Possible eruption at Palena & Riddles

Apparantly the only image of the Palena Volcano. From volcanodiscovery.com

UPDATE

And in record time the eruption at Palena was debunked. I am though leaving the text as it is. The real-time minutiae of the debunking is to be found in the comments.

/CARL

The end of the year gave a lot of volcanic news, and the beginning is no less hectic. News is starting to come in that the Palena volcano in Chile has started to erupt. Some say that it is just a forest fire and that there has been no seismic signals heralding the eruption. The reason for the latter part is that the volcano is not monitored, and the photographic evidence seems to negate a forest fire. But, I guess time will tell.

Palena is a Holocene volcano that has erupted quite recently from a geological standpoint. No eruption has occurred in historical times, but that does not mean a lot really. For all we know this volcano can have erupted right before Europeans conquered the place and then continued to have magmatic intrusions up to this day, and we would not have had a clue about it. In short, I am definitely going with this most likely being an eruption, and I am not surprised that it happened. No, I am not psychic, I am just not surprised that a Chilean volcano in the lower Andes erupts unexpectedly.

Tremor continues at El Hierro, Nishinoshima is still growing and Sakurajima is happily puffing away. At Sinabung the dome is continuously growing and now and then a pyroclastic flow runs down the sides. It seems that the local population has headed the warnings and evacuated the five kilometer exclusion zone around the volcano.

Result of the Fall Riddle Contest 2013

After a long, arduous and brainwrecking competition Sissel in the end bested Evan Chugg, but something tells me that he is just biding his time for a grand comeback. It though remains to be seen who will be victorious in the spring 2014 campaign.

Score board fall 2013
21 Sissel 16 Evan Chugg 12 KarenZ 8 Alison 8 Diana Barnes 8 Harrie 7 Shérine France 6 Arjanemm 6 Henrik 6 Matt	5 Graniya 5 Talla 4 Cryphia 4 Kelda 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 Christian Thordin 1 Edward 1 Irpsit 1 Swinemoor

Riddles

To freshen things up there is a slight change to the riddles and brainwrecks for the spring 2014 campaign. This week there are 3 volcanoes, 1 volcanic term and 1 famous volcanologist. Two points will be awarded for the correct answer before clues are added, and 1 point afterwards. Bonus points might be added by The Evil Riddler.

1. Image + Image – The volcanologist: Ian S. E. Carmichael, a professor of earth and planetary science (Sissel, 2pt), Carmichaël West Indies Stratovolcano of Soufrière Guadeloupe (KarenZ, 1pt)
2. Twice cancelled reality show that sang for the rising turtles – Koro Island, “Under one roof” was filmed there twice in 2002, and the locals sing for the turtles so that they will rise out of the ocean. (Pyter, 2pt)
3. Oh brother, where art thou – Brothers Volcano, Kermadec Arc (Pyter, 2pt)
4. Acoustically pistoning lava or gas – Chugging = Pistoning lava, or acoustic gas pulsing (DFM, 2pt)
5. Wall of flames near radiant city –  Harrat Rahat, Medina means “Radiant city”, the lava flows stopped 4km from the then city wall (Matt, 2pt)

Lava of the Puszta

Europeans think Gulasch is a traditional Hungarian food but Gulasch ( Guylas, Goulash) is called Pörkölt in Hungary. So the following recipe is my personal version of a Vienese Veal Gulasch.

Ingredients:
500g veal meat
500g onions
tomato paste
paprika ( spice)
some red wine
soup ( best homemade beef broth)
salt, pepper, majoram
whipped cream

Cut the onions into small cubes and roast them using low heat for at least 10 minutes. They should be glassy not brown. Add some tomato paste and the paprika. (There is sweet paprika or a really spicy version. Use the one you like best.) Roast only for a very short time span or the paprika will turn bitter. Deglaze with red wine (around 1/4 liter) and soup. (If you don’t want to use wine you can use 2 spoonfuls of vinegar for deglazing but the sourness is essential for the dish)
Cut the meat into cubes (2 -3 cm). Roast in a different pan and add them to the onion sauce. Add salt pepper and marjoram. Cook for at least 30 minutes adding liquid whenever necessary and keep stirring from time to time so that it won’t scorch.
Finalize using whipped cream and maybe some salt. ( In case the Gulasch is too thin, there are 2 traditional version to fix that. 1. Rahmgmachtl: Mix flour into sour cream and add some spoons of Gulasch before adding it to the cooking dish. 2. Mehlkugerl: Mix flour and butter and form a tiny ball, add that to the cooking dish.)

Serve …best with Nockerl !

Nockerl recipe:
Mix fine grinded flour with some milk and eggs. ( 5 eggs for 1kg of flour at least. The more eggs the harder the dough becomes) Add some spoonfulls of brown butter. (Butter which has been roasted till the proteins become brown). Spice up with salt, and nutmeg. Add flour so that you get a dough which is really hard to be stirred. Let it rest for half an hour.

Hold the pot with the dough above cooking salted water and cut Nockerl into the boiling hot water. The Nockerln are ready when they start to swim to the surface. Throw them into icy cold water immediately .

To serve the Nockerl, heat them in brown butter adding some salt and pepper (Best – white pepper)

CARL & SPICA