Mt. Veniaminof´s smoking crater. Photo by USFWSAlaska via Flickr
In the Aleutian Range island arc lies the massive Veniaminof volcano (56°11’52” N 159°23’35” W), a 2507 m (8225 ft) stratovolcano. It is one of the most prominent in Alaska, neighbour to the closely monitored Aniakchak and Pavlof volcanoes.
Historical activity arises from the two prominent intracaldera cones. The currently inactive larger one barely rises above the glacier surface. Several post-caldera cinder and scoria cones are aligned on a NW trending line from the Bering Sea coast down the Pacific slope.
Crater of Mt. Veniaminof. Image by USFWSAlaska via Flickr.
Seismicity of the past 10 years show a clear vertical trend of earthquakes up from the wrinkled Wadati-Benioff zone of the Pacific Oceanic plate, feeding the subduction zone related volcano.
The USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) maintains one of the best public volcano monitoring websites on the internet in my opinion with all information one could possibly wish for clearly laid out. 17 eruptions have been recorded in historic times since 1830 (AVO eruption time-line of Veniaminof) with some increasing frequency in recent years. The GVP denotes several periods since September 2002 of on-and off activity with low-frequency tremor as first sign of volcanic unrest, steam and minor ash exhalations from the historically active intra-caldera cinder cone. With the webcam installed in Perryville (32 km SSE, population 113) in 2004 many low-level eruptions above the crater rim could be monitored on clear days in the following years. In January 2005 a long thin ash cloud stretching as far as 55 km was observed. A heat anomaly caused by low level strombolian activity at the summit lead to orange alert throughout February 2005. Low-level seismic activity and occasional minor ash emissions continued until 2008.
Last year in June volcanic tremor set in again, indicating lava effusion and orange alert was declared again. In the following weeks small explosions above the crater rim were observed, at least four steam and ash plumes up to 4.6 km a.s.l. until August 2013. Activity markedly increased on August 20 when loud explosions coming from Veniaminof were heard in Perryville, coming to a climax on August 30 with intense seismicity, lava fountains and ash clouds rising to over 6 km a.s.l. (see video). After some temporary decrease in seismic and volcanic activity Mt. Veniaminof flared up again on October 6. Timelapse of eruption on 30 Aug 2013:
Veniaminof seems to have taken a rest since last October, although the alert level is still at yellow with seismicity remaining slightly above background.
In the meantime, a few hundred kilometers to the SW, Shishaldin came to live again after some unrest in 2009, and the aviation color code was raised to yellow on 30 Jan 2014 due to elevated surface temperature and increased steam emission. Shishaldin is less than 10000 years old and and the beautiful symmetrical cone reaches highest amongst all volcanoes in the Aleutean island arc (2857 m).
Steam emission from Shishaldin on 28 Jan 2014. mage source: AVO webcamera http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webcam/Shishaldin.php.
chryphia
VolcanoCafé 
At http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2008/02/01/SeaCableHi.jpg and http://www.submarinecablemap.com/ you see submarine communications cables over the seafloor. These cables cross the mid-oceanic ridges. Can these cables snap by outpouring of lava on these ridges, or by diverging crustal plates?
It is reasonable that cables would be damaged if they came in touch with lava, or they would be severed by a landslide, but I imagine the thousand miles long cables can accommodate a few centimeters of slow spreading each year.
Hello Mast!
A question I can answer. It has happened at least 8 times that I know of. 7 times they snapped due to crustal extension and once it looked like it has been burnt off. As you lay a cable you try to loop it so there is a lot of slack when you pass the crustal boundary at the mid-oceanic ridges.
That is why you normally run 3 sets of cables between Europe and Americas, that way you have a spare set.
This year a cabled observatory at Axial Seamount should become online! http://ooicruises.ocean.washington.edu/story/Axial+Seamount
http://interactiveoceans.washington.edu/
That’s actually pretty darn cool. Can’t wait to see what that observatory will tell us.
This was quite interesting. Thank you Christian for a good post!
Thank you! 🙂
Slowly scratching my head here…
Cryphia is as far as I know (and I think I am right) a Lady 😉
Ugh, stupid phone (and sleepy operator)… My apologies chryphia that I let that slip through the cracks
That´s the miracle of technology! 😉
Hi
Cool 10 years plot . The subduction zone is clearly visible and the magma plume going up to the volcano too.
Giantess geyser in Yellowstone erupted for the first time in 2 years.
So cool.
I bet that Wyoming is STONE COLD right now. .
They finally paid the water bill 😉
Thank you Cryphia for the post!
For those who wonder… Feeling much better today after 13 hours of sleep… A bit weekish, but better 🙂
Iceland got the measles!
Langjokull seems a bit restless.
I think it is a fairly boring reason for that particular set of earthquakes. It is on the caldera rim so it is actually more likely to be caused be the caldera slipping downwards there as the magma in the magma reservoir cools down and shrinks.
I find the other quake swarm north of Geysir to be more interesting due to depth and location. It is within the faultline and at a good depth to be an intrusion. The deepest there is at 15.6km depth whilst the Husafell quakes are 8km at deepest and most are at reservoir depth and at the roof of the chamber. But there will most likely not be an eruption north of Geysir in our lifetime.
Vatnajökull on the other hand is showing signs of coming eruptions. But that is not really news… After all something tend to erupt there on average every 7 years.
Speaking more about how cold it is here. In the Dallas/ Fort Worth area we are at -7 degrees Celsius . Looking across on the other side of the Atlantic I see that you have just the opposite of that in Northern Europe. 6 Celsius and 7 Celsius in London,, Edinburgh and just for my fun Reykjavik is at 6 Celsius. Would not be a bad day to snowmobile in Vatnajokull!
I would imagine that we may have some people dressed in 5 layers for those who have hardly any experience in this cold.
Some very minor Snow accumulation 1″ in the DFW My parents had to drive the 35 miles to Dallas for appointments and my grandmother worrying like crazy. I care for my family but don’t like getting flustered about it. Laugh
Here it is back to unusually warm. 0C and the birds have started to sing to attract female birds… about 1 month to early.
So far this winter have been unusually warm. We only had so far average temperatures for 3 weeks, otherwise it has been way above.
7C is not an unusual temperature for London but we seemed to have escaped the Winter cold snaps so far.
And Erik doing a bit of Yellowstone-bashing. Not one of his best bashings, but still something to warm your feet on in the evening.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/think-yellowstone-erupt/
While in game last night, Yellowstone came up. This was in response to me commenting on another users location as being in Bavaria. I noted that at least they were in driving distance of Eifel Volcanic Field. About that time the Yellowstoned freaks started yammering back and forth. I noted that short of maybe another infill eruption, Yellowstone was not likely to do anything for quite a long time.. if at all. After that, I muted the channel and went about doing other things. It was not the medium in which I wanted to get into a lengthy argument.
I like Erik’s blog, especially when he writes good, unique, and scientifically enlightening articles.
With that said, he spends way too much time worrying about what the media does or doesn’t think. The media doesn’t care about being accurate or scientifically sound, and the doomers who enjoy doom and gloom also aren’t reasonable people (in large part). I think some proper education & discussion about the *reality* of the situation is good (which is why Carl’s yellowstone piece was great). I just get the impression he frustrates himself and drives himself over crazy about what some random reporter writes incorrectly, when it’s just not worth the effort to try correcting all of them.
I generaly agree with you. But when Erik get going on magma then he is brilliant.
I came to know about it via S****volcano on the telly and was left with a rather distracted impression was that it was a good horror movie. It being a wee bit on the detail side for the genre finally got me surfing a couple days later.
At the time the info about the state of the magma system didn’t exist and my clue level on volcanoes was zero. Therefore i tend to understand relatively well why people will react emotionally to this type of news and try to confront preceived danger with the means at their disposal. If you are in the loop it is easy to forget how recent the relevant discoveries are and that a lot of folks just don’t have the skills or means to methodically compute the full picture on their own.
I think EK is trying to be useful rather than vent 🙂 his emotions. Dunno if the topic made it into the geography curriculae yet, but’d say thats where it actually belongs.
Serge
ah the word with asterisks ends in “uper” – I wasn’t expecting that to be bleeped out 🙂
GL edit: It wasn’t. There is no mechanism in place to do such a thing. If a dragon comes along and modifies it, we generally explain the edit when we do it…. such as this follow up by me.
Self censoring is at the sole discretion of the commenter. 😀
Personally, I disagree. Erik’s anti media slant is a welcome counter to the irresponsible reporting that is present in pretty much all outlets.
People are spoon fed tidbits of crap that support an alarmist view, and that is the end product that those sites strive for. Fear sells. And if they do it right, they can hit a lot more of the targeted demographic without having to pander to one group over another. With Erik’s blog, this one, and a few others, at least there is a place for someone to get enough information to realize that some of what they have been told is utter bullshit. If they want to argue the point, well, I’m always open to seeing the evidence.
Looks like there was a 15.6 km deep at Grimsfjall. 1.2 magnitude
Langjokull at Geysir a surprise, Who would have thought that was coming?
95 earthquakes within the last 48 hours.
For the rest… 95 earthquakes/48h is for all of Iceland.
Grimsvötn has been unusually silent after the last eruption, at the same time uplift indicate a lot of magma going in to the upper magma reservoir. It seems that now the amount of magma is large enough to start causing earthquakes as the volcano inflates.
I expect Grimsvötn to get much noisier during the next two years, and based on GPS averages before Grimsvötn eruptions I would say we are about two years away from the next one. But I guess nobody is surprised about Grimsvötn prepping for going Boom.
I’d love to get this close to it, I’m wondering if people snowmobiles out to it?
Not much to say except that there was one in the middle of Bardabunga.
Bárdarbunga has been unusually quiet the last couple of years. It also tend to become more active as Grimsvötn gets nearer to erupting. I guess that Bárdarbunga reacts to being “squezed” by the inflation of Grimsvötn.
Nice video.
Well, I guess the next question will be how much shall it get squeezed by grimy.
and here is the answer to that in cumulative seismic moment.
Note how little earthquake activity there has been sofar in Grimsvötn compared to the average for the last two eruption. Please note that the eruption before that also had a similar amount of CSM.
So, quite a bit more of “massaging” is to be expected in the next two years or so.
http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/vatnajokulsvoktun/grf_uppsafn.html
Much quicker drive 4×4 jeep with oversize tyres, with air pressure reduced to 5-10 PSI (making much larger footprint, so it acts much as snow-shoes) but can result in an occasional tire going off the rim. Then the trick is fill with a flammable gas and ignite (thus blowing the tire back on the rim)
I think 38inch tires can make do on Glaciers, if fittable.
Snowmobiles are obsolete when it comes to this type of travel.
The rescue services drive Snowmobiles but they are much slower (but save the super-jeep ones for if they break down or crash into a crevasse!)
http://www.guidetoiceland.is/files/blog_img/7329cea43d396d64133d532e79db6e12.jpg
Edit tweaked by GL, if the underlying meaning has been changed too much, please let me know.
ok, more understandable I recon´
One of our erstwhile posties and a friend of ours has just died of a complication of swine flu. He had a heart attack while being moved between hospitals. He was only 58 and kept sheep. Anyone heard of any other cases in Europe lately? We are a bit in shock, he was well liked.
That is sad to hear. I had the swine flue with pneumonia last year, without antibiotics it could have ended badly.
Sad to hear that your postman and friend has died.
I guess that he persevered and worked while being under the weather and got a cardiac inflammation?
In regards of Swine Flu. There have been quite a few cases in Europe. I got it a couple of weeks ago and am still suffering from the effects. I had the initial flu shot and I guess that it still helped me a bit since I did not get really sick. It has by now mutated slightly so that it can infect those who had the vaccinations during the first pandemic. Please do note that this is not the ill-rumoured type of vaccine that gave a few people side-effects, this is the ordinary type of vaccine we have had around for the last 50 years.
I recomend everyone to go and get this years flu vaccination. It contains the H1N1 anti-agents as well as the usual seasonal flu anti-agents. One should especially take it if one is older than 50 or have a heart or lung problem.
Also, having had the swine flu allready does not give you immunity. Flus tend to mutate sufficiently between seasons to make you susceptible to them again.
Let me repeat… I really recomend that everyone get a shot of vaccine. Especially if you have a heart condition or suffer from astma or allergies. And even if you are 20 and healthy as hell, get one. First of all it is not a fun decease to get. One should also remember that the 1918 pandemic hit young healthy people hardest. Don’t be stupid, get a shot.
“…One should also remember that the 1918 pandemic hit young healthy people hardest…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
However, I am very suspicious of the pharma industry. Adjuncts act as an antagonist to get the immune systems attention and to get a more effective response to the virus profile present in the vaccine. I feel that these can be quite hazardous and that they are poorly regulated. All a company gives a shit about is a profit, and if an adjunct yields a statistical anomaly of a few percentage extra deaths, as long as they don’t get bad press they don’t care. The long term effects of substances like Squalene or Alum (aluminium sulfate) could actually be quite bad and not manifest for several years.
My method is to stay away from people. If and when I have to interface with them, I use my alcohol spray bottle to cleans my hands, work area and tools.
Remember to stay away from pigs… 🙂
After all H1N1 need a pig to really get going on the mutation part.
well well, I have no inclinations to get to close to porkers and to anybody with flue shots, the ‘cure’ is mostly worse then the….except for the balance sheets of the producers
Actually, it is likely that the vaccinations 2 years ago stoped a global pandemic causing tens of thousands of additional deaths. Compare that we a couple of hundred people that might have gotten problem with sleeping.
People never say what the positive side of the vaccination was.
Is that an injunction not to visit McDonald’s, Burper King, KFC and suchlike, Carl? 😈
MC Donalds the most urban low quality motorcycle club on the planet.
Good to see you back Henrik!
Stay away from armed wiener dogs as well.
Unless you are allergic to the vaccine too …. 😕
If you are an egg allergic you are allergic to the standard vaccine.
That is why you try to get everyone to take the vaccine, that way those who are allergic will be secondarily protected by those who are vaccinated.
While in the checkout line at the grocery store, the clerk turned and asked the bag boy if he as going to the party tonight. He asks “is it the people from here?” She responds “yes.” He shrugs his shoulders.
I am quite proud of myself for not telling him “But dude, you might get laid!”
I’m thinking that would have been bad form given the company. However, it would have served the girl right for chatting him up while I’m trying to pay for my stuff.
I did get my retribution for the cart dude who angrily shoved a cart into the rest of the carts by parking mine out in the middle of the cold rainy parking lot, away from the cart corral. I made sure it was immobile so that no other vehicles were in danger of a runaway. But angry cart guy will have to trudge out there to retrieve it.
You know…
It could have been you that was the target and bag boy being used as a prop by the conniving clerk 😉
True… but I have enough experience to recognize a baiting scenario and tend to shy away from circumstances that could get me arrested.
It’s gonna take more than a cute clerk to get me to willingly ruin my life. In my line of thinking, she was eye candy, with the sole responsibility to tell me how much I saved using my savings card from the over inflated prices that the store charges for their goods. That card’s purpose is specifically to track purchasing habits.
Either the clerk was very young or the legal age is really high…
Close enough that it’s not worth the trouble of finding out.
Besides, I’ve already ordered flowers for my wife, why would I turn around and screw that up?
No better reason for not doing something than the wife 🙂
I just meant that the idea might have gone through the clerks head, did not say that you would be tempted.
Fortunately everyone in the household has had this year’s vaccine. I hadn’t realised the swine flu was quite so widespread. Hopefully it won’t come near us. We don’t want it finding a way into our 160 or so pet hens, I couldn’t bear it.
Dunno how well the Porcine variety jumps to the Avian population.
Where they get dangerous is when they become adept at getting into the Hominids. It only takes a slight modification of (I think) of the hemagglutinin side of it for it to get into human cells. The neuraminidase side of the equation determines how well it can get out of the cells and go infect others. (again, I think. I could be quite wrong though.)
Your birds should be fine. Technically they might become carriers, but they should not croak from it.
you shouldn’t have any problems, a good idea is always have a core breeding stock away from others to fall back on
Action on the NSEC as seen on INGV’s webcam: http://oi59.tinypic.com/n49xtk.jpg
Source: http://www.ct.ingv.it/en/webcam-etna-en.html
If the pot has a hole in the bottom it won’t boil over the rim 😀
(from http://www.ct.ingv.it/en/webcam-etna-en.html)
I am amazed that lava is erupting without the tremor going up at all, it is still at abt. 8 on the graph. Does that mean that the magma has been rising very slowly without making any noise and that there is not much gas in it?
EBCN is offline.
http://www.ct.ingv.it/en/tremore-vulcanico.html
Wonder if it has been run over by lava, or if it is a normal technical glitch and the INGV does not want to send up a technician during the time Etna is active.
I am looking at ECPN.
EBCN has been off for months. Lava could not be the culprit I think, as it is situated west of the Bocca Nuova crater.
You are thinking about the one that was covered a couple of months ago, this one was alive just a couple of weeks ago.
I think the name of the Tore del Filosofo was ETFI, and that went bust before christmas.
Yeah… you are right, EBCN was on until recently. ETFI and EBEL were lost last year, both on the southern/southeastern slopes.
Location for EBCN: http://oi60.tinypic.com/1ju3k5.jpg
Source: http://www.ct.ingv.it/en/mappa-stazioni.html
The eruption of lava does not influence the tremor. It’s the gas bubbling and making the magma explode that makes the tremor rise, and since there is only weak Strombolian activity underway, there’s not very much of an increase in the tremor amplitude (well, this morning it’s been going up a tad little bit, because Strombolian activity has slightly intensified).
Boris, something I always wondered about bubbling magma is the coalescence of these bubbles in the conduit to generate the big bubbles you see in larger strombolian and vulcanian eruptions. Given that magma is extremely sticky stuff, how do you get such large bubbles forming?
Hehe, I can answer that. It’s water Bruce. Take a litre of water and put it deep inside a volcano. As the magma rises, outside pressure decreases to the point where the superheated water is instantaneously transformed into steam. At the temperatures of magma, the expansion rate is >5,000 times, so your puny litre of water becomes five cubic metres of steam. BOOM!!!
Yeah sure I get that. But there’s a huge difference in behaviours between a foamy paroxysm (with multitude little bubbles popping and creating ash and lapilli and a sticky mass of lava like at Shinmoedake that suddenly generates one big bubble that goes pop in a deafening blast. Why the difference?
Uneven distribution plus some of the bubbles are caused by other gases, carbon dioxide primarily. It’s a bit like the batting of Ross Taylor, sometimes he dominates matches, at other times he splutters and fails. Unlike the All Blacks!
From what I remember from the material science Coursera course, it mainly depends on the viscosity of the magma and the glass transition temperature. When magma rises, temperature falls and therefore gas solubility diminishes so gas bubbles form. When water evaporates into the bubbles, viscosity rises and the margins of the bubbles may get below glass transition temperature, thus solidify. Then the bubbles can no longer expand, and when the magma gets close to the surface, it may be obliterated in an explosive eruption. If the magma does not solidify, before reaching the surface, the bubbles may get bigger and bigger, because the viscous fluid gives way.
Edit: After reading my words again, I now rather think that instead of falling temperature it is decreasing pressure that causes lower solubility of water. Sheesh…
cool, that makes excellent sense Chryphia.
I’m seriously doubting that the earthquakes at Mammoth Mountain are volcanic. So far from what I could gather, there are no signs of any deformation.
I would guess that it is shrinkage quakes from the cooling magma body. Remember that it is a long time since there was any intrusion there, at least as far as we know. Also, this is california so it could be one of all those myriads of pesky faultlines that is having a twitch. Should be quite a few in the Long Valley area after all.
There’s one blog that’s saying it’s an intrusion, but so far. No signs of that what so ever. So I’m going with that it’s shrinkage.
Yeah, intrusions tend to come with uplift that start to be visible within a day or two.
And as Erik just pointed out, there are many people who love to see doomsday coming and grasp at straws to find it.
I have checked the quakes, the tremor, and the GPSes and do not find even one sign of intrusions.
I stand by my opinion that it is either a shrinkage event or a faultline.
Agreed
Looking at the INGV seismograms (EMPL), they have at times a wavy appearance with spikes, while at other times the line is straight with spikes. As far as I could see the waves have nothing to do with unrest, so what are they? There are no waves at ESVO station.
BTW: Do shrinking magma chambers show any kind of deformation at all?
Yes they do, but little and often spread over long time. Unless of course there is a blocking event. Then it can go fast.
This happened overnight… A swedish mine growing its own caldera 😉
Was there enough of a warning for anyone to get out of the way?
Yes it was. It happened inside the permanent exclusion zone that is behind fence. And it happened only 24 hours before they had predicted it to happen with the original prediction being done 3 months before.
One tend to forget how sharp geologists a large mining company has… But then they pay rather well.
I should probably not say this, but a geologist who goes to work at the LKAB could most likely more than double his or her paycheck. So, in the end they get what they pay for.
Looks like Kavachi might have another try at being an island.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=83025&src=nha
This is really a period of Island formations.
In 2 years time we have seen 2 islands sprout in the Jebel Al-Zubair Group, 1 in Nishinoshima and now Kavachi doing a valiant attempt. And there has also been a failed one at El Hierro. Islands be us.
We are islands!
Not Mikes best song, but really good version with Bonnie.
on the east coast of Australia, pumic is coming in with tides from the eruption a couple of years ago
Grimsvötn Videos.
Just so people will get a feel for how immense a medium-sized VEI-4 really is. Puts the current eruptions in perspective really, remember that Grimsvötn 2011 is the largest eruption so far during this millenium. About 0.5km3 of tephra in DRE and about 2km3 of lava was erupted in about 1 weeks time.
German news item
And people next to the volcano at the end of the eruption when the activity was way less…
And a long one in HD…
OMG – what a beautiful video. Top quality camera being used, that’s for sure.
Here is the one that should have been instead of the one I made a duplicate of…
And here is the most awesome imagesequence ever as the plume blasted upwards. Compare 20km of plume in 5 minutes to what you see at Sinabung and others…
On this page is an animation from meteosat 9 visible channel of Grímsvötn punching through the clouds
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/8181
awesome, thankfully not that many people live near it
Within an hour the plume was visiblr 250km away from Reykjavik. Compare that with Eyjafjallajokull, where the plume was never visible from Reykjavik 150km away.
To me Grimsvotn erupted with a VEI5 sized intensity, and even the volume of magma erupted and height of the plume put it well in the VEI5 category.
More data: Grimsvotn erupted quickly to 23km tall column, Eyjafjallajokull up to 12km.
More things: I live 100km from Eyjafjallajokull and 200km from Grimsvotn. Eyjafjallajokull was visible from here as a small plume on the horizon (only). Grimsvotn about the double of distance, was visible as a large plume on the eastern half of the sky, that eventually reach all the way to zenith and rained ash down here (about a few mm) and caused a temporary volcanic night, even here 200km away.
Grimsvotn is a beast, as well as its 2011 eruption, But I think some past eruptions have been larger. Where I live I can see at least one ash layer from Grimsvotn that is 2cm thick (that eruption should have been really big), but also a lot of other thick layers from Hekla, Katla and Torfajokull. All of these are nasty ones.
If Grimsvötn had continued just a day or two more at high intensity it would have been a VEI-5. Columnal height and explosivity was for a VEI-5, but emitted tephra was not. But it was a brutal monster of a VEI-4.
For those who did not watch it, Grimsvötn surpassed the amount of emitted ash of Eyjafjallajökulls 3 month long eruption within the first 4 hours.
Just counting on the size of the 3 caldera events from Grimsvötn put each and every one of those events as medium range VEI-6es, and that would five times the size of Pinatubo.
Hekla is more of a beast in the making. She has no confirmed VEI-6 eruption, I guess she is not mature enough yet.
And I notice you forgot Bárdarbunga, she was after all the last VEI-6 volcano in Iceland. On the other hand she has not really produced that much afterwards indicating a destroyed magma reservoir, most eruptions listed in GVP are actually from Loki-Fögrufjöll and the few that was from Bárdarbunga itself was fairly small.
In the end we are stuck with Grimsvötn being the second largest volcano in Europe (Campi Flegrei is larger), the most likely in Europe to go big (VEI-6) and the most likely volcano in the world to go VEI-4 next (it will probably be another volcano, the world has many VEI-4 capable volcanoes, but due to eruption frequency and size Grimsvötn is most likely to be the one at any given time).
Our friend Hekla has no confirmed VEI6 but I am almost sure it had one or two. I mean, even some studies put the figures of the 1104 eruption within the VEI6 threshold. And of course, that eruption was significantly smaller than the big one known as Hekla 3 eruption, some few thousand years ago. Some 40-50km away from Hekla (to its northwest at least), we can still find layers 10cm thick or more, and significant pieces of white pumice everywhere. The ash layer of 1104 is also some 5-7cm thick here (and it wasn’t in the direction where most ash went). So yeah I would say Hekla probably had at least one VEI6 eruption. But its a beast waiting to go caldera.
And you made me think a point of Grimsvotn. Its rather impressive in both Grimsvotn and Hekla, how often they produce VEI3-4 eruptions, compared to other regions in the world. I think you should also add Hekla to the list of the potencial next VEI4. Last ones were VEI3, next one could well be a small VEI4.
Bardarbunga is actually little understood, I know nothing of its eruption history. Its ash is probably brown colored like Grimsvotn (maybe most of the times) so perhaps a few ash layers attributed to Grimsvotn could be from her.
Ah we have another beast: Oraefajokull, the tallest and largest Icelandic volcano. But no caldera (or they say it has one, but for me it is just a large 5km wide crater-like ice-filled top). The 1362 was also within the VEI6 threshold, and considered as the largest Icelandic eruption since settlement. But I am not sure about it.
When Grimsvotn was erupting the sky in Wales was light, looking to the north at night!
Öraefajökull did not have the largest explosive eruption since settlement. That honour goes to the 1477 co-eruption of Bárdarbunga that was a “no shadow of a doubt” VEI-6. It is just that Öraefajökull affected more people as a large VEI-5.
It is possible that Hekla has borderlined a VEI-6 once, but not much more since that would have created a Graben-feature along the fissure, and we know that has not happened.
I live in Emmen in the South-East of county Drenthe in the northeastern part of The Netherlands. The distance between Emmen and Laacher See Volcano in the Eastern Eifel volcanic field in Germany is 260 km. If this volcano would erupt with a VEI-6 force, and the sky is clear, I could see the eruption column in the southern half of the sky. If the wind would be blowing from the south or southeast during the eruption of Laacher See, I would suffer from ash fall-out and a volcanic night. But the southeastern part of The Netherlands (Brabant, Limburg, Gelderland) would bear the brunt.
The worst danger you face is a repeat of the 11kA eruption which dammed the Rhine for months before the waters finally broke the dam. If you catch my drift, living in the Low Countries as you do. But it won’t happen in your lifetime or that of your descendants for many a generation.
Seems like there was a Tungurahua video that sneaked in two… Good as a comparison, but not the one I intended.
I am leaving it in for comparison.
So found this article on Earth Magazine about the random basalt pillars in Skrælingar. http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/warring-trolls-explanation-mysterious-basalt-pillars-revised
This is quite interesting and has piqued my curiosity immensely. Sure would love to read the report itself but unfortunately the report itself is behind a pay-wall.
“Gregg says. “Here’s an example where … you could’ve stood right there and watched it.””
I seriously doubt that. The radiant heat would have cooked you alive.
Well, he didn’t say anything about surviving. ;-þ
IS it true that Eyjafjallajokull is andesitic? I thought it was basaltic.
GVP classes her as Basalt / Picrobasalt (rock type 1) with Trachyandesite / Basaltic trachy-andesite (rock type 2), Trachybasalt / Tephrite Basanite (rock type 3) and Trachyte / Trachyandesite (rock type 4).
Source: http://www.volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=372020
GVP has it as “Basalt/Picro-Basalt”, while Wikipedia says “basalt to andesite lavas”.
GVP is seriously outdated.
Wikipedia is closer to the truth, but are omitting the rhyolite part.
The reason for there being varying magmas is that Eyja had several chambers. The first part of the eruption contained fresh basalt from the crust, the next part was reheated andesite as the basalt moved into Eyja proper, and after a while it dislodged a large chunk of at least 1000 year old rhyolite mush.
Erik Klemetti cracked the nut on the rhyolite by the way.
GVP has more rock types than Basalt/ Picro Basalt for Eyjafjallajokull.
Eyja blasted no less than 3 different version of lava…
Pure basalt out of Fimmvörduhals. Then you had andesite out of the main vent, and also a pocket of rhyolite that gushed forth. It is all in the time it sits and percolates. The longer it sits the more evolved it becomes.
Hekla is a nice example, it has a wedge/fissure shaped column of magma standing all the way up from the MOHO to 2km below the surface. Due to it being an open bottomed system of considerable height it functions as a refinery column as heat convection moves fractionated lighter material very rapidly to the top between the eruptions.
That is why you get that highly evolved very explosive magma coming out during the first few days, and then get a flip of magma type to basalt in just a few minutes since the boundary is so sharp between the heat evolved magma and the basal heavier magma.
Oh yeah… Forgot to tell everyone, cracked that piece of the Hekla Puzzle a while ago. Gonna write a post about it one of these days. It really explains all of the weirdness of Hekla.
Found this for Eyjafjallajokull: http://www.solid-earth.net/2/271/2011/se-2-271-2011.html
“Remobilization of silicic intrusion by mafic magmas during the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption”
O. Sigmarsson, I. Vlastelic1, R. Andreasen, I. Bindeman, J.-L. Devidal, S. Moune1, J. K. Keiding, G. Larsen2 A. Höskuldsson, and Th. Thordarson
In this, the authors discuss the magma mixing between basalt from a basalt intrusion and a silicic magma body producing benmoreitic magma while the silicic magma body impeded the flow of basalt during the initial stages of the April 2010 eruption. There was less magma mixing once the basalt had a clearer path. The eruption was driven by the basalt intrusion and shut off as the basaltic intrusion declined. Some of the silicic magma body is still in place, which could produce silicic magma in the next eruption.
While the silicic magma body is rhyolitic not sure from the paper that much rhyolite itself was erupted 😕
Benmoreite for those, like me 🙂 , who did not know what benmoreitic magma was. 😉
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benmoreite
Im really looking forward for that Hekla post!
I’m also waiting for her eruption. It has been quite a while of waiting.
It will be coming, but it is a two or three part endevour so I am waiting untill I am feeling a bit less under the weather.
To do it I first have to write a reader on Erik Sturkells paper so we have something to discuss from. And doing that paper justice take a bit of reading up. If I get it wrong I bet I will have Erik banging on my door with a portable volcano wanting to “discuss” things.
I also have to read up on fractioning columns and stuff in the more weird part of geology that the oilboys do, or even have one of them co-write that part with me. I am after all really crappy on chemistry and magma refineries is a bit out there for me. But… It is great to learn new stuff 😉
One of the rare glimpses into Nakadake crater (Aso, Japan) you can catch when the wind is blowing the plume in the other direction:
(from http://w3.vgs.kyoto-u.ac.jp/camera/crater/index.html )
Last explosion was reported on Jan. 31 by the JMA ( http://tinyurl.com/ofs5asm )
It seems like the Greek earthquake swarm has started to propagate over the corinthian faultline now.
We are once again back to shocks above M4.5
http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=358236
Its that time of the season. A friend of mine in Texas has to deal with delivering the cookies his daughters have sold for the year, helping them keep the orders straight. Usually this drives him a bit nuts each year, but his girls love him for all the help he contributes to their endeavor.
Just make sure the ones with the bones on aren’t dipped in the morning coffee…
Disintegrate?
I will be back tomorrow, got a lot of stuff done, tomorrow it will be 37deg or so, I will be inside for most of the day, will have an early night and early morning tomorrow before it gets to hot, Sunday 39deg. I am glad when summer is over for this time, BBGN
Etna having a show today?
Not sure if this has been mentioned here: Kawah Ijen volcano in Indonesia;
http://io9.com/why-is-this-volcanic-eruption-blue-1516644906
It’s a staggeringly incorrect article. It’s just burning elemental Sulphur that oozes from vents emitting hot gases. If you buy a sulphur candle for fumigating your greenhouse and light it at night you can enjoy the same pretty blue flames while choking to death 😉
Molten Sulphur is a nice orange colour, one of the many states that pure Sulphur comes in.
I take back ‘staggeringly’ but it’s poorly written.
Hmmm, and another one or is this not in deadzone? Friday
07.02.2014 11:52:16 64.223 -18.573 3.9 km 0.8 99.0 23.7 km NW of Laki
This is a small quake in Veidivotn.
Feeling much calmer this morning
Beautiful! 🙂
someday I’d like to see Iceland…
Me 2 🙂
Craziest Yellowstone theory yet. -_-
http://www.womencitizen.com/science-32/artificial-resonance-targeting-yellowstone-lake-8404.html
Hoo Boy! waaay to much ganja, she needs to put down the bong and slowly move away….
Probably a broken capacitor.
The fun thing with the crazies is that they totally lack insight into physics.
To heat up a volcano like Yellowstone you need energy. And since Yellowstone is a gigantic ginormous volcano with a very large magma reservoir that is going cold it would take proportionately the same amount of energy to heat it.
The crazies also do not understand the scale of things. Even if we connected every single power plant on the planet we would not have the energy output required to heat Yellowstone sufficiently. It would take us a thousand years to raise the temperature a fraction of a degree.
Or to put it differently. In a pinch the entire US could be heated and electrified by Yellowstone and it would not lower the temperature. What goes one way goes also the other way… Laws of conservation of energy. Important law for crackpots to understand.
I just chuckle to myself whenever I see a thing about the beast. Yellowstone blah, blah-blah etc.
Meanwhile, it’s Friday.
Here’s Soprano Susanna Rigacci,
Ennio is truly one of the great composers of the twentieth century.
some very interesting image from Earth observatory on Sinabung. You can even compare 2 pictures past and present.The lobe can clearly be seen.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=83080&src=nha
You can also see the PF effects and that the deposits have already reached some thickness
I you look a the present image, you can also see how the ashes have highlighted the previous lava flows, especially in the upper right segment.
great find! I love those side by side comparisons with the slider so you can really appreciate the differences that have been made.
Hi Dorkviking
yup,
earth observatory has quite a few nice volcano pics these days. I like too their dyptics because you can see easily the changes.
Thanks for the link dfm! I’m one of the strange persons who love to compare images to find the sometimes important differences too.
Here is one more Sinabung image, cropped the original thermal picture at http://modis.higp.hawaii.edu/cgi-bin/modis/mergeimage64?maptype=relief&jperiod=7&lonmin=98.212&latmin=3.05&lonmax=98.572&latmax=3.29&xsize=1198.&ysize=800 in order to show about the same area. The picture is from 7 february 2014.
The “heated” zone has extended eastwards / downslope to outside the area covered by pyroclastic debris. Would like to know what this exactly means; anybody an idea?
Hoi Sissel, nice to bring the heat pic in!
That’s the thermal signature of the lobe. It still grows…
I thought so too but the lobe is not at all that long, I think.
remember it is a satellite acquisition pic. There is a pretty heavy image processing there. Also a lot of heat diffusion problems due to clouds and volcanic ash. Actually I find it quite a good pic. You get the tear shape of the lobe, that’ s no mean thing.
It is a very good pic, difficult to say how accurate, but rather intriguing because the heated zone is virtually growing much faster than the lobe.
I woudl say it is normal as there are also Pyroclastic flows. The ash is very hot. And there are hot gases too.
Lobe plus PCF deposits (which retain some heat) 😕
Also the squares are quite large so the area might be slightly smaller.
The picture is a weekly summary (1 to 7 Feb). The last two days no heat anomalies have been detected. Check out further up the site. 🙂
http://modis.higp.hawaii.edu/cgi-bin/modis/modisnew.cgi
The spacial resolution of this thermal sensor seems rather poor (1 km pixel) compared to the Landsat thermal mapper (60 m), but unfortunately Landsat imagery is not available for the next months.
Hello friends of Riddles and friday!
I will shortly be with you with riddles and brainwrecks. Finally fell asleep on the sofa, suffering of a rather tedious cold or something.
Bare with me, just having my Morning/Evening coffee first.
Good to see you Carl! Have all the coffee you need…
Glad to hear you are rested. As I work graveyard shift to accommodate taking care of family and going back to collage I can sympathize with odd hour wake-up cup of coffee
I could not sleep during the night since I had a reenactment of the Battle of Somme inside my nose. Every time I was on the brink of falling asleep my nose exploded in a series of artillery attacks.
What are you going to study if I may be curious?
Oh those epic cold things, I’m sorry you’re going through that.
And I am currently going for a AS in both physics and geology at the local community collage, on a “transfer path” to the state collage UK[y] where I plan to get BS degrees
Good combo, I wish I was not too lazy to get an MBA in geology… but there is just no way I could memorize all those nonsensical names and nomenclatures of rocks that has no connection to actual reallity. I guess I could cheat and circumvent the minerology classes and opt in something else in the MBA though. I have a few close by physics courses that I could use in a degree. But… I am old and lazy nowadays.
Now over to Henrik… 😉
“…Winston Churchill criticised the British Army’s conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since.”
Whackyerpedia.
Example. (I think, though it actually criticizes war in general)
“Us and them
And after all we’re only ordinary men.
Me and you.
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do.
‘Forward’ he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who. ”
Pink Floyd.
And now an object lesson from the “People in glass houses.. ” meme.
Recently, a US diplomat was wiretapped and a recording of her making a disparaging remark about the EU was released. If the US complains about the wiretapping, who are we to talk after all the NSA bullshit?
I really think that collectively, some of our bureaucrats could have used a good old fashioned ass whipping when in grade school. Either from the playground bully or from the teachers for stupid behavior. If you stick yer %$%% out, expect someone to come along and knock it off, or you might step on it yourself.
A rather nice thrusting swarm deep inside Upptyppingar.
http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/myvatn/#view=map
Seems like it’s a decent intrusion.
Now lads, calm down 😉
Calm down hell! Upptyppingar NEEDs to be on the international news, just for the embarrassment of the yammering bobble heads after they get a reasonably proper translation!
5 bucks says they will stumble over that worse than Eyjafjallajökull once they get a translation. 😀
New post is up with Volcano of the Month + Riddly Brainwrecks!
https://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/volcano-of-the-month-riddles/