sorry if I sound pompous about this but I feel passionate about road safety as usually it is the innocents who suffer most after an accident.
Here endeth the morning rumination!
Where I live the traffic cameras have been turned off to save money and there are only 2 speed guns in the county and they can be seen from miles away. This means we can all drive at whatever speed we want to – the strange thing is that now we are self-regulating the roads are as safe as ever. We locals know where we can speed and where we must slow down to less than 30 (there is one extremely dangerous junction on the road I travel every day – the actual speed limit is 40 but we all slow down below that to pass the junction). I admit this must bewilder non-locals as on the one hand we overtake them on straight stretches blithely ignoring the limit and then brake just round the corner because we are close to houses. On the whole I stick to the limits and only speed up to overtake very slow traffic where it is safe to do so.
Jeremy…
LOL! He loves to wind people up. Very clever, as people who like him will continue to watch and people who hate him will watch to see what he says next! 😀
I like the one “we have no carbon footprint because we drive everywhere” !
I can’t help myself being entertained by him. And I have something in common with him: a deep disrespect for the idiocy of pretending to solve anything with a Toyoty Prius. The ecological impact of it’s production is dramatic (the battery… Ni… Sulfur to “get it out” of the rock/soil… Baaah. Construction steps in 3-4 continents…). Two engines to run one vehicle? Good old engineers were told to simplify their constructions… Drive it a bit correctly (just push down that right pedal from time to time when everything is save and to accelerate, I mean “accelerate” and not wait that the car nearly couldn’t help itself driving a bit faster) and you’ll burn more fuel than wit a moder turbo-engine. And it’s just absolutely ugly. And expensive. Fuel consumption and whatever ecological impact depends on how you drive, and not which car, and on how long you ride it and how you recyle it in the end. The technical complexity of modern hybrids just tries to fool us and to pull money out of our wallets – with a highly doubtable result…
Sorry. I like nice engines and good engineering, and I love my planet. So using automotive mobility as an instrument of environmental hypocrite politics makes me sick. The environment issue goes much further than rubbish theories about CO2. CO2 is a part of the problem, but think of those who face large scale water pollution, or thing aerial pollution with all kinds of poisonous stuff… But today they found a way to make money out of a “term”, CO2. Most politicians have no idea what it actually is, chemically, and what impacts it exactly has / could have.
I stop. No sense talking about that. Wish all nice super cheap plane trips, with 115-400 gramms of CO2/km per person. I have colleagues that make “shopping-trips” in big cities 3-4 times a year. Costs them less for the flight than the train ticket to the airport. 20, 30, 40K kilometers with the mentioned CO2 emmission. I would need 5-10 years to throw out as much CO2 if I had a fat V8 for doing my road to work and back home every day. Speaking of being alone in my car. And they regularly rant about people driving anything else than smallest and weakest pseudo-ecological vehicels. I shut up most of the time and try to find inspiration in their idealism… Boneheads.
You’re good when you’re on a rave.
It’s my curse…
Don’t push me into that direction – I’d fill the blog with off topic… But, yeah, actually wouldn’t change a lot from what I usually do when I’m around…
It’s time for our lizard masters to come and explain us how the universe actually works. But I’d like to make one thing clear: I’ll be on first-name-terms with anyone who performs any kind of rectal analysis on me!
PS: have to announce that to my doctor, if he’s still one of those convinced that you can find something out about the prostate by some good old fingering of the rectum.
Look GeoLoco, it’s not about facts but what silly people want to believe. If they were serious about being environmentally friendly, they’d walk to work or take their bike. They’d erect an old time privy, compost the proceeds and use it to fertilise their own veggie patch. They would’t use any modern conveniencies such as tv, radio, stereo, pc, fridge, stove unless they provided the power themselves without the need for a grid (etc, etc.)
Like most countries, we’re cursed with a “Green” party working hard to realise an “ecologically sustainable agriculture” while knowing shyte-all about what that entails. We did have just what their souls desire some 150 years ago. Every single scrap of arable land was tilled to feed man and beasts and still we had to export almost 2 million souls to America in order to stave off starvation. The sustainable level was about 2.8 million people, but even then, some areas of Sweden were completely deforested.
Since there’s 9+ million of us these days, the Vegetable Greens should declare exactly who they intend to kill off and how in order to reduce the population from 9.1 million to 2.8 in order to reach their “ecologically sustainable agriculture”.
I’d suggest a pandemy – spanish flu style…
Well.. there is a large contingent of people off the grid and using virtually none of that nasty coal, gas or nuclear generated electricity.
An environmentalists wet dream.
Hello New York, New Jersey and surrounding locales. I’m pretty sure they are not too happy about it.
Yes, “going green”, “going back to nature” whatever you want to call it requires a lot of thought and setting up. Also costs quite a bit if you want to do it properly. Not the sort of thing you want imposed on you by force (of nature or government). 🙂
thanls for that Geoloco, very funny.
P.S I am the person who watches the reruns of Top Gear on Dave.
Hi
Here is the animation for TFZ between October 30th and November 4th (morning)
That’s for all the trekkies among us: you are not alone…
I hold back commenting on his “skills”, as one of my goals in life is to be a respectful person. It’s just that so many make it so hard to respect them… May the force be with you… Ehm, that comes from somewhere else, sure, but it’s so true… I mean… Have a nice Monday.
Who needs a force when they have Angela Merkel?
Angela Merkel’s a Klingon? Now you mention it…….
I saw her more as a Ferengi…
Nah…Ferengi Females don’t wear clothes.
Then lets be glad Angela is not a Ferengi.
Very true… Important detail I had forgotten. The years go by,,, Memory fades…
ROFLOL!
Why am I thinking the Scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” where Indy is confronted by the Swordsman with the Scimitar ?
It must be an universal thought generated by Joe’s acrobaties… Not your fault. Don’t feel guilty…
The Bathleth is probably one of the stupidest weapon designs ever conceived by Hollywood.
Who the hell would fabricate and use a weapon for intense, up close and personal combat, that has a very real chance of gutting you, can opener style, when you take a swing at an opponent?
And.. on top of that, a swinging blades force comes from the fulcrum that it pivots about. With this thing, you can’t safely put extra momentum into the blade by drawing that pivot point in towards the body… or else you open yourself up with the other end.
Cumbersome and ungainly. Our ancestors opted for actual swords… things that are light and fast… other than the broadswords and battle axes, but those were actually intended as can openers. Opponents in cans don’t tend to get out of the way very quickly. (armor)
Note: A skillful fighter can use pretty much anything in a battle (Jackie Chan features furniture in his movie fighting), but I doubt that if given a preference, this would be the optimal choice.
Exactly why it s so fascinating that a guy calling himself “sensei” comes to “design” a kata with such a silly thing… But on the other hand, in this case the weapon is as clumsy as the fighter…
Just glad I learned my basics with teachers very different from that dude…
Heads Up,
A frustrated technician started in with his Bathleth at approx 0958 UTC, all sorted by 1020 😀
http://www.ign.es/ign/head/volcaSenalesAnterioresDia.do?nombreFichero=CHIE_2012-11-05&ver=s&estacion=CHIE&Anio=2012&Mes=11&Dia=05&tipo=1
Hi
Ctab shows something
Hi DFM,
Yup, there’s still some low frequency tremor there, best seen on EGOM; and we still have a few EQs; settlement? Would a relaxation of deep magma pressure lead to harmonic tremor as magma “reverse flowed” back down?
Looks like they are holding a couple of meetings on this. Can’t translate this so perhaps someone here can.
@karenZ. They are announing a talk about last years eruption in the observatory Alfonso III in Madrid. But they say one is asked to make reservations give a phone number and the times when you can call them.
Hi Karenz,
A quick glance tells me that it’s a “symposium” on the monitoring and analysis of data from the event known as BoB x
Nothing urgent, something to do with Madrid science week. 🙂
I imagine that due to the large distance from the “cutting edge” to the handle… that there would be great opportunity for spraining your wrists if the hit in a direct thrust were not perfectly aligned.
I would be more fearful of Karl Childers brandishing a Kaiser Blade. (probably a colloquialism, thats the term used for them when I was growing up)
One of these things could completely sever a limb in one pass.
Got one- use it on brush all the time we call’em “Brush Hooks.”
Thanks, Geo Loco. I must confess that I regularly took my children to Star Trek conventions when they were little. Eventually they outgrew Star Trek but I never did, and I still quote it often. From the point of view of understanding other cultures, Star Trek certainly got a lot of things right. I once presented a Star Trek episode accompanied by a lecture where I used Klingon as an example of how language reflects culture (no word for “please” for example). 👿
Star Trek always tried to communicate very interesting values. I liked it a lot and it kicked of a lot of philosophical thinking. Really ok. Better than a lot of new sh… that runs in TV.
Still, don’t like to stand next to this guy when has a sharp one 😛
True, yo could get dirty with his ejected blood when he cuts himself… 😉
For the Swedes: This could be done with more elegance using moose horns (they lose them every year anyway)!
This is exactly what I’m talking about. On most of the passes where he brings the
weaponmovie prop to bear from behind… it’s coming out flat and the “cutting” edge is rarely presented in the direction of the “foe.”This is due to the ungainly balance of the piece as a whole. It’s natural motion is at best, tangential to the cutting edge. (actually, to the rear of the business end)
I tried to do some density plotting for Iceland in October. Here is the result
Why? At times I hope Mother Earth deals hominids its comeuppance!
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/aan-the-orangutan-recovering-after-being-shot-100-times-with-airgun-05112012.html
Animal cruelty is the worst crime I can think of. Only humans are such beasts.
It´s horrifying how these people mutilated that orang-utan. But on the other hand most of us live in blissful ignorance of causing extermination of these amiable creatures because we consume so much cheap palm oil in everydays product. Check out ingredients for “vegetable oil”, that often is palm oil. http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/about_forests/deforestation/forest_conversion_agriculture/orang_utans_palm_oil/
“Only humans are such beasts” I don´t think so. Watch cute kitty play with a mouse. It is just that humans may have a choice not to be cruel, but that is just another story.
I do not think there is any cruelty in a kitten playing with a mouse, regardless how terrifying it must be for the mouse. As for the kitten it might as well be a ball, a branch or a piece of paper. Using palm oil is not an act of cruelty either, more “blissful ignorance”, like you say. But a human who on purpose hurts an animal for fun, is a beast to me.
Psychopaths have no empathy and treat others as if they were a ball, a branch or a piece of paper, just like the cat may perceive a mouse. They may turn into a killer…or a scientist.
Luckily this has absolutely nothing to do with cats!
And with volcanoes, they are beasts of their own kind.
The kind of thing we’d like to forget as soon as it’s read.
I grew up on a NE Oregon cattle and wheat ranch. Long line of Cowboys on both sides of my family. My Pop had a philosophy of “You shoot it- you eat it.” Meaning:”Don’t shoot it unless you intend to make dinner out of it.” Deer, Elk etc. Ok . No Robins, no frogs,not even
quail which are legal game birds . Pop hated anyone abusing animals like our poor Orang.
He almost came to blows with a guy who he caught whipping his old horse to the point of
blood coming out of the lashes. Pop jumped out of his Pickup and the guy took off. Pop
had a bum leg so he out ran him. He didn’t outrun the sheriff, though…
I hold the same attitude about abuse of any kind…
Just an anonymous thought for a future post – Is anybody here widely knowledgeable about Kilimanjaro as a volcano? As majestic as the Volcano is being one of the highest mountains in the world period, it’s pretty difficult to dig up information on past eruptions.
Has Kilamanjaro ever done anything highly destructive? Or does it participate mostly in effusive lava-flow style activity as many of the African Rift volcanoes do? Why is it so enormous in comparison to other volcanoes around the world?
A quick look at Wiki shows that she is dormant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kilimanjaro
But she has a caldera so may have been livelier in the past. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0202-15=
Google Scholar might be more helpful.
When i thought Suzies riddle might be Kilimanjaro, i read up on it a little bit. A fascinating volcano i know much to little about.
Yeah – I know a slight bit about it, but nothing particularly “in depth”.
I know it sits towards the end of one of the splits in the African Rift, and that it’s an ancient volcano that actually is comprised of 2 extinct volcanoes that lie adjacent to the dormant Kilimanjaro volcanic cone. It has active fumaroles on the summit, and a small caldera, but I didn’t didn’t find much else aside from this.
Hi Cbus,
Just a thought, Kilimangaro is probably the most famous volcano in the world thats not erupted in Historic times.
Yeah, that’s why I find it interesting that I can’t find a ton about how it does or doesn’t erupt. From what I’ve read, it’s probably more on the effusive side of things, but it also can create explosive eruptions as well. (Not positive on this however).
On another off-topic note (not that we’re particularly on-topic here ever) I had another question that I think Lurking would know more about.
Why is it that the Rio Grande Rift in the United States is so different when compared to the East African Rift? If it’s a proper rift zone, shouldn’t we see more volcanism there than what is currently exhibited? Or is the east African rift just that much further along in it’s age / rifting process that we can see the entire geological history of the rift process,? The same thought applies to the lake Baikal rift in Russia (which is a rift zone that forms the largest rift lake, and most voluminous freshwater lake in the world in Siberia).
Lurking probably can shed an awful lot more light on this than I can.
Wiki isn’t bad as an introduction to the Rio Grand Rift and has some more promising references to follow up. Subduction of the Farallon plate might be part of the answer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande_Rift
Principally, there are two varieties of rifting. Narrow and Wide.
The Basin and Range province is an example of Wide rifting, and is manifest as a series of graben/horst features. Narrow rifting tends to have boundary faults on either side of the central graben of the rifting structure. (the part that thins and pulls apart). This would be the regions where recent activity is showing up in Colorado, and is probably how the Commerce fault in Lower Missouri/Arkansas relates to the New Madrid “failed” rift system.
As for details about the Rio Grande Rift… it is entirely possible that it is just the most recent manifestation of what caused the Basin and Range… which lies to the West and somewhat North. Karen’s note of it possibly being connected with the subducted Farallon is pretty much in line with most of what I’ve read. The driving force would be turbulence in the Athenosphere as the Farallon slid past following slab detachment.
Another feature that might have a connection is a proposed mega-shear in Northeastern Mexico… “Mojave-Sonora megashear.” Allegedly, it represents Jurassic era left-lateral strike-slip motion and may be a southern boundary for the Rio Grande rift structure. A competing theory is the “Caborca orocline.” This was mentioned in a post about a dinner that the Arizona Geological Society had in 2010.
http://arizonageology.blogspot.com/2010/06/sonora-megashear-or-caborca-orocline.html
Why is the Rio Grande so different? Probably because the African Rift is being produced by a much more energetic plume than the Rio Grande. It has been long proposed that there is a “super plume” under Africa that has several smaller sub-plumes wafting up off of it as hot-spots.
If the Rio Grande rift has enough thinning, it may in turn produce enough decompression melting to continue to grow and eventually eat the Rockies… or to join up with the far more ancient Mid Continental Rift that runs down through Lake Superior.
Just my 2¢.
Pull-apart basins at releasing bends of the sinistral Late Jurassic
Mojave-Sonora fault system Anderson et al
Rio Grande Rift F.A.Q. EarthScope
An alternate idea:
EVOLUTION OF THE RIO GRANDE RIFT IN THE SOCORRO AND LAS CRUCES AREAS Chapin et al
It has been called a failed rift – one which geologic forces have been insufficient to split the continent. Interesting history, though. At its northern end lies the La Garita caldera, site of one of the largest eruptions on the continent. There were apparently many caldera eruptions in southern Colorado 35 MY ago when the rifting started. Much excitment around that part of North America 35 MY ago. There is a feature crossing the Rio Grande rift in New Mexico called the Jemez Lineament which appears to be a line of weakness in the crust, allowing significant volcanic activity. The place where the two features cross is a relatively new caldera called the Vales Caldera, which last blew around 1.2 MY ago. Pretty area to fly over. There is an associated area of relatively new cinder cones called the Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field in NE New Mexico, far NW Texas and far W Oklahoma. Pretty drive thru the old cones on your way from Colorado Springs to Dallas. Links follow. Tried this once before but it went into the bit bucket. Cheers –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Garita_Caldera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valles_Caldera
Click to access magnani_jemez_agubook.pdf
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=121002-D
Click to access 52_p0069_p0076.pdf
This comment was regarded spam in the first place but is approved now.
It is safer to include less than four links in each comment.
Message received. Thanks for the tip. Cheers –
Is the Rio Grande Rift entirely failed? That makes more sense to me then as to why it’s not super active these days, but was a lot more active in the Tertiary flare-up after the Farallon plate passed beneath.
The more pressing question now is why does the Baikal Rift system in Russia not highly volcanically active?
From some rudimentary research I put together, it’s spreading at a rate of 2cm per year, which is a greater spreading rate than even the great African rift systems. Despite having the largest and deepest rift lake in the world, and being one of two active continental rifts, there is almost zero volcanic activity nearby (*note – there is some, but it’s very miniscule, especially when compared to volcanism that has been associated with other continental rifts)
There’s another rift system you might be interested in: the North Sea also has a failed rift system.
I am just catching up on today’s action here. I was interested in the star Wars martial arts. When my knee is not playing up I am in the local advanced Tai Chi class. Here is what I do at present (I am not so lythe as this young lady but I can still touch my toes! )
The next stage? This……… ( My husband is concerned as I tend to have problems cutting carrots with sharp knives……) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpdOHVPI2iY
The problem isn’t touching my toes; it’s getting back up again afterwards 😀
Oh that’s easy, you just roll the rest of the way over and get up.
Works for me.
Does she have bones?
Is she one of our new masters? Not too lizard like. Most appreciated if they are like that.
Welcome to our new leaders.
(hehe, if they all have chewing-gum swords we can beat their asses back to behind the moon if they get nasty…)
So you’ve seen the Geiko Gecko…
Gawd I hate that thing… I’d live to see him strolling across the vivid green grass yammering about auto insurance only to meet the business end of a number four wood.
Let’s try to get it with a Brennecke slug…
Work in progress: http://i48.tinypic.com/2qdwi86.jpg 🙂
Black: recent earthquakes (19.10.-31.10.12)
Color: 1995-2012 (>= 1.5)
Cones: volcanoes (not all)
Data by IMO, NOAA (Geodas, coastline extractor)
Good night!
Now really really bed time!
That’s a nice plot.. but I would stretch the depth a bit… and cut it off at about 100 km.
As it is, it’s a bit packed.
Roughly 610 km is pretty much the the bottom of the upper mantle area.
Thank you!
“As it is, it’s a bit packed” That is what my graphic card thinks, too. 😉 I´ll see what I can tidy up.
The depth is approximately on scale with the surface distances, but it´s true that the interesting information is a bit crunched at this magnification. On the other hand I found this view interesting in respect to on what thin eggshell we live.
Eggshell is a good description…
But remember that when the yolk is moving around you don’t get any pops or cracks… It’s fluid.
Likewise, the deeper you go the more malleable the material becomes, and below the seismic layer, nothing really makes any noise.
Lovely patterns.
I just love it. Very good idea to have the central volcanoes indicated! 🙂
Thank you!
My posts seem to have disappeared 😦
I mean comments!
They are not in the dungeons. Do you have graboids around?
Probably!…There again I managed to lose my debit card today too 😦
I think I should start today over!!! ( To all graboids and gremlins out there… Too bad Buddy! I have cancelled the card and anyway not much money left in the bank!!)
Oh, darn!
Lol!!!
Hi all. Just back from Lanzarote, where my good lady even let me out for a couple of days volcano-watching. Schteve is right – what a place – Lucas is going to love it!
Just to add a couple of bits of advice to earlier conversation –
1) the guided walk in the Timanfaya park is only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and gets booked up weeks in advance. I have no idea what it is like. You can book it through the national park website (no URL to hand).
2) If you want to get up close and personal with some lava there is a fantastic walk into the park heading north from the far end of El Golfo village along the very beautiful cliffs at the end of the lava flow, but you need good footwear. Take cozzy (swimwear to non-Anglos), a drink and a bite to eat and your reward is a lovely ‘secret beach’ (actually you can drive there with a 4×4 if you have one).
3) Don’t feel embarrassed to do the bus trip round the Timanfayacraters at least twice! Once sitting on one side of the bus and then on the other. If you’re only going to do it once, sit on the right-hand side.
OK – it’s about 3° outside – this time yesterday it was 30° – and I really had better attack the stratovolcano of paper and e-mails that has grown during my absence before it all goes ‘caldera’. I’m looking forward to catching with a week’s worth of VC later.
Nice to have you back
Hi UKVIGGEN,
thanks for the advise. I am planning to go to El Golfo and take a few snapshots of the green pond (I wonder why its green?) and the stacked tephra layers.
Algae!
Down on the beach you can find lots of clear olivine in the black sand. Yeah, they sell it at the top, but it’s nicer to find your own!
and its cheaper 🙂
Seem to have been spammed but link no good anyway 🙂
Try this one:
http://www.reservasparquesnacionales.es/real/ParquesNac/index.aspx
Also, this a decent summary of the 1730-36 events by J C Carracedo and friends:
ftp://ftp.ingv.it/pub/jacopo.taddeucci/PAPERS/CarracedoealJVGR92Lanzarote1730.pdf
Not paywalled 🙂
Ooh! Thanks, Schteve. Wish I had seen that (or had the time to read it!) before I went. I did buy that little book by the priest of Yaiza which is a nice read. Any info lurking on the 1824 eruptions? (I could look myself I suppose – just being lazy)
I haven’t really hunted for anything on that one… I was only able to refind the above cos I have a printed copy.. top tip for finding free articles is to google the title of the paper you want, you can sometimes find the title of the paper you want in the references of other papers… do let me know if you find owt… I have to get organised for work now… TTFN all 🙂
Found on the Daily Mail website. Sensitive dragons better look away:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2228471/Every-baby-kung-fu-fightin-Dragon-slaying-infant-martial-arts-star-hilarious-short-film-directed-father.html
Holy Moly!
Hey, lizards who wait for December behind the moon, seen this? Huh? We are ready for you green bast.rds!!!
http://www.ign.es/ign/head/volcaSenalesAnterioresDia.do?nombreFichero=CHIE_2012-11-06&ver=s&estacion=CHIE&Anio=2012&Mes=11&Dia=06&tipo=1
What is happening on El Hierro today?
Is somebody kicking the tracer?
Quakes aren’t listed to match, or at least not yet.
Dunno. Here is CTAB for comparison:
http://www.ign.es/ign/head/volcaSenalesAnterioresDia.do?nombreFichero=Ctab_2012-11-06&ver=s&estacion=Ctab&Anio=2012&Mes=11&Dia=06&tipo=1
http://www.ign.es/ign/head/volcaSenalesAnterioresDia.do?nombreFichero=Ctab_2012-11-06&ver=s&estacion=Ctab&Anio=2012&Mes=11&Dia=06&tipo=2
New post is up. Schteves adventures at Teneguia on La Palma!!!!!!!
https://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2012/11/06/volcanic-mishaps-1-teneguia/