Mount Dukono, (1° 41′ 0″ N, 127° 53′ 0″ E)
I became interested in Mount Dukono after seeing several volcanic ash alerts for her from Darwin VAAC [7] while looking at alerts for Mount Sinabung. My internet searches, mostly Wikipedia, and earthquake graphing, led from Mount Dukono to a very lively tectonic setting.
Mount Dukono is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes. She is a complex volcano in a compressional oceanic setting, with seven craters: Tanah Lapang, Dilekene A, Dikekene B, Malupang Magiwe, Telori, Crater E, and Heneowara [2,3,4]; and, an ash desert.
Fig 1: Mount Dukono from Google Earth showing the ash desert.
Fig 2: Satellite image of Mount Dukono 2001/08/21. Reproduced with kind permission from Geological Survey of Japan, AIST,2014, Image Database for Volcanoes, https://gbank.gsj.jp/vsidb/image/index-E.html
Geological Setting
Mount Dukono is remote, located in the north of Halmahera Island [5], one of the Spice Islands (Maluka Islands) in east Indonesia.
Fig 3: Halmahera Island from Google Maps
Halmahera Island is made up of metamorphic, volcanic and sedimentary rocks: Paleozoic metamorphic rocks; Cretaceous ultramafics and ophiolites; Tertiary andesites, basalts, dacite , rhyolites, clastic sediments and limestone; and, Quaternary flows, tuffs and ignimbrites [6]. A geology that is characteristic of a collision or subduction zone.
Eruptive History
Fig 4: Satellite image of Mt Dukono erupting on 2 February 2014. Source: Geological Survey of Japan, AIST,2014, Image Database for Volcanoes, https://gbank.gsj.jp/vsidb/image/index-E.html
According to GVP, recent eruptive activity has been: 15 November 1550 VEI 3; 1719; 1868 VEI2; 1901 VEI 2; and, 13 August 1933 VEI3 (still continuing) [2].
Mt Dukono’s eruptions tend to be explosive, sometimes with lava flows. Her lavas are: andesite / basaltic andesite; trachyte / trachyandesite; and, basalt / picro-basalt [2]. During the 1550 eruption, the strait between Halmahera and Gunung Mamuya filled with lava [2]. Activity in 2014 to the time of writing has been frequent but moderate. The maximum plume height reached so far this year as reported by Darwin VAAC is 14,000 feet [7]
A rough estimate by the author of the eruption volume is shown in this graph using plume heights from Darwin VAAC [7] and a formula from L.G. Mastin et al [8]:
Fig 5: Graph by the author, reproduced with her permission here; copyright rests with the author. Background image by Grant Davey, published under Wiki Creative Commons licence v2.0: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mt_Dukono.jpg
Compare this to a rough estimate of the eruptive volume of the recent eruption of Mt Kelud:
Fig 6: Graph by the author, reproduced with her permission here; copyright rests with the author. Background image of the lava dome from Kelud’s webcam: http://vsi.esdm.go.id . Sadly, neither the lava dome nor the webcam survived the eruption.
Tectonic Setting
The Maluku Islands are located on the Halmahera Plate[11] which is at the meeting point of four geological plates and two continental blocks.
Fig 7: Satellite image from Google Maps. Map of the tectonic plates by Sting and Rémih, published under Wiki Creative Commons Licence v 2.0 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Molucca_Sea_Plate_map-fr.png
The Molucca Sea is tectonically very active. Clearly, an incentive to do a bit of earthquake graphing!
Fig 8: Graph by the author, reproduced with her permission here; copyright rests with the author. Background map from Google Maps.
The graph shows the earthquakes from 31 March 1994 to 30 March 2014 as reported by USGS [13]. You can see the subduction zone in the top left of the graph. However, something looks a bit unusual here: Mt Dukono is to the east of the subduction zone and, at first site, appears to be on the subducting plate.
But take a look at what’s going on underneath the ground, there is a second subduction zone.
Fig 9: Graph by the author, reproduced with her permission here; copyright rests with the author. Source data from USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ . Colours indicate depths.
The subduction zone to the west (left in the above graph) is the Sangihe subduction system [14]; and, the second one to the east (right in the above graph) is the Halmahera subduction system [11]. This is the only known example of the collision between two active arcs in an ocean basin. The collision zone is the Molucca Sea Collision Zone [15]: the two subduction systems appear to have fully subducted the oceanic lithosphere of the Molucca Sea plate [16]; and, the Sangihe arc now over-rides the Halmahera forearc.
This is what the collision zone looks like on the surface:
Fig 10: Composite image by the author from Google Maps.
Maju Island is one of the islands at the surface (A and B are two data points from the top of the meeting point of the two collision zones so I could find it on the map). Maju Island may be volcanic but she is eluding internet searches so far (I have not tried Google Scholar yet) ….
Hope you enjoyed reading this. The usual caveats:” Not an expert” apply.
Now I am off to the bar for a recuperative drink. See you there! ☺
KarenZ, March 2014
Sources & References:
- Satellite images of Dukono: Geological Survey of Japan, AIST,2014, Image Database for Volcanoes, https://gbank.gsj.jp/vsidb/image/index-E.html
- GVP: http://www.volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=268010
- Dukono: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukono
- John Search: http://www.volcanolive.com/dukono.html
- Halmahera Island: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halmahera
- Dukono, Halmahera Arc Volcanoes, Indonesia: http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/oldroot/volcanoes/dukono/dukono.html
- Plume heights: Darwin VAAC: http://www.bom.gov.au/info/vaac/advisories.shtml
- Formula for eruption volumes: Mastin, L.G. et al., “A multidisciplinary effort to assign realistic source parameters to models of volcanic ash-cloud transport and dispersion during eruptions”, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (2009), doi:10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2009.01.008
- Background image: Dukono’s main crater: Grant Davey, published under Wiki Creative Commons licence v2.0: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mt_Dukono.jpg
- Background image: Kelud’s lava dome came from here but the webcam did not survive the eruption: http://vsi.esdm.go.id
- Halmahera Plate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halmahera_Plate
- Map of the tectonic plates by Sting and Rémih: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Molucca_Sea_Plate_map-fr.png
- USGS: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes
- Sangihe Plate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangihe_Plate
- Molucca Sea Collision Zone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molucca_Sea_Collision_Zone
- Molucca Sea Plate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molucca_Sea_Plate
Image Wikimedia Commons
VolcanoCafé 
The plot shows the 2 subductions very neatly. Nice one Karen.
Some other views
http://celineetlionnelparcourentlemonde.blogspot.fr/2013/11/ascension-du-dukono-un-trek-de-fou.html
Thank you. Great views and the article translates into English reasonably well for those who might need it.
*that’s for dfm’s link 🙂
WoW,
Great piece of work Karenz, it has everything, a Volcano most of us will never have heard of, research (with references,) graphs, maps and plots (especially plots 🙂 ) Your plot of the collision zone looks as though it might be a still from a 3D rotating plot… I am (desperately) curious to know how well that might show the colliding plates….
Enjoy yr beer, it’s surely earned 😀
Here is what the colliding plates look like:
It’s a simplified representation (not to scale) of Fig 10 in Robert Hall’s “Cenozoic geological and plate tectonic evolution of SE Asia and the SW Pacific: computer-based reconstructions, model and animations”, Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 20 (2002) 353 – 431. Fig 10 shows it much better.
Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367912001000694
Probably a very interesting region regarding mineral ressources.
Nice read to come home to after a veryyyyyy long day 🙂
Thank you Karen, very well written. 🙂
Thanks Karen! Nice work.
That’s quite a tectonic mess going on there.
Great Post…
Thank you Karen! Dukono has always been a presence in my volcanic fantasies too, though I had never thought of looking more closely for information on her. And what a tectonic setting! Just wait until Bruce reads this post – food for thought!
🙂
And here was me thinking that it was Diana’s wellingtons that you dreamt of 😉
*KarenZ
It’s getting late …
ROFLOL!!!! 😀
7 craters that is? Cool
Also is Ecuador’s Tungurahua a possible candidate for this month’s volcano?
Nice tectonic setting…
“All hands forward, lay aft, all hands aft, lay forward, all hands amidships, direct traffic.”
Long drive today. The interesting thing that I have to report is that the Bonifay Mannequin is now a brunette.
(There is a “we buy gold” shop there that has a Mannequin that slowly rotates her sign that stands next to the main street. It saves having to hire someone to stand there and wave the sign. The first time I saw it, it appeared as though Stevie Nicks was waving the sign. Later journeys there have seen her without the shawls and lace, and now the wig has changed to dark black hair… almost like Joan Jett with a bad hair day… and no leather. Go figure.)
Speaking of Gold…. a commercial on the radio was hawking gold and that if you call in to get their information package, they said they would give you a “FREE gram of SILVER!”
If you look up the Troy ounce to gram conversion, then factor in the spot price of silver, that works out to about 86 US cents. You might be able to buy a piece of gum for that generous offer.
Tomorrow should be quite cool. I only have one other open ticket, but the user took off to lake city… with the unit I am supposed to work on. That’s 481 km from here and well outside my travel range. I only go up to a zone 4, and that would qualify as zone 9, well in excess of what is acceptable for a travel fee. (though they have sent as far as zone 6 in emergencies when no other tech was available to cover the call. {he had expired}) The un-nerving part of that was that he was about my age and seemed (to me) to be more fit than I am. Per a piece that heard on the radio today, BMI is not a real good indicator of life expectancy. Due to an oddity in physiology, my build isn’t quite normal. I have a somewhat longer than average torso and carry more mass that I appear to have. At one time I managed to get down to 195 lbs but I was always sicker than a dog until I got back up into to the low 200’s. Even at 195 the official BMI showed me as over weight. For me, the low 200’s is where I feel the best at. The benefit of hovering around 200 to 210 is that when someone tries to knock you over and you don’t go down, they tend to think twice about it. I think the last time I was actually at a natural 195 was back in high school. So, I’ve held within about 2 to 5% of that weight for 30 years, I think I’m doing okay.
I am fairly top heavy, one might call me carrot shaped. Ie, I have surprisingly wide shoulders genetically. I am one of those people who are naturaly born slim and tall. In high school I had a problem going above 145 and at 189cm and wide extremely wide shoulders I was thinner than…
25 years lifting weights have only made me look normal and about now I way 200 something lbs (94kg). I am that natural proof that you can’t get the size of Arnold just by training hard. You need to pop steroids too.
At my paternal grandmothers funeral was the time I noticed our odd shoulder trait. Everyone on my fathers side had a shoulder with like a barn. Then I really took a look in the mirror and discovered that I was the widest of the lot.
Back when the oldest grandkid turned 21, a group of us grabbed his arse and held him down for the traditional good luck spank. (one whack per year) He was quite wirey and unwieldy but we got him. He brought that up yesterday when he and I were discussing that body-mass topic. Evidently what he remembers is that I had evidently laid on top of him to hold him down while he got his whacks. I told him the hard part was doing it without having a heart attack or using any pressure points. “How do you forcibly pin someone down without hurting them?”
And on an unusually serious note for a morning musing…
Everyone I guess knows that Putin has amassed an army on the border to Ukraine that is ready to attack Ukraine on a minutes notice, but not many have had the time to digest the news from yesterday.
Yesterday all 28 memberstates of NATO voted to send a NATO-army into Ukraine. It is the first time NATO operates in a non member state to secure that state.
What will be the consequences of this? Well, either Putin tries to get there first and attacks within the next few days, or we get a new cold war full on with the armies of the west and east glaring at each other over a fortified border. Of course the outcome would not be better to just leave Putin be in his aspiration to become the new Tzar of all the Russias.
The cold war never got into a shooting war due to the Russian leaders back then actually being pretty sensible, there was a logic behind their particular madness. The current one is not that sensible and he might decide to take Ukraine with or without NATO troops there since he is driven by plain raw greed. Even messier times ahead I think.
Darn!
Agreed
The main issue Putin has from my perspective is that his country isn’t 100% behind him. It’s easy to plan an invasion and potentially start a very large war if your country is entirely behind your decisions. Fortunately, there are a lot of sensible Russians who realize Putin as the corrupt, power hungry person he is. There will likely be a ton of internal resistance to this happening, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t happen.
One great thing about this day and age, is that it’s much more difficult to brainwash a culture or see the insane levels of mob mentality that led to Nazi Germany, primarily due to how easy information spreads across cultures, languages, and regions. When you can log on to a website like volcanocafe and speak with people from tons of different backgrounds and nationalities, it’s easy to realize that most educated people aren’t all that different. Also, most countries are way too interdependent on each other due to globalism nowadays. A new world war isn’t in anybody’s interest since it’ll just be a lose-lose situation for everyone who is acting rationally and with their country’s best intentions (although there are cases where this isn’t necessarily true).
how much has the US spent on destabilizing the Ukraine? last I heard it was over 5 billion in the last 5 years what about Syria US is paying via the saudi’s for mercenaries there to control a pipeline that does not even exist Afghanistan was not about 9-11 it was for a pipeline access to the Caspian oil fields. Iraq dared to sell oil for euro’s, lybia dared to desire to sell oil for gold. Iran dared to toss a tin pot dictator out that had been installed by the us
the point is the us has filthy dirty hands all over the world. the great game of resource theft.
look at the us a totally brainwashed culture but what can one expect when 5 or 6 corporations control the major media outlets.
What a load of crap. We’re not the ones destabilizing Ukraine.
I think Gina is on the right track, but as Tyler Mannison notes, it’s not the US.
We are just the muscle (for what that’s worth) doing the bidding of multinational power brokers. I have no idea if Soros and company are behind this or not, but its the sort of thing he would leap on and work for profit.
It is not George Soros behind it, it is Carl Bildt. We have spent hordes on making Ukraine go to Europe, but we forgot that we do not have an army any longer.
Yeah ya do. That’s how the US has been selling itself for years. The problem is that we have shifting priorities and allegiances.
… and competencies.
About that competency bit.
Prior to the Iraq incursion into Kuwait, the USAF had been on a tear to eliminate the A-10 Warthog. It’s not pretty, it’s not sleek, and it’s not fast. In other words, it’s not “sexy.”
Despite that, no platform was as adept at killing tanks. That was what it was made for, and that is what it did… quite well. (possibly too well, just look at the Highway of Death → a classic example of overkill.)
Now… there is again talk of getting rid of it.
That overkill mentality is what brought us the F-4 Phantom. “Stick enough power behind it and you can make a brick fly.” and the Nuclear Landmine.
Another example is the M1A1 Abrams tank. A group of them drove into a trap (kill box) and due to the design and technology built into their systems and support vehicles, literally annihilated the attackers. (Battle of 73 Easting.) Referring back to my original point, we are still trying to work out that whole Iraq thing.
I saw the Basra highway. Probably the most awful thing I have ever witnessed. Very few tanks and very few weapons there – lots of private vehicles stolen from Kuwait and loaded with loot. Toilet seats and lightbulbs were apparently very popular. There were a lot of coalition pilots who had grave misgivings about those missions. Who can blame them? They never signed up to gun down a completely beaten and virtually unarmed rabble fleeing to get back home.
Yeah, a 25 mm D/U or Tungsten round will blast right through an engine block like it’s butter. Anything “shielded” by thin automotive body panels doesn’t stand a chance.
Unrelated (sort of)… I met an areographers mate (weather guesser) who is (as far as I know) the only person ever to be hit with a round from a Vulcan Phalanx (related to the weapon on an A-10) and survived. He was pointing out a cloud feature when a stray round from a live fire exercise overshot the island and traveled down the length of his arm… filleting it. He spent a lot of time in the hospital while they put his arm back together. Dude got freaky nervous anytime our CIWS was in air ready mode. Can’t really say as I blame him.
“War is caused by avarice,miscalculation, or stupidity-usually a combination of all three.”
attr.W.Churchill
I have heard Pootie is the biggest threat to Europe.NATO had better be ready for this.
Our sec. of Defense wants to wind our (US) military down to pre WW2 levels..
I truly am afraid for this situation…I think we underestimate Putin….
Putins approval rating according to Voice of Russia (take that for what is it worth)
http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_02_27/Putin-s-approval-rating-in-Russia-highest-in-two-years-poll-1831/
Well, every time we have cut down on the size of our military, we have wound up in a shit fight.
IMO, the greatest threat to Europe and NATO is from the financial shitbags trying to get access to a pristine market so that they can rape more profit from the population. (Yeah, that may be a bit of over-glossing it, but that’s my take on it) Where they are making a mistake, is trying to horn in on some other sharks market.
Side Note: One phenomena that showed up in the US service station market, is the practice of “pre-pay.” This was done to keep thieves from driving off with out paying for their gas. It is interesting that Putin is thinking of adopting this strategy with Ukraine…
There is a bone to be chewed with regards to the oil industry. A few scores to be settled. That’s why we have the crap fest down in Syria since Assad would not agree to the Quatar/Saudi pipe line that would mess with Gazprom’s monopoly on the gas feed to Europe. They have to smear him as much as they can to get the “international” community to call for his ouster so that they can put in a lakey that will do their bidding. Since that effort has stalled, Crimea comes into play as an alternate strategy to screw with the Gazprom monopoly.
The fun part about all this? The North Sea (area) has ample supply not that far away. If a company like Statoil did some native development they could make this whole episode of teeth gnashing a moot point and make serious money at the same time by dropping a feed system from the North. Unfortunately, the NIBY shits who are so vociferous about fracking and oil production still have not lessened their demand for affordable energy. They fail to see that actions have consequences, and they are essentially setting up another war with their myopic ranting. With all their “green” energy chanting, I have yet to see one plan that even has a half assed chance of being self sufficient, with the exception of El Hierro. (Until Tanganasoga or a related vent erupts)
Corruptocracies reign. And there is not much you can do until someone gets up off of their ass and takes out the trash.
Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF) was “established by President Barack Obama in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.” But, according to the Department’s IG, it was all a fraud: a fraud that according to the DOJ itself had been going on since at least November 2009.
The DOJ is run my Mr. ‘You don’t want to go there Buddy‘ Psst… that’s not something an ex-Judge would take lightly.
Thought you might find this interesting – practice flight time has increased from the 3 hours or whatever was the extent of the test flying, referred to in a recent discussion on this subject:
http://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/227/Possible-sonic-boom-felt-like-an-earthquake-by-the-population-in-California
They did the same off the coast of Wales a couple of weeks ago. Sonic booms from out at sea shut down all the tills in the supermarket and cut the electricity supply to the hospital briefly too.
We hadn’t had such things here since the 1970’s, when our Air Force was flying jets too fast inland, from practice out at sea.
In defense of the Military. A jet operating at just under supersonic speeds can momentarily and without warning, enter a region of air where the speed of sound is considerably lower than what it was flying in. IMO, this is probably what happened.
Yes they’ve been low-level flying around us in N Wales a lot more than normal. But not supersonic! Day and night.
Must be a bit of a panic on.
It’s a bit busy up here on the NW coast of Scotland too. On the sonic boom subject I remember when a jet on display at Farnborough one year accidentally crossed the sound barrier very close to the ground taking out the towers windows, most of the local houses windows and those at a nearby hospital. One year I was there some Phantoms pushed close to Mach 1. Fortunately I saw them coming, each obscured by its own cone of cloud and, as they passed, I could see the roofs of all the cars in the car park flex inward, a couple permanently.
“War is caused by avarice,miscalculation, or stupidity-usually a combination of all three.”
attr.W.Churchill
We’ve got the stupid angle covered quite well. Hell, BLM has 200 armed agents out stealing cattle from a Nevada Rancher.
“No cow justifies the atmosphere of intimidation which currently exists nor the limitation of constitutional rights that are sacred to all Nevadans.”
– Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval
Or in the words of Blind Willie Johnson… “Nigrae nocte frigus terram” or in English, Dark was the ground, cold was the ground.
Carl, would you have a link or something to were you came across this? I was looking for small steps to deescalate the issue. If this is the case about Nato in Ukraine it is a illogical step and very surprising.
I found this about current events
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int/world-news/international-news/10173-tensions-ease-in-ukraine.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/08/us-moscow-crimea-style-intervention-eastern-ukraine
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/10/us-ukraine-crisis-eu-mission-idUSBREA391AG20140410
The last link talks about a police force\law officials?
Hmmm … a source would indeed be helpful. As far as I am aware NATO has said a lot, but only so far decided to suspend routine military co-operation, and to mount daily AWACS patrols over Romania, and once every two days over Poland. It has also barred all but the top four honchos from the Russian mission to NATO from entering the building in Brussels!
The US has also decided to belatedly include fighter jets in pre-planned exercises in Poland and Romania, and to increase its number of fighters at the routine NATO air defence detachment in Lithuania. And sent ships (that, ironically, not long ago were there to help the Russians with security during the Winter Olympics) back into the Black Sea for “exercises”. Nothing like pouring gasoline on the fire, eh Uncle Sam?
One of the more bizarre occurrences in this crisis concerns NATO member Bulgaria. For a few weeks now Russia has been flying quite a few reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Black Sea. Bulgaria has been regularly intercepting them. Guess what Bulgaria flies? MiGs! And guess who provides all the spares and maintenance support for them? Russia!! Seems that servicing fighter jets falls outside the realms of “routine military co-operation”.
What i am not conformable with is the”miscalculation” thing. one trigger-happy or nervous soldier, jet jock etc. and this thing could unwind quickly….
It’s not like anyone would maintain a firing solution on a potentially hostile target now is it?
(Note: This happens all the time. The detect to engage sequence is always being excersised by military forces… that’s how the Saratoga managed to shoot a Turkish destroyer.)
Source: Wikipdia
Without providing prior notice, officers on Saratoga woke the enlisted Sea Sparrow missile team and directed them to conduct the simulated attack. Certain members of the missile firing team were not told that the exercise was a drill, rather than an actual event.
As the drill progressed, the missile system operator used language to indicate he was preparing to fire a live missile, but due to the absence of standard terminology, the responsible officers failed to appreciate the significance of the terms used and the requests made. Specifically, the Target Acquisition System operator issued the command “arm and tune”, terminology the console operators understood to require arming of the missiles in preparation for actual firing. The officers supervising the drill did not realize that “arm and tune” signified a live firing. As a result, shortly after midnight on the morning of 1 October, Saratoga fired two live Sea Sparrow missiles at Muavenet.
Idle speculation: Admiral Boorda‘s assisted suicide could have been due to this (He was in overall command) or from the hell fire that he was preparing to release on those responsible for the Tail Hook scandal. I had met Admiral Boorda when he visited our command, and there is just no way that someone with as small a frame as his could have managed to shoot himself in the chest with a shotgun. (While sanding on the walkway in front of his house)
Nice post, KarenZ. Interesting plate boundary mess. Cheers –
Thank you. 🙂
I had always wondered about the shape of Celebes / Sulawesi, as it looks nothing like other large islands. The multiple plate mash-up explains a little. Cheers –
Thanks! I enjoyed reading your post. I never knew these places existed until now. Off to learn more!
I didn’t either 🙂
Webcam on Grimsvotn.
http://vedur2.mogt.is/grimsfjall/webcam/
Nice one Tyler!
You have found The Holy Grail of Webcams!
One can actually see the Nunataks nicely on it.
Thanks Taylor. added to the collection.
Thanks Tylor, great find, will add it to my collection too. Must be fairly new, I had scoured that website a few days ago.
Tyler looks like snow melting from the top of the cam but gt8 snap
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/04/tambora_eruption_caused_the_year_without_a_summer_cholera_opium_famine_and.html VERY INTERESTING
More Musings on Frodo Baggins!
Today I have spent my day driving around in the innards of Skåne (southmost sweden). It is a place with large fields of crop and a very rich soil. And there are slowly roling hills, a few thickets, old windmills… The rural works.
It is the kind of place where people walkabout with their working shirts sleeves rolled up and long-vests on top together with baggy pants and bare feet.
And as you come around the corner there is a quaint little village in a valley it suddenly dawns upon you. You are amongst the Hobbits. It is about then you notice the bare feet, the short stature, the rotund stomachs, the jovial expression and that they do smoke pipe.
For lunch we stoped at an Inn and had lunch. No pizza joint, no a real god honest Inn. It was known as the “New Inn” since it was only 483 years old. It though stands on where the Old Inn was before it burnt down in a mysterious explosion blamed on (hold on) The Elfs. The Innkeeper looked exactly like Bilbo.
I did not expect to find Hobbits today. Regarding the Elfs blowing up the Old Inn… It is more likely that it blew up in a still accident. The Inns in the Olden Days had stilling rights bestowed upon them.
Its amazing how quickly a room full of alcohol vapor can reach the lower explosive limit…
That’s one reason why I did my reflux still experiment outside. I had no idea that I would be drawing 83% ABV on one pass. (But I did know it was going to be better than a pot still)
(it has since been disassembled and scrapped. But I still retain the skill set to build it should I need something to barter with after the society collapses. Alcohol is a easily monetized commodity both for medicinal and recreational usage.)
Now a quick rant against the marketing pukes… Yesterday, in Ponce de Leon I ran across a display in a convenience store that had Ball Mason jars with some sort of liquid. Closer examination revealed that they were some sort of alcohol drink done up to have the appearance of moonshine. These were apparently legal and had all the requisite legal markings and seals. The stated strength was 28% ABV. The clerk noted that they were malt liquor. I snickered at it, paid for my gas and continued down the road.
(If it was 28% that would make it about half the strength of the standard whiskey here)
FL law limits the upper strength of Everclear™ at about 75%; ABV.
Strange how this process can produce a chemical compound (raw spirits with all the weird aromatics involved) that completely could blast our minds to not think at all the consequences around… That is really great then 🙂
There is a city in the far north of sweden where they make a spirit that has no taste at all even at 70 percent. You just feel how it burns as you breath… It does not give you a hangover the day after, but you should not drive any heavy equipment the day after…
I guess it has to do with the quality of the water they base the brew on. It is the clearest water on earth as it pushes out of through cold springs. It is often millions of years old as it pushes up.
If there were a legal way for me to do it, I would be distilling like a mad man. The whole process is quite entertaining.
I’ve done ad hoc aging experiments using Everclear™. One that seems fruitful is using charred maple rather than oak. It yields a lighter “whiskey.” (Whiskey is by definition aged in oak). I’m thinking of trying a different wood such as pecan or mesquite the next time I try it. (Cut the Everclear to 80 proof and bottle in gallon jug with the appropriate charred wood. The benefit is that using purchased Everclear™ makes it a legal operation since all taxes are paid.)
Did they have foot hair? My wife gives me a bad time about mine…. 😉
There is always bikini wax….
In this case we have a candidate for a Brazilian Fot Wax.
OT.
A little bit of snow in the westfjords yesterday, with UAV footage.
http://www.ruv.is/frett/margra-daga-mokstur-a-vestfjordum
Operational Note:
If you honk your horn to let me know you are preparing to back out of a parking space, that’s cool. If you do it because your in a hurry, bad move. If I am directly behind you lugging groceries, I’m just going to stop and look at you so I can tell which way to dodge. I’m also gonna mark your vehicle if you decide to force the issue by accelerating towards me. That way FHP can more easily identify who you are later.
Er .. Stay safe.
He waited until I passed. I was actually very pissed off that that time (traffic) and ready for anything stupid to occur. When I get pissed off I get highly cautious about stuff around me.
On a lighter note, the grandkid made it to court and was able to testify. It turned out that it was a hearing about one of the perpetrators that conducted the home invasion robbery where he was living at. This particular person was already under probation as a juvenile offender and has now managed to make it into adult court for his actions. The issue with the grandkid was that he was unaware of his subpoena to appear and testify until about 2 hours before the hearing. One thing he is quite aware of is the idea of not pissing off a judge. So, he was jumping through his arse getting dressed and down to the hearing. His notification had come in the mail to the original address, but he has since moved back in here. His previous house-mates hadn’t seen the need of telling him about the summons. (that sort of lackadaisical attitude is one of the reasons why he moved back here… plus, I still have his dog.)
Thank you Karen for an incredibly interesting Post. You have certainly pulled out all the stops on this one and include some excellent plots. What a complex and fascinating place this area is. The inhabitants must be so used to earthquakes. I wonder if they get more tsunamis than most areas.
As for the world stage. Oh dear! Here we go again… and again….
I go along with Lurking. The financial moguls plot and plan like patient spiders and behind closed doors webs of intrigues are spun.
It’s notable that whenever there is a major financial crisis then wars tend to be an answer to getting stagnating economies on the move.
I truly hope that since most Russians now have had a small taste of the freedoms brought about by allowing wider trade and more democratic attitudes they will not readily want to give up their individual gains. The old USSR was so vast it did well to hold so many differing groups of people together for so long. I am not surprised that there is rebellion against the old regimes but who produces and controls fuel for the world at present holds the highest cards.
Thanks for the opinion support.
The part that worries me is that the timing of all this fits the musing of Nikolai Kondratiev about western societies. The general idea is that western society follows a sort of long wave pattern of about 45 to 60 years as technical innovation drives the economy to a peak, and then there is a roll-off towards a contraction./depression until the next technological innovation comes along to drive the next cycle. Usually, some economically based or driven war/conflict comes about in the low point of the cycle. (American Civil War → coincidental to some armed conflicts in Eruope, WW-I, WW-II…)
My take on it was that the “war on terror” and all these relatively low level skirmishes were an attempt to have a “managed” war until the next big thing (innovation) came along.
This is the latest wave starting with the IT/computer revolution. The three curves are just for reference as to where you would be on a wave of that particular length.
Warning… not a lot of people put much validity to this idea. The spooky part is that if any of the Powers that Be do believe in it, they may try to play it for max profits. Which would make it a self fulfilling prophesy… dragging us along for the ride.
The stock market levels are poor choice for comparing the economies. Since most currencies are decoupled from anything tangible (Fiat currency), the prices fluctuate with very little predictability and add to the uncertainty. As an example, if you adjust the DJIX to a 1934 gold pegged dollar, the rebound after the big 2008 dip goes away… completely.
Nothing new in History. Each generation thinks they know a lot more and historical happenings are old fashioned and bear no relation to their present. Yeah! Right!
What never changes is human nature………
Do not forget the Humble Horticulturists. They invented the economic bubble.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
My first encounter with an economic bubble was the Donkey Kong-craze. Donkey Kong was the first hand held game from Nintendo. It featured two black and white LCD screens and made bleeping noises. It was the “Must-have” to be cool around when I was 12.
Problem was that demand far outweighed availability. If you were one of the first to get one you was “way cool”, if not the kids nagged their parents to no end. So, a black-market for Donkey Kong games came into place. I was lucky and had an uncle who got me one when he was in Hongkong. As I remember it I was the first one in my school class to get one. In the end there was one father of a friend of mine who paid about 10 times more than the listed price since there was at the time a 4 year waiting list for the dang game.
I learned a lot from Donkey Kong.
I’ve been meaning to work back to that bubble. Just haven’t gotten around to it. What technological innovation there was is beyond me, unless it was the whole concept of ridding a bubble. (Something that still plagues markets)
It was a virus that split the colours of the tulips into two. This virus type of tulips was named “Bizarres” and fetched insane prices. So, nature was to blame for that bubble (and stupid humans).
The 17000’s was Britain’s “Renaissance”. Technology and science were taking huge leaps. Not to mention exploration, new lands and so new produce to import and trade such as spices and slaves! One notable development in 1724 came from the New Colony across the Atlantic…….French toast was developed by tavern owner Joseph French, at a roadside tavern near Albany, New York. (This claim to fame is suspect as French Toast had been around for hundreds of years except it has been called many different names, Spanish Toast, German Toast, Eggy bread :))
17000s????? OOps ! 1700’s 😀
Geo Lurking, the information above you posted is drawing parallel lines between what Marx said and possible weak spots with high end capitalism.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/21/creditcrunch-globaleconomy
With out Asia\fall of communism plus the digital age, allot of questions would be asked. However I think its the best current system we have for 7+ billion people and WMD’S.
Strong AI and nano tech would be my bet for of the next wave you have written about.
http://www.i-programmer.info/babbages-bag/297-artificial-intelligence.html
Support Diana and for yourself too.
Here is my bet for the future.
Smart dust connective nodes. Dust particle sized (or smaller) nodes that connect to each other or any neural network. A few hundred kilograms of this would be enough to cover the entire planet and we would all have access to the internet 24/7 with almost infinite bandwidth.
As we eat we will ingest the smartdust nodes and they will connect to our neural network (brains) and we will get connected directly to each other and the internet.
Of course there will be weaponized smartdust nodes so that you can “dial a death” on anyone at any time for any reason as long as you are controlling the weaponized smartdust.
In the end humanity will be one humongous computer and we can use our friends like any other app.
If you think the above is science fiction, think again. All large economic revolutions have been fueled by one thing. And that is humanities wish to not be alone. So, we invented travelling to visit each other (steam-trains to airplanes), remote contacting (from letters to email), distance talking (from the phone to Skype). All really successfull inventions have been praying on our feer of being alone in the dark night of the human soul. What makes the technology contact-giver so successfull is that there is an opposing force of us being afraid of intimacy. So a smart phone lets us have human interaction from the safety of our own homes, no messy getting together.
Dark was the night, cold was the ground.
human beings are the most inventive when it comes to conflict/war
“The old USSR was so vast it did well to hold so many differing groups of people together for so long”
Amazing what you can accomplish with a gun… or a gulag.
To be honest, the guns were reserved for those who did not hold the same ideology or were not complying with the accepted ideology. We are working on that perceived shortcoming here in the US.
…and the spirit of Tamara Press lives on even in Russia’s new affluent more capitalist society 🙂
New webcam on Grímsfjall at 1760 m, looking to west over Svíahnjúka and part of the ice covered lake Grímsvötn:
http://vedur2.mogt.is/grimsfjall/webcam/
And in a twist bordering on the sublime, an international panel of geoscientists now point the finger towards human activity as the cause for the L’Aquila earthquakes. Namely gas extraction in a nearby field. To even better things, the Cavone Field operated by Gas Plus has as an interested party the same eggheads that started the legal proceedings against the scientists (different ones than on the panel) responsible for monitoring for earthquakes.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6180/141.full
So… The Hyenas smell blood (deep pockets)
Typical for scavengers who have no real productive value.
“cause” ?
Water injection lowering the triggering point so that the earthquake occured. This is though an interesting concept. If they had not injected water and lowered the trigger-point the earthquake would then have happened at a later date, but at the same time the ensuing earthquake would then most likely have been larger than the M6.2 earthquake that was the main chock.
The fun part with water injection is that you get loads of smaller earthquakes on a faultline, and people therefore think that the water injection is increasing the seismic activity. But in reallity you are seeing a future large earthquake getting divided up into smaller ones occuring all the time.
If a faultline has a potential for a M7 earthquake and you inject water it will increase the amount and decrease the magnitude. So, your M7 could instead become 10 M6es. This is though not likely unless you are very close to the big M7.
If we look at Hengill and the Hellisheidarvirkjun. That region had a big quake just previous to the big deep injection started. There we instead see hoardes of small quakes happening since the tension building up is released almost instantly. So, the major M7 there is divided into 100.000 M2 earthquakes over a period of 90 years or so.
Hope this gave you an inkling about “cause”?
Careful, this is not about L’Aquila (2009) but the Emilia region (further north) earthquake sequence in 2012, three years later. It’s a very different story 😉
Thank you for the clarification. Note to self, must read more carefully 🙂
Whats up with the higher frequency tremor increase on the Hekla MJO and Godabunga stations? I see only 5-6 m/s average wind speeds around Hekla.
That is the forecasted storm setting in. The windmeter is at a farm that is sometimes sheltered from the wind. So the seismometers normally start picking up the stormnoise before the windmeter.
OT,
Found these links on my travels.
http://pbo.unavco.org/instruments/bsm
Borehole Strainmeter graph is great,
http://pbo.unavco.org/documentation/bsm/courses
http://pbo.unavco.org/documentation/bsm/process/#Steps
Might be good for a short course.
Some new footage on Nishino Shima. Note the lava projection and the shape of the lava flows at the end of the video.
What I found interesting is that the larger cone has gone microcaldera. The entre top half has blasted out leaving a rather cute somma ring. Nishinoshima is really a miniature volcano laboratory that show everything.
I wish I had gotten to see the explotion that blasted away the cone and the lavalake. Oh, and did you notice that the lavalake and cone is now replaced by a magmadome.
Nishinoshima, the candy that changes flavour all the time!
Interesting OT article about a new Mars Lander . Note the shape…
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0410/How-can-NASA-put-a-two-story-building-on-Mars-Its-very-own-flying-saucer.-video
BTW they are testing it in Hawaii. surfing’s much better there than the Mojave or White sands 🙂
Thank you KarenZ for shedding some light on Dukono for us!
Aaaand for all you 3D lovers there is great news (ahem, at least for me, it´s from 3 Jan 2014): The IRIS earthquake browser now offers a real 3D view!
http://www.iris.edu/ieb
Choose your region of interest and click on 3D viewer!
More information here: http://www.iris.edu/ieb/help/
Dukono plate setting:
http://www.iris.edu/3dv/index.html?caller=IEB&st=1970-01-01&et=2025-01-01&ob=time-desc&li=5000&xla=4.510&nla=-1.439&xlo=130.276&nlo=123.410&sbl=1&pbl=1&zm=7&mt=ter&sz=med
Ukviggen recently showed photos of volcanologists taking samples at Nyamuragira in the DR Kongo, Africa´s most active volcano. Claude Grandpey reports that the Volcanic Observatory of Goma sais the volcano is highly active and might erupt in the coming days or weeks. NASA reports gas and steam emission.
http://volcans.blogs-de-voyage.fr/2014/04/11/une-eruption-du-nyiamuragira-la-semaine-prochaine-les-paris-sont-ouverts-will-nyiamuragira-erupt-next-week-its-anyones-guess/
Terra/Modis image with heat anomalies and overlay of Aura/OMI image of sulfur dioxide in the lower troposphere from 10 Apr 2010:
Image made with http://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/
Very interesting – thanks chryphia.
Here’s three photos taken on March 17. Credit: Sylvain Liechti/MONUSCO
Crater area of Nyamuragira:
To boldly go … volcanologist with UN from University of Naples:
Taking gas emission readings:
That crater looks vast and intimidating!
Riddles on the way everyone!
It will though take me about an hour or an hour and a half.
Long day and a looong week.
Mt Ranger is back in town. Got to go work on his laptop.
I leave you to ponder footware for your inevitable Hekla Dalek dance. 😀
My vote is for the purple fuzzies in the middle of the pic.
Sure, they are not Uggs, but they should be relatively warm.
Creative new post is up, put on your thinking cap for this one!
https://volcanocafe.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/diy-volcano-volcano-of-the-month-riddles/