El Hierros center of activity & Riddles

The Tanganasoga central volcano, El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain.

During the last few days activity has continued at El Hierro even though earthquake activity has decreased a lot. Harmonic tremor is though still increasing and GPS uplift is rather dramatic with maximum values at 75mm.

With a bit of internet-spelunking I have tracked down where the maximum activity is, an indicator of where a future eruption might take place. The maximum uplift is noticed at the stations HI08 and HI09 (see map) with HI08 moving north and HI09 moving south. No East movement is registering at those two stations, so we can therefore deduce that the maximum uplift is taking place in between them.

Map showing some of the stations. The greatest point of uplift is just south of the red star.

This pans out quite well with where the maximum registered harmonic tremor is measured, namely CTAB & CTAN. Those two are the main seismometers for the Tanganasoga central volcano. We can after that track the harmonic tremor moving towards the spot of maximum uplift where it abruptly dies off. No harmonic tremor is measured at CRST (La Restinga) station, so it seems that either no magma has moved there yet, or that the magma is moving down a different path compared to the last eruption and that it is accumulating at the spot of maximum inflation.

Onset of harmonic tremor at the CTAB station, image by GeoLurking.

We can also deduce that the magma is centered on a point source of relatively shallow depth, probably no deeper than between 4 and 2 kilometers depth. The reason we can deduce that is due to the fact that the uplift is very well centered and GPS-changes die of pretty quickly with distance.

http://www.ign.es/ign/resources/volcanologia/jpg/hierro2SVVRTRF_neu.png

More information will follow as events unfold.

Crab Cioppino

Ingredients
1/8 cup olive oil
1/4 cup onions, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Crab butter*
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups peeled, seeded, and chopped fresh tomatoes
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce, recipe follows
1 cup clam juice or fish broth
2 fresh live Dungeness crabs (11/2 to 2 pounds each) or 4 pounds of live blue crabs
8 large shrimp, shelled and deveined
16 Manila clams, well scrubbed
16 black or green mussels, well scrubbed
Chopped parsley, as needed
Salt and pepper, to taste
Red pepper flakes, to taste
Directions
In an 8-quart kettle or pot, heat the olive oil and saute the onions until transparent. Add the garlic and saute until it begins to brown. Stir in crab butter and let cook slowly for 2 minutes (crab butter is saffron yellow in color and adds a distinctive rich flavor). Next, add the wine, and reduce. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce, broth, and live crabs.

To simmer at low heat for about 5 minutes. Add shrimp, clams, mussels and cook for 2 more minutes. Serve in a bowls and sprinkle with fresh parsley. Add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, to taste.

If your crab is cooked ahead of time, add it to the recipe at the same time you add the clams, shrimp, and mussels.

*Fresh crab usually has yellowish matter under the shell in the center of the body, called crab butter, or fat, or mustard. It is edible and considered quite tasty.

Tomato sauce:
1/2 cup olive oil
1 onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
40 ounces canned puree tomatoes
18 basil leaves, julienne
Salt and pepper, to taste
Warm heavy skillet on medium heat. Add olive oil and diced onion. When onion becomes transparent, add the garlic and cook until lightly brown. Add tomatoes, basil leaves, salt and pepper, and simmer for 45 minutes.

from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/crab-cioppino-recipe/index.html
Other recipes: http://americanfood.about.com/od/classicchowdersandstews/r/cioppino.htm
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/judiths-dungeness-crab-cioppino
http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/aliotos-crab-cioppino.html
http://www.food.com/recipe/old-style-san-francisco-crab-cioppino-335043

Lava on Ice ( also known as Hot Love)

Ingredients:
Vanilla ice, raspberries, sugar

Heat the raspberries with some spoonfuls of water and add sugar according to your taste. Pour the cooking berries over the vanilla ice cream.
For the grown-up version you could also add some alcohol like rum to the hot raspberries 😉

Spica

Riddles

Last week Sissel managed to pull away slightly from Evan Chugg and at the same time KarenZ started to eat up the gap to the second spot. We are looking forward to a hard fight for the top 3 positions in todays riddle duell. May the best person win this seasons last riddle-bout!

Image for the riddle.

1. Stone castle calling the rod of + Image
2. Frozen squirt at NCIS
3. Bert and the pastoralists have a volcano? – Kutum Volcanic Fields or Berti Hills (Arjanemm, 2pt)
4. Angelic woman bathing in the sulphur springs – Qualibou, Santa Lucia Island, home of the Sulphur Springs (Sissel, 2 pt. Bonus point to Christian Thordin for Santa Lucia)
5. Edible spanish ghosts at Christmas

Score board
19 Sissel 15 Evan Chugg 12 KarenZ 8 Alison 8 Diana Barnes 8 Harrie 7 Shérine France 6 Henrik 5 Graniya	5 Talla 4 Arjanemm 4 Cryphia 4 Kelda 4 Matt 4 Stephanie Alice Halford 3 GeoLurking 3 Michael Ross 3 Sa’Ke	2 Carl 2 Dorkviking 2 Lughduniense 2 Maggiemom 2 Spica´s mate, St. Ananas 1 Bobbi 1 Bruce Stout 1 Edward 1 Irpsit

CARL & GEOLURKING

Recipes by Spica