Mount Spurr (source: wikipedia)
Since April 2024, Mount Spurr has shown increasing signs of activity. These are now at a level where an eruption is plausible. Nothing is ever guaranteed with Alaskan volcanoes: they can always decide to go back into the freezer. Eruptions are decided on the Spurr of the moment. (Yes, I had to get that one in. Do it early and get it done with.) But the build-up is there. We are all on hand to spurr it on. (Yes, that one was needed too.)
America tends not to go in for imaginative names. Things have simple names. That may be a legacy from the old homeland, where names as ‘Irish Sea’, ‘English Channel’ or ‘Mount Everest’ (named after someone who has never been there) also reveal a certain lack of nominative creativity. Often, mountains are named after people who no one remembers. That even applies to the entire continent, the only one named after a person (counting both Americas as one). Sometimes the naming goes a bit askew. The new-fangled ‘Gulf of America’ is presumably meant to be named after the country, not the continent and so should be called the ‘Gulf of the United States of America’. If the continent is meant, then the name should really be ‘Gulf of the Americas’, and if the national pastime was meant it should have been ‘Golf of America’. Historically, the name referred to the nation that owned it (or rather, owned the coast), and strictly speaking should have been the ‘Gulf of Spain and France’. I am now also awaiting the renaming of the Gulf Stream.
There are three locations in the US (to use the abbreviated name of the nation) or elsewhere named after Spurr: a town in Michigan, a crater on the Moon and a mountain in Alaska. It is the latter that is brewing trouble. The Michigan town is named after a local mountain which is called Spurr Mountain (so no confusion there) and was named after John Spurr, an early miner. The lunar crater is named after a geologist, Josiah Spurr, an early explorer who traveled extensively in Alaska and, amongst others, discovered the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes’, albeit a decade before the Katmai eruption that turned it into smokes. He was known as an ‘economic geologist’, meaning his aim was to find resources suitable for mining. (The close link between geology and mining may be the reason why so many geology papers are still being published behind paywalls. The authors want the scientific credit without giving away any content.) It won’t come as a surprise that Mount Spurr is named after this same geologist explorer, even if it is an unmineable mountain. There is also actually an older, local name, K’idazq’eni, for the mountain.
Mount Spurr
Mount Spurr is not the best known of Alaska’s volcanoes. It is still a notable one. Part of this is from its location. It is located on the western side of the Cook inlet, and although 130 km away, is visible from the Anchorage on the opposite side. It is the closes volcano to Anchorage. At 3.4 km, it is also the tallest volcano in the region, 300 m taller than Redoubt. In fact, Mount Spurr is the highest volcano in the entire 3000 km stretch of the Aleutian Arc. But it is not as obvious as it should be: it is part of a smallish mountain range, the Tordillo Mountains, of which Mount Spurr is not the highest peak. The range is partly volcanic but Mount Torbert, its highest peak, is not. Mount Spurr is so tall because it got a headstart. It is standing on the shoulder of a giant – and that helps.
The second reason Mount Spurr is notable is the fact that it does decent eruptions. In living memory it has erupted twice, in 1953 and in 1992. In both cases, the VEI-4 eruptions deposited ash on Anchorage – this is a volcano with impact, while not as destructive as other volcanoes in the Aleutian arc! The local older name (‘burning mountain’) suggests a longer history of eruptions, perhaps more than are known. Josiah Spurr choose well.
Mount Spurr is at the eastern end of the Aleutian Arc. There is one volcano located 40 km further, Hayes Volcano: it is not as well known but possibly should be. It did several VEI-5 eruptions 3500 years ago but has not erupted in the past 1000 years. That sounds like a volcano worth monitoring.
Mount Spurr contains a summit dome which is centred on a large, 5-km wide caldera. The caldera has a gap on the southern side where a large collapse has occurred. A new eruptive centre has developed in this southern gap, called with a stretch of imagination, ‘Crater Peak’. The name refers to the crater on top of the peak, but is not something to distinguishes it from many other such mountains, including the summit of Mount Spurr itself! The mountain developed from 250,000 years ago with a combination of lava and pyroclastic flows. There was a large collapse and eruption (make that very large) some 15,000 years ago (the age is not well known) which formed the gapped caldera. The debris flow and an overlying pyroclastic tuff from this eruption can still be recognized in the landscape as far as 25 km away. But the tuff is not seen close to Mount Spurr, probably because of extensive ice cover.
Around 7000 years ago, the current Mount Spurr summit peak formed as a new vent at the centre of the original destruction, while the current Crater Peak formed within the southern gap of the caldera rim perhaps 6000 years ago. The original Mount Spurr was andesitic, while the current summit is more silicic and Crater Peak (and its predecessor) are a bit more mafic. Both centres can erupt but most eruptions have come from Crater Peak. There are some 30 tephra layers associated with Crater Peak, indicating eruptions about once per 200 years. There may have been more, of course. In contrast, the summit crater shows no clear signs of activity within the past 5000 years. Crater Peak also contains the remnant of an older cone, whether lost by collapse or by explosion is not known.
The mountain is heavily glaciated, and both the summit peak and Crater Peak have ice cover. Both peaks have craters. The summit crater was last active in 2004 with hydrothermal activity which did not lead to an eruption. This crater holds a frozen lake. Crater Peak has erupted twice in the last century. It used to hold a lake but not at the present time. Crater Peak is about a kilometer lower than the summit peak. The two cones are similar in size but Crater Peak starts from a much lower elevation.
The 1953 eruption
In the early morning of 9 July 1953, a large explosion took place on Mount Spurr. The eruption came from Crater Peak. The cloud reached a height of over 20 km. The westerly wind moved the ejecta towards Anchorage. The eruption had first been observed from two airforce jets on morning patrol. The crew provided a remarkably detailed report, aided by their on-board radar:
“At 5h05 Lieutenant Metzner noticed a column of smoke 60 mi ahead that was about 15,000 ft high and one-eight mile wide. As he approached the smoke, it was apparent that the eruption causing it was becoming increasingly severe with the smoke growing rapidly in height. At about 25 mi distance, the volcano was recognized as the 11,070 ft high Mt Spurr. Both planes approached the mountain about 15,000 ft and circled the volcano at about 05h25m. They noticed the continuing increase in the intensity and size of the column of smoke with lightning flashes through its core every 30 sec. Smoke issued from the volcano in violent billows at the 7000-ft level of the mountain caused by huge subterranean explosions. Tremors on the mountainsides were visible from the aircraft and were followed by snow slides on the mountain. The smoke had by now reached the 30,000-ft level, rolling upwards and assuming the shape of the atomic bomb mushroom. Clouds of smoke were every shade of grey from black at the crater to pure white at the top. By this time the width had increaed to about a mile at the base and 30 mi at its widest part.
About 05h40, Lieutenant Metzner climbed in order to estimate the height of the mushroom. The top of the stalk, or the borrom of the mushroom, was 30,000 ft and the top of the mushroom had climbed to 70,000 ft. Lightning was now flashing from top to bottom of the mushroom at three-second intervals.
At about 06h00m volcanic ash began falling from the mushroom on all sides and finally made the entire area hazy. A clear definition of the volcano and the mushroom rapidly faded and the patrol returned to its base.” (Juhle & Coulter 1955, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/TR036i002p00199)
The report did not mention that one of the two planes flew through the ash cloud and suffered sandblasting of the plexiglass cockpit canopy!
The ash covered the glacier mainly to the west of the volcano. The cloud reached Anchorage by mid-day, where darkness fell and dark ash came down: the ash layer reached half a centimeter thickness in the city. The ash fall and darkness lasted several hours. Air traffic was disrupted: the airport closed for two days. The fallen ash and high winds led to a dust storm in Anchorage on July 15.
The eruption came from a single vent in the centre of the crater of Crater Peak. The crater rim was left largely in place, including its ice cover, apart from some erosion of the ice on the southern rim. The vent had a little activity during the days after the eruption, including one sharp explosion on July 13. No lava was observed at any time during the eruption: this was a purely explosive event. There were also no reports of sulphur smells. That may also be related to another aspect of the eruption: there was torrential rain in the vicinity. The ice melt and rain caused flash flooding along the Chakachatna river, with the river rising by as much as 15 meters. The floods carried large boulders and caused the river to dam, with a temporary lake flooding an 8-km long section of the river.
Mount Spurr had show some signs of activity over three decades before the eruption, with a vapour cloud visible at times above the summit. This vapour cloud had increased during the spring of 1953. But Crater Peak itself had shown no signs of activity: the first indication of trouble there was the eruption itself. This indicates that the two sites remain connected.
The 1992 eruption
The activity started in late August 1991, with a swarm of earthquakes directly underneath the centre of Crater Peak. These were volcano-tectonic (VT) earthquakes at a depth of 1-4 km, with either magma or hydrothermal activity involved. The swarm was followed by two months of quiescence, before a slow ramp-up of earthquake activity began. At this time, the earthquakes were clustered underneath Crater Peak, Mount Spurr summit and the north caldera rim. They remained shallow. Activity peaked on June 5 and then declined. On June 6, VT bursts were detected.
On June 8, the lake in Crater Peak turned from blue to gray and showed signs of heat upwelling.
Long-period events occurred on June 19, with renewed bursts of volcanic tremor on June 24 and 25. On midday June 26, the tremor became continuous. At this time, the lake had dried up, unable to cope with the heat from below. (Actually, water sources often dry up prior to an eruption, because of the inflation. The water table stays the same but the ground inflates, leaving the water behind.) This was also when the warning level was raised by AVO to yellow.
Earthquake activity around Mount Spurr. The arrows indicate the three eruptions. Source: Power et al. 2002. Bull. Volcanol. 64, 206
A final swarm of VT earthquakes occurred the following morning, June 27, at 3am local time. This was to be the last straw: at 7am the eruption occurred. Just as in 1953, it was first seen from aircraft, in this case a pilot of a commercial plane: it was too cloudy to see the eruption from the ground. Seismometers did detect the precise onset at 7:04am local time, but this was in hindsight. The warning level was raised to orange at 7:15 am, and to red at 9 am. The explosion plume reached almost 15 km – it was not as high as in 1953. The eruption lasted four hours.
Different from 1953, there was more to come. The earthquake activity had ended, apart from a new set of deep earthquakes at 20-40 km depth, and in July the volcano was set to ‘green’ again. Tis turned out to be too soon. In the afternoon of 18 August there was a small eruption, reported by a pilot who saw an ash cloud above the clouds. This was followed an hour later by another explosion, as strong as or a little stronger than the one in June. AVO had raised the warning level to yellow just minutes before this eruption, to orange five minuter after the onset and to red 11 minutes later. It is hard to keep up with this volcano! There had been no obvious warning signs. The eruption lasted 3 hours and the plume again reached 14 km. This time, the winds were in the direction of Anchorage which received a dusting, enough to close the airport.
This sequence repeated in September 16. This time there was a 3-hour tremor burst before the eruption, which again was a double, starting with a small one followed by a much bigger bang 15 hours later. The bigger-bang eruption was again of the same size as the previous two. AVO scientists had visited the crater just hours before the eruption and had not noticed anything unusual – they were lucky! After this escape, AVO became justifiably very cautious about visiting the site. The seismometer the scientists had installed on the crater rim detected the onset of the eruption, and this time code red was raised 3 minutes before the eruption. It shows the importance of such instruments. After the eruption, there was a very strong burst of VT earthquakes at 10 km depth.
Lightning was detected in all three eruptions, but at much lower levels than in 1953. That may be related to visibility: the aircraft in 1953 was superbly placed to see lighttning.
There were two further swarms of VT earthquakes in November and December. These did not lead to an eruption and are seen as failed attempts (or successful intrusions, if you prefer). During 1993, the activity reduced to background levels and Mount Spurr went back to its beauty sleep.
The activity has been used to map out the likely magma reservoirs and conduits underneath Crater Peak. This is shown below.
Source: Source: Power et al. 2002. Bull. Volcanol. 64, 206
The 2004 non-eruption
During 2004, the summit crater again began to show indications for a high heat flow, with melting ice on the crater flank and a cauldron forming in the ice inside the crater opening a view to a warming crater lake. This continued for two years, with boiling water and a fumarole dubbed Jumbo Jet. It was all in vain. Magma reached shallow depths but failed to break through. In 2006, the heat began to disappear and the magma stayed where it was. This event had some similarity to 1953, with as difference that Crater Peak did not become involved.
Mount Spurr, with the summit at the back and Crater Peak at the front. Photo from 7 Feb 2025, Matt Loewen. The caldera wall is visible on the left.
2025
Earthquake activity picked up again in April 2024. AVO increased the warning level to yellow in October. In recent weeks, increased gas emissions have been reported. A GPS in the region has shown 5 cm of uplift. AVO states that an intrusion is on-going. The chances of an eruption are put at 50% or more, depending on who you ask. The similar burst of activity around 2004 did not lead to an eruption, so nothing is guaranteed. But it is best to take precautions. Up to date information can be found at https://avo.alaska.edu/volcano/spurr/activity (hopefully this site will remain on-line). That site also has links to webcams.
The increasing rates of earthquake activity shows that the events of 1953 and 1992 are repeating themselves. Instruments are much more sensitive now, and leave little doubt about the daily tally of shallow, volcanic earthquakes. In addition, gas emission have been detected, showing that new magma has arrived and has started to outgas. The most recent (March 7) measured rate is 450 tons of SO2 per day. Steaming has been seen, and both inflation and expansion has been detected.
The earthquake activity is distributed beween the north caldera rim, Mount Spurr summit and Crater Peak, just as it did in 1992. The centre of inflation is fairly close to Mount Spurr summit (a few km west). The summit crater again has a visible crater lake and fumaroles. But as in 1992, activity is shifting to Crater Peak which over the past weeks has shown signs of snow melt and new fumaroles. It is reasonable, based on experience and history, that an eruption would come from Crater Peak. But the summit crater cannot be ruled out.
New fumaroles in Crater Peak. Source: https://avo.alaska.edu/news/view/likelihood-of-mount-spurr-eruption-in-the-next-few-weeks-or-months-has-increased
Still, the 2004 events show that an eruption is not a certainty. On the other hand, the 1992 events show that VEI4 explosions can happen here with little warning. On the other hand if the previous two eruptions removed an old plug, than new eruptions may not be as explosive. AVO expects that there will be precursor signs if an eruption were to occur, but these may only give hours of warning. This would be a good time not to be too close to he mountain, and aircraft will be rerouted as needed very quickly if events accelerate.
An eruption could happen within weeks. Or not at all. Uncertainty is what volcanoes are good at.
Albert, March 2025
I was a halfway through my own article about the current situation on Spurr…
Good update!
There is (and will be) much more to say about Mount Spurr. Keep writing! We will be happy to publish two posts on it
Now that you say that I definitely can’t refuse!
I had been keeping an eye on Mt Spurr via the excellent Alaska Volcano Observatory but they’ve just raised a registration wall. Sadly.
Meanwhile in Iceland.
Eruption period could last for centuries and shift between systems (RÚV, 24 Mar)
Centuries! The IMO people seem rather depressed and miserable right now. I suppose it’s an Icelandic thing.
Bruce:
Using the posted information from the IMO and digitizing the dots, I was able to obtain some reasonable digital data and then I did a double exponential decay on the magma flow accumulation, indicating at least 5-10 more years for the Svartsengi fissure eruptions. Please see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NPpK6kqxgmGW-MUac05uNp7YsP2j9MXA/view?usp=sharing for the gradual decay in magma volume accumulation projected forward and the flow rate decrease (derivative of volume) at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zv-A1sx8XB1DkXuhfR2Vfvt_mM94hwP3/view?usp=sharing At some point this flow will shut off.
I’m getting weird stuff from AVO. As I mentioned I hit a registration wall when I tried about an hour ago. But now I’m getting through without hitting the barrier. Go figure.
Posting on VC may be the quickest way to reach them!
http://www.mounts-project.com/static/data_mounts/kilauea10/2025/kilauea10_20250311T161635_20250323T161635_VV_ifg.png
Finally after several months there is a new interferogram at Kilauea. Nothing really surprising but there might be some minor uplift at cone peak just southwest of the caldera, at the start of the crack that erupted in 1971, 1919 and 1820s. But its not really obvious that it actually exists, or means anything for the eruption. If anything it might mean lava could leak out in the area when the vents are higher but only speculation, and its not close to that yet I expect.
Actually might be close to 6 cm of uplift, so not that little really. The area of strongest apparent uplift is between 1040 and 1080 meters elevation, so 60-100 meters above the elevation of the vents in Halemaumau. There is also possibly slight uplift between the caldera and Cone Peak along the line of the crack that surfaces as the Great Crack.
Inflation at SDH is as high as during the beginning of Episode 14. They expect Episode 15 to begin today:
Episode 14 was relatively short and small. The next is probably going to be bigger again.
Will have to see, it might be the new trend for a while. I thought it would just restart immediately when it stopped last time it was so sudden and ‘early’.
My article is complete now, Albert is looking and it can be added as a VC draft. Thats so I can improve the text / add more links before posting.
As a VC draft I will be able to rewrite and improve the text as well
Nice and interesting article but can you explain (besides the impact of the orange man), since when is a crater on the Moon a location in the US?
Thanks for spotting that. I believe the Moon has not yet been claimed by the US, and the organization that decides on naming of lunar craters (and anything else out in space) is based in Paris – and that is not Paris, Texas. I have edited the post to fix this.
Arion Vulgaris have now arrived in Alaska maybe they coud be the “orange ones” minions just joking around! ( stomp and flat under your shoe ) they likley will thrive well in the mild coastal parts of Alaska, Pacific Northwest and the more humid parts of Carlifonia. This is one of the worst very worst slug pests thats become an enromous mayhem in Europe. Arion Vulgaris have a near infinite capacity for reproduction one slug can produce over 400 young ones in one season and the slugs can reproduce assexualy by themselves as well, one slug introduced to say Tasmania and you ends up with thousands after just one season, they eat everything both plant matter and other animals and eats everyone thats not fast enough to escape them, their enomous biomass also push out other organisms in an ecosystem because they uses up alot of bio resources. In mild humid parts of Europe ( UK, France, Neatherlands, Germany, Denmark, South Sweden ) they have become the beast, family relatives in Gothenburg can find over 800 slugs during one single night and one man killed 17 000 in just a few days. They are so slimey so they have no natural predators.
Arion Vulgaris seems to thrive best under warm humid condtions that speeds up the egg development and the slugs can thrive and be active. I can just imagine what woud happen if this organism got down into the deep tropics by the plant trade! In Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Africa its likley Arion Vulgaris woud go really nuts with year around warmth and high humidity, I have yet found any sources that have studyed how Arion Vulgaris woud thrive under equatorial conditions if brought there. It stills seems that Virunga for example woud be an ideal habitat for these monsters of Europe.
Thank you for an interesting look at Mt. Spurr, Albert!
Spurr looks well frozen indeed, I can just imagine how cold it must feel up there at its summit at a stormy january night. While Spurr is cold Its likey childs play compared to how insanely cold midwinter up at Mount Sidleys summit must be i Antarctica! I read that summer there in the caldera is – 40 c and in deep winter it can drop to twice as cold a martian – 80 c making it one of the most unearthly places on this entire planet
If you factor in wind chill, one doesn’t need to go to Antarctica for such extremes…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Washington#Climate
Or Verkhoyansk
https://www.volcanocafe.org/terra-incognito-the-verkhoyansk-mountains/
Antarctica record in remote sensing is – 97 c I think! thats very martian in temperatures
Alaska is a very beautyful state indeed! it freaking feels unreal if I have drinked or something but thats how it looks like
I don’t think the case for a Spurr caldera is very strong. There aren’t any known voluminous pyroclastic deposits near or far from this volcano, though there is a huge debris avalanche. That debris was once seen as evidence of a late Pleistocene caldera eruption, with the erupted material supposedly eroded during later deglaciation. But now the sector collapse has been dated to just ~4.6 ka. Spurr might just be a simple stratovolcano growing out of a horseshoe-shaped depression, surrounded by a U-shaped ridge—a pretty common feature in the Alaska Range. For example, the east side of Mt Chichantna looks almost exactly like this horseshoe-shaped depression but without the central stratovolcano filling it.
For reference, the debris avalanche dating https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1739/c/
I had not seen that one. I had noticed the widely different ages that were being reported, including in more recent papers, so I picked what seemed a reasonable age. Note that Crater Peak is said to be older than this young date, so one of the two must be incorrect. The case tat the caldera is just a mountain ridge was made in the 1950’s but does not explain the volcano in the centre!
Not exactly—I think it’s just as likely, if not more, that a stratovolcano has its magma conduit right in the middle of a glacier-carved cirque.
Take the east face of Mt. Chichantna, for example: it’s got that huge, non-volcanic, horseshoe-shaped cirque that looks like a crater. Now picture a stratovolcano growing up from the center and partly filling it. It could easily look like a caldera and might get mistaken for one.
Sure. But why would the volcano grow up right there? There is nothing particularly attractive in cirque. It could be anywhere along a line of weakness. The fact that Crater Peak grew in the gap already shows that the centre is not special. So it is far more likely that the volcanic conduit was there before, and that makes a caldera plausible. It was not clear to me why all the papers assumed that the caldera and collapse were part of the same event though. I would have assumed that the caldera was much older, that a new large cone grew up in it and that that cone collapsed (perhaps explosively) to form the debris. That would make the current cone the third one. Also note that Crater Peak shows the remnant of an older cone in its crater wall, and so it too must have had an ‘event’
You’re right that magma can break out anywhere along the subduction zone, and there’s nothing special about a cirque. But since big and small cirques are literally all over the Alaska Range, a volcano popping up inside one and filling it could just happen by pure chance. That’s what I suspect with Spurr, at least.
The reason all the papers link caldera formation to the debris avalanche, I think, is because there’s no solid evidence of a caldera-forming deposits. The debris avalanche is the only voluminous volcaniclastic unit around, so it’s the only thing we’re left to puzzle over
Thanks for the explanation of Mount Spurr’s activity!
Mount Spurr is kind of an intermediate volcano between the rarely but big erupting volcanoes and the often but small erupting volcanoes of the Americas’ volcanoes. In Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, … you have several volcanoes that often do Strombolian or Phreatic eruptions around VEI2 or 3. Other volcanoes brood over long period an explosive magma that allows VEI5 or 6 (f.e. St Helens, Cerro Hudson or Chaiten). Mount Spurr erupts too often to do it really big, at an interval that allows VEI4 to occur again.
Looking at historical big eruptions since 1980 I’ve noticed that there tend to be pairs of big eruptions (VEI5/6) occasionally that are close to each other:
– 1980 / 1982 St. Helens and El Chichon
– 1991 Pinatubo and Cerro Hudson
– 2021 / 2024 Hunga Tonga and Ruang
So there can be decades without any VEI5/6, and then a few years with a pair of them. It happens randomly, but has the disadantage that often one of the major eruptions happens in the shaddow of a bit bigger (or more famous) one and doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
Katmai and Santa Maria in the early 1900s.
Mystery eruption in 1809 and Tambora.
There is a lot of air traffic between the US west coast and Asia (esp. Japan/Korea) that could be disrupted by having a large volcano go off anywhere in the Aleutians.
Did they know in 1953 that ash was bad for airplane engines?
How come Spurr & Hayes are volcanic but Torbert, Talachulitna & Gerdine aren’t?
Could include Mts. Nagishlamina & Chicantna in that.
Lava is appearing at Kilauea again. Episode 15 imminent?
https://www.youtube.com/live/oG5zz9Sjw3E?si=lKRnf5DVQ9KPH3nJ
Also, it looks like USGS added a new camera with a better view of both vents:
https://www.youtube.com/live/Gd2Tm5jblbE?si=94oDfnnk4ZXpIGXy
Episode 15 started, just not progressed to fountaining yet. Probably tomorrow it its like last time but who knows.
The way its erupting now and being livestreamed top reminds me of back in 2021. Very similar activity. Although Kilauea is very unlikely to just stop after 6 months. Already its probably at about 70 million m3 of lava erupted, in only 93 days.
Excellent coverage, Albert. i’m about the same distance from Spurr as Anchorage but down on the Kenai Peninsula in a southern direction from the volcano. Really hoping the ash is sent in another direction from heavy populations. Have masks and water and of course FOOD ;
Why do i have water? Because heavy ash may knock out power.
I kind of hope you get to see an eruption and kind of hope that you don’t!
and power?
Presumably generator as ash and solar (let alone winter) do not a good source make.
I would think a generator would clog with ash too. A wind turbine might be the best option. Although maybe having all of them is the actual best option…
Probably connect it to a battery, used EV batteries have huge capacity and are much cheaper than new cells. 50 kWh can run a house for a few days easily. Then you dont really need any power source.
The northernmost of the two north vent overflow ducts seems to be forming a lava tube.
Overflows are visible in the tremor now, I dont remember seeing that before E14. Seems like maybe the behavior is changing a bit from only geysering fountains to prolonged build up again like at the very start.
According to HVO “There have been 15 cycles of dome fountaining (30-60 feet high) producing vigorous overflows and drainback from the north vent since the start of episode 15 at 12:05 pm HST.”
I’d estimate that now there are 3-4 cycles per hour inside the lava pot. It is probably going to continue like this until the lava fountain phase of the eruption comes with deflation:
Yes, its interesting that so much can go on without deflation though, and that the E14 deflation was quite small. Its also interesting that it only seems to be the north vent really doing this.
Can we compare the deformation cycle of the episodes with the DI events that happened in the past on Kilauea? The 2008-2018 eruption was often shaped by DI events.
They still happen. They happened after 2018 very often probably more than before actually. They seem to have become less obvious since this eruption started, maybe because magma can just erupt now instead of circulating and expanding the magma storage. Although their signal also became hard to see after the main tiltmeter was changed from UWEV to UWD, so it could just be that too.
I dont know if its been fully agreed on anywhere what causes the DI events. They probably arent really supply related because they are temporary and usually have no long term effect on anything. But they are magma moving and in large volume, maybe several million m3 that drains and is replaced each time. I have seen suggestion it is degassed magma sinking back down the plumbing system, or that it us olivine cumulate. Hector proposed it is minor intrusions into the margins of the magma chamber and flaking off the walls, or an intrusive complex collapsing and merging into a single magma chamber. It could be the same as gas pistoning. Its probably more than one or even all of these things really.
If it is related to magma chamber expansion, then it indicates Kilauea has been rapidly growing its magma chamber. Which fits with lava chemistry being pretty homogeneous very slightly evolved basalt since 2011 when the lava lake first had a high stand and Pu’u O’o also changed behavior, being generally a bit weaker than in the 2000s, and no longer the degassing source. It partly drained in 2018 but far from a full drain as speculated. Its since gotten even bigger probably although its not obvious how much.
Yesterday HVO said there was slowed inflation, which sounds like it might have been a DI that got obscured by the rapid inflation before this episode.
The up and down of deformation reminds me to the DI events. 2008-2018 and also Pu’u O’o’s longterm eruption mirrored the behaviour of the magma chamber directly. When the magma chamber received more magma and pressure, the lava activity on the surface increased.
I’m not sure how much fluctuation of magma recharge is there now in the summit’s system. Is the inflow of magma continuous or anyhow rythmical?
Added to this there may be Geysir-like developments, where magma in a magma cave accumulates gas pressure before it can erupt again.
I think actually there isnt much in common with DIs, only surface movement but its a different cause. DIs I think have nothing to do with eruptions short term.
North vent is still cyclic overflowing but the south vent is continuous. I think fountaining will start up soon. My guess is fountaining is a runaway process where eventually gas poor lava is all pushed out, so new lava erupts, and gas nucleation lowers the pressure, causing more nucleation, with a feedback loop. A volcano with more gas rich magma or a more viscous magma would probably go full plinian in this situation, Kilauea is hard to set off that way. Although its happened before at least a couple times in the last few thousand years which actually isnt all that bad by world standards…
As I typed this there was some spatter from the south vent occasionally visible over the cone, it really might be stsrting for real 🙂
Looks a lot what Fagradalsfjall did some years back … 😁
Yes its not quite so obvious as that but clearly a similar cause 🙂
It looks like gas pistoning. Its a bit different to the real fountains that might start down in the magma chamber after too much pressure. This smaller activity is shallow, and it seems to be above the divide of the vents because they dont react in tandem. I guess at Fagradalsfjall the magma was more gas rich so had actual fountaining every time it overturned, where at Kilauea it is harder to get that reaction. But when it does go it goes big.
I watched a cycle just now. How fast the magma drains back! It takes only 30 seconds or so the magma level from overflowing to ‘out of sight’!
Yes I just watched this cycle just now and it us definitely gas pistoning, the slow rise and voluminous overflow with dome fountains, followed by more violent spattering and rapid lake draining as the gas escapes. If it was a narrow hole it might be more strombolian, and there were a few times it looked like the south vent actually did this out of sight behind the wall, but in the north vent it happens through the lava lake instead.
I think its going to to up some point before dawn, although its hard to see what the actual trigger point is. But the harder it is to start, the more pressure there is and the bigger the fountains are. At some point pressure might become high enough to force into the SWRZ cracks but it might not do that too and just keep geysering for years. Maybe the first summit overflows will be fast a’a flows instead of pahoehoe.
The gas-piston event at 0600 Hawai’i time never got anywhere near the spillway before it…ahem…ran out of gas. Hm.
That is exactly what it is. The high fountains come from gas completely blocking the flow (‘slugs’) causing a fountain when the slug accelerates to the surface. The fast draining comes behind the slug.
https://www.volcanocafe.org/the-changing-faces-of-fagradalsfjall-fizz-bubbles-and-slugs/
The tephra layer actually is way thicker than I thought, its nearly filled in the cracks at the southwest caldera rim and buried the old crater rim drive. Not to mention the southwest bay of Halemaumau is filling up with tephra even faster.
The thin tephra reminds me to photos on the moon, where there is also sometimes a thin layer of tephra caused either by extremely old eruptions or by asteroids.
Any predictions on next events in Sundhnúkur? Magma inflow rate seems to be less now, but the met office appear to expect a bigger eruption (maybe also the last at this location?).
Probably by the end of April. If its after that then the outlook for Svartsengi and Grindavik isnt looking good. Magma supply slowed doesnt mean its about to stop, its going to keep going until somewhere else nearby takes over the source. Slightly slower supply also causes longer intervals, which might actually cause bigger single eruptions with higher pressure.
To be honest, i think the last few years has shown that the middle ages reports are way lesscomplete than expected. Either that or this cycle is on track to last only 30 years and not 300…
Also the big volcanoes appear to be calm now. 900 AD there was more activity during the first eruptions on Reykjanes Peninsula.
Holuhraun was 10 years sgo, not very long ‘quiet’. Grimsvotn had 4 eruptions since 1990 but only two were big, and only one of them (2011) would have been really obvious before modern time. Gjalp would have not been remembered as an eruption but as a flood back then.
There is a statistic probability that Veidivotn will rift this century. Torfajokull inflating might be another sign. Bardarbunga also might be a lot faster recovered than I thought, so things could move fast. Grimsvotn wont do another Laki for millennia is my bet. Just behave more ir less as it has recently, VEI 1-3 with the odd 4. Impressive but harmless except if your on the ring road southeast coast…
Katla shouldnt do another Eldgja for similar reasons, but the unusually long dormancy is making that harder to ignore. I doubt it will be anywhere near as big as actual Eldgja but an eruption of a few km3 of lava near the start of the Eldgja system is not so unlikely if all the last century of magma has been mostly accumulating deeper down. CO2 emissions inducate Katla sits above a huge magma source. Clearly little of that ends up in the actual caldera or it would be an overflowing shield volcano, it looks like it might well have been once long ago. But if all that magma accumulates, its not doing so in a rift zone like Grimsvktn, so it has to escape eventually. Its not explosive on its own so instead just floods out, though not silently, Eldgja did still have a lot of tephra.
Anyway thats two plsusible big eruptions this century. Askja, Oraefajokull and Hekla are 3 more less certain ones. Maybe another unexpected option too.
Just in time for Kilauea to start fountaining 🙂
Star east of Keilir, followed by a few aftershocks
There were also some earthquakes in Krysuvik’s system near Trölladyngja. It’s not far from Keilir to Trölladynjga
Quite a show at Kilauea around 10:20 Hawaii time.
Nice piece, thank you Albert.
It is a tectonically very active region with many clusters and the Denali fault, Mount McKinley itself being pushed up as a pluton over the millions of years.
So it is only a small miracle that some seismicity is purely tectonic. with also the Yakutat Terrane involved besides the Pacific Plate subducting.
I grew up with Mount McKinley, got used to Denali of course, and now it is easy for me to go back to McKinley. It will always be the mountain with a two names, Denali McKinley.
No road from Denali to Spurr, 200 miles I guess. It is a plane country.
Kilauea right now!
Amazing correct? The amount of lava coming out of the north vent, and the height of the fountains on the south, beautiful.
Yep, the fountains got turned up to 11 with this episode!
I actually was filming this for over 3 hours. The south vent went into almost complete jet engine mode, shooting sulfur balls out and hundreds of tons of sulfur dioxide. It was quite a start to see white sulfur balls raining down from this jet engine fountain. Even at 14:42 the ejection event continues. It was quite interesting watching this fountain transition from yellow hot lava, into ejecting the sulfur components as the fountain went into almost a pure gaseous mode.
a320:
I noticed too that the steaming in the foreground increased slightly as both vents went into intense fountain mode.
RIMD showing the “volume” of this display
At around 11:00 you can see the ash falling in front of the V1 cam
Was just going to comment on that! That’s a first for me. Hopefully the camera doesn’t get scratched up!
You’ve even got something that looks like tephranadoes, due to the sheer heat:
Typo or something. Please try again.
Makes it harder to time the fall, the stuff at the top of the arc keeps getting sucked upward and dispersed. So much for estimating the height.
Yep, can’t neglect air resistance for those low-density fragments near the top, and the significant updraft makes matters hopeless for that method of height estimation :P.
The V1cam is getting showered with tephra now, some pretty hefty chunks landing in the foreground, but it may be foreshortening from the zoom.
Weird to look at the infrared cam and see glowing chunks!
This has kept up for just over an hour now. Nuts.
It is very impressive!
North vent shut down while the south vent is still going strong.
Do you think HVO will give us the 1000 foot fountain on this episode?
From the future, yes, yes they did 🙂
Confirmed over 1000 ft fountains from 11-12 and 1:30 pm local time. And HVO only counts sustained heights or the actual incandescent part, so visually the fountain was probably even taller at times. Its still crazy that the tallest fountains in 1959 and 1969 were nearly twice this tall though… But at this rate we wont need to imagine what that looks like for much longer.
Maybe I’m imagining things, but on some of the S2 cam shots it looks like there is lava coming out from a separate opening south of the south vent. I think there was a vent there in the early stages of the eruption.
I noticed that too.
The separate spatter can also be seen on the main live camera.
Yes the south vent is now south vents 🙂 I wonder if satellite fissures and single vents will appear around the cone soon. Pu’u O’o and Mauna Ulu did that many times. Fagradalsfjall too.
With this kind of pressure its likely to start leaking out the SWRZ too, lile in the early 19th century
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Zx3UwwXQU/
Photos and a video of the lava fountain from highway 11 west of the caldera, just at the park boundary. Not just past the rim but WAY beyond it. Theres some other photos on Hawaii Tracker similar to this but even further away.
At this rate we will probably get some 500+ meter fountains. Maybe in a month or two. But the fallout pattern of the early 19th century golden and eastern pumice is enormous and indicates that fountains as much as 1 km tall are possible although probably not common. Thats not a big deal at Etna, but its probably 5x as tall as todays fountain. I am now thinking that these two layers as well as most of the post 1790 tephra of similar age, is probably from high fountaining of the conduit that evolved into Halemaumau later in more well recorded times.
Tilt at SDH has almost fallen to the bottom of episode 14, which stopped ‘early’ compared to 13. So it might stop within an hour but if not it could be going for a while lonver 🙂
It also looks like the F1 and KW cam have been taken out, neither updating now for a few hours.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5zz9Sjw3E shows the fallout ash so heavy, it looks like rain or snow coming down. Something is happening near the vent too, to the right, is that the north vent acting up again?
Chad:
There is a small fountain occasionally visible, just ot the right of the main fountain, but I also see a white smoke area, which seems to be gaining intensity, a bit more to the right, in the wall complex. 16:56 pm local Hawaii time. I wonder if lava will break out there?
Im not sure its likely for a new major fountain vent to open. But its likely that as the cone grows it will spawn satellite vents, maybe directed along the caldera wall where the original fissure was but it might also just be random and radial. Pu’u O’o and Mauna Ulu did this, so does Etna, and Stromboli, and it happened at Fagradalsfjall and La Palma too. Tephra cones are leaky.
None of these secondary vents are likely to be important though. Maybe an exception is if lava breaks out on the SWRZ lower than the caldera vents, then this flank vent might just leak out while the summit vents turn into lava lakes. But this doesnt necessarily mean the fountaining is all over, Pu’u O’o actually had a lot of conduit failures that were healed before it finally broke for real in 1986. Etna has had near countless flank vents that dont compromise its fountaining summit vents.
I’ve also been thinking that the Golden Pumice may have formed like this, I’m not sure the height of its fountains is well known though. I’m really excited to see how tall the fountains get, this episode featured 300 m+ fountains for a long time, so we may well get to 500 m eventually. Etna is different though, the lava is slightly more viscous and far more gas rich so it explodes more violently, so it will be hard for Kilauea to pull off something similar unless something really exceptional happens.
I have seen numbers of 700-1000 meters quoted for the golden and eastern pumice, and the older reticulite under Volcano. Although, I cant think of where exactly right now. I think for both of them it does make an assumption that the source vents were really deep down in a new caldera, so its probably more like 500 meters above the rim not 1000. That would still be more than any 20th century example though.
E15 was actually way bigger than I was expecting, I thought it might reach 1000 feet at max for a short time but apparently it did it for most of the episode pretty easily… Big increase over E14, at this rate 2000 feet isnt impossible, which is over 600 meters.
The tallest fountains happened, when the N vent was shut down. If this tendency continues and the episodes concentrate on the S vent as the one and only vent, the chance for growing lava fountains looks big. We have to watch for how long the N vent can survive, but it appears to be the loser of the twin cones.
The eruption killed with a rain of stones webcam KW and the thermal webcam F1 at the same position.
17:10:34 hawaii time, major change in fountain see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5zz9Sjw3E
Lava approaching
Interesting how it’s still going strong despite the deflation trend. There were a few times it looked like it was just about to give up, then it ramped back up to full force.
Annnd it’s done.
The lava fountain was 200m (600 feet) or more high: https://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2025/03/26/high-lava-fountains-at-kilauea-volcano-rain-down-debris/
The lava fountain in a video looked like a “White Out” but with lava instead of snow.
Episode 15 was bigger than Episode 14, but the deflation was smaller than during Episode 12 and 13. A long part of the E15 eruption occured during inflation (low level eruption), but the vigorous part of the eruption was short. The episodes are increasingly steady inflation eruptions and decreasingly spectacular deflation eruptions. But the short time of the deflation eruption contains very violent lava fountains that both are tall and massive like a lava flood eruption.
The southern vent was the dominating vent during the spectacular vigorous phase. The tall lava fountain happened there. Some of the lava flowed into the N vent, that was slowly erupting during the inflation period.
This means that the southern vent may become the single vent in the future. Sometimes volcanic twin cones do a “monpoly challenge” where only one survives as the only cone. We have to watch during the next onset of the inflation eruption.
Yes both E14 and E15 the two vents slowly built up, the north vent was more dominant. Then they both shoot up, but the north vent stops and the south vent really goes crazy. To me its hard to tell which one is more open, but the south vent seems to at least stay open easier. But the north vent seems to open first…
It is also possibly just a phase too, and it could change. The south vent looked like it was dying for most of the eruption and even failed to participate at all in at least a few episodes. Now it is aiming for the island fountain height record… In a month it might be reversed again.
The N vent erupted predominantly during the inflation, while the S vent erupted predominantly during deflation. Maybe the different geophysical situation during inflation and deflation causes a different flow of magma to the vents.
Did a series of episodes like this happen during 1790-1823? This was a time, when the caldera was being filled up, but it was a time without human written witness … and the native Hawaiians probably avoided a close visit to the dangerous caldera, since they remembered well the tragedy of 1790.
That is interesting. It would suggest that the North vent is better connected to magma chamber that causes the inflation/deflation
It looks to me as if during deflation there is something blocked to the North vent.
Yes, maybe the north vent is well connected to the magma chamber and shows the heartbeat of the volcano, while the south vent does the descrete eruptions.
The tallest fountains were according to HVO’s update 1000 feet high, so around 300m. The tall fountains drop tephra on the caldera’s rim. So we can see a part of the south cone growing outside the caldera. If the eruption continues long enough, it may become a pretty hill.
It wasnt really observed as you say but theres a lot of evidence Halemaumau formed in the 1790 caldera in the same way as the current activity. Before 1823 drained it all out there was a lava floor. Most of the vents on the SWRZ are just secondary vents of lava flowing down cracks from Halemaumau directly, the same as in 1919, and the highest elevation of these is about 900 meters elevation so the caldera floor had to be at least that high too.
I think HVO assumed the caldera filled with a lava lake because thats what was seen there after 1823, but that years event was also a major south flank slip like in 2018, not only the SWRZ flow, so it could have caused a lot of lava to drain back down the vent and widen it too much to fountain when pressure returned. But Halemaumau started as a shield volcano, and the big shields we saw form in the 20th century started with high fountains, as well as now, it makes sense.
The tall lava fountains of Kilauea exceed – as far as I know – the height of Mauna Loa’s lava fountains. Mauna Loa prefers to do long lines of “Curtain of Fire” through the whole summit, but doesn’t reach to Kilauea’s record lava fountains.
The tall lava fountains remind to Etna’s lava fountains. Sometimes Kilauea shows that it like Mauna Kea shares some characteristics with Etna. A fast rise of magma and a random, often changing behaviour. The present eruption of Kilauea shows how it erupts in the long run, also in distant future after the shield-stage. Mauna Kea’s summit is dotted with cones like Etna, it doesn’t have the single summit caldera or crater. So this is a “Kea” type eruption, that’s different to the longterm effusive eruptions with lava lake or Pāhoehoe lava activity.
The eruption is over but theres a big flow in the east end of Halemaumau, lava breaking out from the interior of the crater. There have been some small flows in this area before but this new flow is much bigger.
Looks like a large breakout from below. Maybe the eruption was so intense it injected a large volume all in a shorter time to the point it destabilized the crust.
The base of the vents is on the base of the Caldera Cliff. This forces the cones to grow lopsided, like the hanging gardens of Babylon. This webcam shows the lopsided tephra deposits on the caldera cliff:
They don’t show the deposits above the cliff. But each episode adds more ash/pyroclasts there.
The cliff has many different old layers. It is a mixture between tephra and lava as on a strato volcano? The caldera cliff allows a view in the very distant past of Kilauea, when the deposits there were produced.
A cinder-spatter cone basically is a basaltic stratovolcano in miniature. Make it full size and you get Nyiragongo or Villarrica. Etnas SEC and Central Crater complex is kind of at the point where you can ask if it is a full stratovolcano in its own right or just a double summit of the parent, and SEC is only 50 years old and mostly younger than 25…
I guess too, Kilaueas summit is successive layered lava and tephra. Its too flat to get called a stratovolcano, and it isnt majority tephra like a pyroclastic shield volcano, so it is just a normal shield made of overflowing lava. Although maybe try telling that to Keoua and his army in 1790… I think the problem is its either Kilauea or Mauna Loa that is the defining example of an oceanic shield volcano so they kind of cant be anything else…
I always imagined a shield volcano as a pure lava volcano with lava layers upon each others. They can age and change their characteristic like iron to rust. But the ideal, pure shield volcano shouldn’t have any tephra layers between them. Aside from some lava fountain deposits, Pele’s hair or sulfur deposits.
I dont think that really exists, unless you consider monogenetic shields like in Iceland. And given how observed small shield volcanoes in Hawaii have always formed with high fountains, and same at Surtsey and Fagradalsfjall, its likely all the Icelandic shields also started as fountaining vents.
The only purely effusive lava shields seem to be the small ones that form as satellites to main vents, like Kupaianaha and Mauna Iki. These dont have a distinct conduit but form from a shallow dike starting at a larger more permanent vent. I think most or all of the historical pahoehoe flows from Mauna Loa were actually like this too, just bigger, the only proper open conduit type vents in historical time at Mauna Loa seem to have been in Mokuaweoweo. There are real long lived open conduit shield on the SWRZ though, so its not a rule.
Regarding central volcanoes though I doubt there are any that have no tephra, especially those with calderas. Kilauea actually has a huge volume of tephra within its summit area, maybe 1/4 of the whole pile, and going a long way from the caldera. Mauna Loa has much less but not 0. I will have to make a map of the ash layers at Kilauea because its actually way more extensive than I think most people realise. Less than 2000 years ago it sent pyroclastic flows 20 km from the caldera in all directions. Probably a bigger eruption than what Spurr is building up to do.
What are the main causes for tephra on the Hawaiian volcanoes? Phreatomagmatic eruptions, primitive magmas or rarely viscous evolved magmas?
Kilauea is more effusive towards the rift zones. The normal SWRZ and ERZ eruptions are pure lava eruptions. Only some rare pockets with evolved magmas do explosive strombolian eruptions with viscous magmas. But they are individual, isolated vents, while the dominating rift zone volcanoes (f.e. fissure 8 2018) are 100% effusive.
Probably a lot of lava fountaining, and water interaction at times. Caldera collapse is probably explosive, it was for a short time in 2018 and much more in 1790. I guess rapid draining degasses the magma chamber and the next collapse compresses it again and it blows out of the ring faults.
The Pahala Ash was created in the last glacial period. Mauna Loa was glaciated and maybe mostly inactive for a lot of that time, while Kilauea was making up for it. There might have been lots of water either because of climate or maybe glacial runoff from Mauna Loa. Before the Pahala ash is the Hilina formation which has huge flows and ash layers bisected by the Hilina Pali. Kilauea seems to have been a very different volcano back in the Pleistocene, and its possibly not actually old enough to have really existed distinctly in the last interglacial (it did exist, but maybe only as a volcanic field or a long fissure, no caldera yet)
Among effusive volcanoes, Fernandina had an explosive caldera formation in 1968, very like Kilauea in 1790. It is usually completely effusive, probably even more than Kilauea. And Masaya had done ignimbrites and VEI 6 with magma very similar to Hawaii.
Are the most primitive magmas that Kilauea produces, more gasrich and explosive than the normal magma? As far as I understand, primitive – unevolved – magma contains a lot of gas that isn’t released slowly in a magma chamber. If gasrich magma rises quickly, the gas “explodes” if the pressure by rock weight is reduced.
This is the way alkali basalt on Etna or Basanites on La Palma did ash eruptions, although the magma is fluid. Is the magma of the present eruption also more primitive and gasrich than the 2020-2023 or 2008-2018 magma?
Technically yes but not enough really, under normal circumstances its still going to be effusive. Caldera collapse involves draining of magma, so lowers pressure and causes rapid degassing. Nomally Kilauea doesnt explode but this could provide an exception.
There is an actual plinian eruption deposit in the upper Kulanaokuaiki tephra though, about 1300 years old.
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-abstract/121/5-6/712/519067/Kulanaokuaiki-Tephra-ca-A-D-400-1000-Newly?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Unusually high K and Ti values probably means it was more alkaline than todays magma (not that it was an actual.alkaline magma, just more than it is now in comparison). But that doesnt mean it was evolved, if anything I would put it as more primitive, but the real answer is probably behind that paywall…
Interesting that the age range at the older end overlaps with the Pana’ewa eruption of Mauna Loa, which was a caldera formation and much further down the ERZ than is normal. I have wondered if eruptions at the distal ERZ of Mauna Loa might only be possible if Kilauea has a deep caldera.
Kilauea is a monster obviously but all volcanoes starts with something and grows and grows. Nyiragongo was formed by large fountains like the current halemaumau stuff but likey much much taller than that. How large is the magma system under Nyiragongo? the sulfur output is always quite impressive in space sensors.
Im not sure about immediately under it where eruptions can start from, but the whole area has a huge magma generation. The heat output of Nyiragongo rivals Kilauea, maybe not now but it did in 2018 when they were comparable. Nyamuragira might be similarly powerful now with its big lake. If I recall correctly Nyiragongo and Kilauea both radiated more heat from their lava lakes than Bardarbunga did WHILE Holuhraun was being erupted, and that was before either of their lakes was at their largest size too. And of course Pele had to rub salt in the wound 4 years later… I am still surprised no similar volcanoes exist in Iceland, maybe Bardarbunga did before it became a caldera, a glowing lamp in the ice age.
I guess, Nyiragongo is kind of like a really huge fumarole that brings lava with it, compared to Kilauea which actually erupts the expected amount.
Kilauea will always be the most impressive individual volcano by a volcanoes avarge specs and its as you know also my favorite volcano togther with a few others, will be fun to see how tall the halemaumau fountains will become, I just maybe we will get a golden pumice height but the vent is clearly getting more and more open too after each phase it took longer to break the degassed cap this time but that coud also lead to even taller fountains next time if it takes even longer to break the cap next time next week
Despite the tall fountains in halemaumau I still find that Nyiragongo and Nyiramuragira kind of looks more eerie and sinister than Kilauea and not soure why that maybe because they are so sterotypical or it coud be the night glow reflecting on the equatorial clouds there
To be honest, its probably because of where they are. Kilauea is in a very safe part of the world today where the worst that might happen is getting an unattended item stolen. Virunga is next to an active warzone… Africa also is still a part of the world that is a bit separated to most of the west, not as much now but still
Im sure Kilauea in 1790 would have been just as eerie, at that time Hawaii was also an active warzone. To say nothing of what actually happened that year…
Its not the war no: its really perhaps because Nyiragongo looks a bit like Mount Doom shining up the night. Its also as stereotypical as any volcano can be, looking like a volcano from some tropical super mario level
Nyiragongo and Nyiramuragira are continental rift volcanoes. We don’t see this now often in the world. Maybe the first continental rifting of oceans first has alkali magmas like Nyiragongo and Nyiramuragira, before the more oceanic rifting takes over and does classical Tholeiitic basalt. Do we find anywhere volcanic deposits of the pre-Atlantic continental rift? I’d expect that we only get the plutons (f.e. magma chambers) below such volcanoes.
The Rhine rift volcanoes were/are alkali volcanoes. We’ve had Hector’s article about the Swabian maar volcanoes. Also Kaiserstuhl (near Freiburg) had Basanites, Tephrites and Phonolites. The Eifel volcanoes do alkali magmas. The Rhine rift is a failed continental rift.
We meet the alkali magmas again along the East African Rift System, but towards the Afar Triple Point we see more classical oceanic basalt (Erta Ale).
The spreading in Iceland is likey way too fast ( 10 times faster than Albertine Rift ) to allow for something like Nyamuragira, Nyiragongo or Kilauea to form at all in Iceland too much magma in Iceland goes lost in rifting
Maybe but Nyiragongo doesnt erupt much, its just extremely hot. As before its radiative power is one of the highest of any volcano and probably even tops the list at times. Hawaii has extremely hot mantle and huge magma generation rates, leading to expected results. But so does Iceland, and Holuhraun was actually hotter than most lava erupted in Hawaii recently so indicated the magma system of Bardarbunga is probably just as hot as these lava lake volcanoes. Villarrica and Erebus are glaciated volcanoes with a lava lake and one of those has never been unfrozen, so ice is no obstruction to a lava lake.
Nyiragongos nightglow: Africas Mount Doom I guess
Very large earthquake at Mandalay, Myanmar. This is a war zone and it will be very hard to get help in. Damage reported in Bangkok
There’s dramatic videos of a building collapsing in Bangkok. It’s quite far away from the epicenter. Can’t imagine the damage closer to the epicenter.
This is from the capital of Myanmar, quite far from the epicentre
https://www.volcanocafe.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/mandalay_earthquake.jpeg
Bangkok is very far away and should not have been hit that hard. But it is build on a river delta, and perhaps suffered the same kind of amplification that hit Mexico City in 1987.
In Sagaing. Sagaing Fault:
The Sagaing Fault is a major fault in Myanmar, a mainly continental right-lateral transform fault between the Indian plate and Sunda plate. It links the divergent boundary in the Andaman Sea with the zone of active continental collision along the Himalayan front.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagaing_Fault
That Wikipedia link is not consistent with the links pointin to the Sunda Plate and the Indian Plate. This article needs a correction.
Yes.The description is much better and more precise in here under “Tectonic Setting”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930_Bago_earthquake
Shawn Wilsey had a good explanation at Youtube as well. His Paint drawings are extremely educational.
Not looking good.
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000pn9s/executive
According to Wiki, the quake is consistent with strike slip on the Sagaing Fault, the boundary between the Burma and Sunda Plates.
It looks like it is a strike slip between the Indian plate and the eurasian plate, the Epicenter is too far north to be between the Burma and Sunda plates.
There is an old subduction zone there, from the sea floor that used to exist between Myanmar and India.
Someone might need to update Wiki ?
I think it showed up on here, the squiggly lines are weird otherwise and about an hour after the quake time listed.
yes, that is typical for a far-field earthquake. It will be or have been seen worldwide
The ‘squiggly lines’ are surface waves – Love & Rayleigh waves. Seen all round the world after a large event.
The earthquake position looks like a continuation of the 2004 Tsunami earthquake towards NW. https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/21614277/2025-03-28/06h20/magnitude7-Myanmar-Burma-Myanmar.html
There is the plate boundary between India and Eurasia. Is there a mixture between Indonesia’s subduction and Himalaya’s orogency?
Myanmar has some Holocene volcanoes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_Myanmar
GVP only mentions volcano Popa with a VEI3 eruption 6000 BC: https://volcano.si.edu/volcanolist_countries.cfm?country=Burma%20(Myanmar)
More orogenic/collisional than subductive. This particular fault is strike slip with a degree of vertical movement as well as horizontal, similar to the Queen Charlotte fault off Vancouver. We aren’t going to see a megathrust here, M7.7 is likely at the top end of what it can do.
The volcanism is interesting though, some degree of melt under central/eastern Myanmar.
As Albert pointed out above, it is an old subduction zone that now has transferred towards a strike slip. But looking at the direction of the Indian plate there may still be a bit of subduction in the area.
There is a little bit of information in the post on the Andaman Islands: https://www.volcanocafe.org/barren-island-india/. The subduction fault that separates the Indian Ocean plate from Eurasia is at the western border of Myanmar. It has pushed up the mountains along the west side of Myanmar. The transform part of the motion between the plates is taken up by a separate fault which runs along the central valley of Myanmar. That is the one that failed today. It is a densely populated region and the earthquake may have been highly damaging. You might expect an impact similar to the most recent Turkey earthquake
The maps wrt plate borders in that article are quite different around Burma compared to what is published on Wikipedia. So which one (if any) is correct?
I guess the palte-borders and faults as described in the article are more accurate than what is described at Wikipedia. Is someone voulanteering to change that? Not me… 😀
The maps are correct. It is called one of the most complex settings on Earth, which makes it difficult to decribe it. If you see it travelling in as a Tethyan island arc the setting becomes crystal clear. The Sunda Block is discussed as having broken off the Asian Continent, so details – whether Sunda or Asia – might be of minor importance.
The Sunda plate is moving different from the Eurasian plate, but there is no clear dividing line between them. So it is sometimes considered a separate plate and sometimes part of Eurasia.
The earthquake caused Swimming Pool Tsunamis in Thailand. Small compared to the big ones, but probably dangerous for surprised swimmers … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUgYufYUd3k
I scrolled back through the livestreams of the V1 and V2 cams on Kilauea to see if I could detect any glow from either of the vents, and didn’t see any except for that coming from the tiny remaining hotspots leftover from episode 15. I understand the north vent was inundated with both molten lava and tephra from the south vent fountains for quite a while during episode 15, so may just be clogged up, but the south vent I would have thought would have been mostly clear once it stopped since that is where the lava was coming from for the last hours of the fountaining phase to begin with. On the other hand, between the previous episodes, the glow did seem to return to the north vent first, before the southern vent, once the inflation recovered enough, so maybe it is still coming?
South vent usually stayed dark until close to the next episode. It seems to be pretty narrow so not a wide open vent like the north vent. It might also have been buried by the back wall sliding down over it. North vent is full of tephra now, I wonder if maybe it will still be a lava lake next time or a narrow vent again too. Or if it will even be involved, the south vent sat a few episodes out a nonth ago.
I guess, theres also a small chance the north vent unblocks explosively, small vulcanian eruption. Its not my first guess but it isnt visibly degassing so who knows…
Regarding episode 16, its already half way recovered… if there isnt an eruption in 3 days then its going to significantly overshoot, and if that happens theres probably a good chance at hitting 500 meters. Either that or more vents open.
Steam Plume on March 26th:
https://avo.alaska.edu/image/view/196557
Nice one
Burma is a terrane like California. I guessed this and accordingly found the right paper for the setting, only abstract unfortunately. The Sagaing Fault, ~1.400 km long, is the Asian equivalent of the San Andreas Fault then and Burma, once an island arc in the Tethyan Ocean, rotated and travelled on the north-eastern end of the Indian Plate. That is a classical journey with final collision of an island arc. Sumatra is the next in the line.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0443-2
The news with reports from Myanmar, Thailand, Yunnan, China, and Sichuan, China:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/mar/28/myanmar-earthquake-thailand-bangkok-mandalay-latest-news-updates
Sundhnukur should erupt tonight or tomorrow judging by the current quake/tremor data. AfarTV have just put some nice new widescreen cams up as well.
With the uncertainto recently, theres a decent chance that it erupts the same time as Kilauea does episode 16, in 2-3 days. That might be one of the greatest volcano lives of all time 🙂
I guess they will be erupting together regardless, Sundhnjukur will probably last at least a week.
All of this under the condition Grindavik is still there afterwards, I should say. This will probably be the biggest eruption of the whole series, likely over 100 million m3 with a big fraction in the first few hours.
There are some worrisome quakes south-west of Hagafell, however the majority of quakes today are focused at the bottom end of the previous dikes where the ‘kink’ is, just east of Sylingarfell, and i’d expect that to be where it starts once again. I suppose it just depends which way it extends, if it shoots north again everything is by and large safe, though it may flow down the east side of Grindavik into the sea. Anything long-lasting south of Hagafell puts the barrier under enormous strain, and if the dike penetrates the barrier itself then Grindavik will succomb.
If its be biggest eruption, then it will also probably have the longest opening fissure. The one in August was something like 11 km long and this is already bigger at the precursor stage. The August eruption started at the cone formed in March-July, and went north to the limits of the original November 2023 intrusion. I doubt it will easily go beyond that when there is freshly rifted terrain the other way…
I agree that the majority of lava will be north of the May cone, whuch is the north/south divide. But I think its going to go south too. Even if only 1/4 of the eruption goes south thats still about the same volume as the entire eruptions that happened a year ago, which were never focused entirely that direction. And if the fissure isnt extra long or intense to start then that brings the risk the eruption will last a long time which is a whole new risk assessment. Arnarseturshraun made a lava shield and flowed basically to sea level, though not to the actual ocean. If that happens at Sundhnjukur anywhere south if Sylingarfell it will probably do some damage. It already did this on a small scale a year ago and in July.
To be honest, if it doesnt erupt soon, the next eruption could be all of the above combined. Only way it doesnt happen is the source stopping, but even that doesnt mean it wont just resume full supply again in a few years and set it off then anyway.
With each eruption, there has been a clear decline in the overall inflation rate as measured by the various GPS sensors when looking at the average slope *in between* eruptions (so flatter and flatter curves overall). Also for each inflation episode, there has been a decline in the inflation rate prior to the eruption (such that the individual inflation curves are concave down).
Regarding the former, I’ve always wondered how much of the overall decline is attributable to a) an actual decrease in the magma supply rate versus b) more space for the magma to fill.
Regarding the latter, my understanding is that the flattening of the curve prior to each eruption is a sign of increasing magmatic pressure. However, if the actual supply rate is also decreasing, this could also lead to a flattening of the curve, I would presume, in which case the whole thing could conceivable peter out without an eruption or dike intrusion, right? Is there a reliable way to tell the difference?
Serious questions from an interested amateur, and I would love for those with better knowledge to correct any implicit misunderstandings in my statements above, as well.
Do remember that magma flow takes time. The movement is not instant: especially pore flow can be slow. The pressure difference (buoyancy included) and the structure of the rock limit the flow rate. The inflation rate is set by the pressure difference and the time the flow takes. Here, after every eruption the pressure in the feeding magma chamber may have decreased a bit (because of the outflow) and the pressure in the upper magma reservoir has increased (it has not emptied completely in the eruption). So the inflation rate decreases over time. At some point the inflation rate has slowed so far that the crust and surrounding rocks can adjust to the increase, and no further eruptions occur. My speculation.
I think its both. If there is no outlet and deformation is reaching a limit then the supply has to slow down. I think HVO did a study in the 60s that the actual supply rate in 1966 or 1967 was quite low but pressure was very high, when Halemaumau erupted in 1967 the pressure was released and supply increased a lot, by over double if I remember. Basically if magma can go somewhere with low pressure, surface or not, it has high flow rate so also high supply rate. If there is no outlet then pressure increases but magma cant really physically flow in so supply is going to be very low or even nothing, but in real life an eruption will probably happen before this point.
In any case its basically just a hydraulic system but magma instead of oil or water. I dont know if magma is actually noticeably compressible with these kind of scales and forces, it probably is a bit, but its still a general good comparison.
The problem really is that even if this stops now, the magma is still there, theres no evidence that magma really drains away without intruding. Uplift started and stopped in 2020, and in 2022, between eruptions at Fagradalsfjall. Then it went full time to Svartsengi up to now. Maybe it will go back to Fagradalsfjall again later this year, or to Krysuvik or Eldey or Reykjaneskagi, or even further away Brennisteinsfjoll, Hengill or Þingvellir. But if it goes back to Svartsengi its already primed to go.
The longer inflation continues, the flatter the curve becomes. Maybe we get a last big single event, and then the first eruption with 8 episodes is over.
I’ve noticed that in late January, two months after the last episode, the inflation had an abrupt change to a more flate grade. Since March 2024 on average tehere was an eruption every 3 months. So Februar 2025 it had to be the next one. But obviously it failed, and the deformation changed to a more flat growth. March looks again like there might be a change of deformation towards a more flat growth:
All in all it looks likely that the next episode is the last one. Maybe after years or a decade there will be new eruptions like in Vatnajökull’s timetable.
Appreciate the feedback, chad and Albert! What you say makes sense. I guess like always we wait and see! As for me, I feel like I may know the contours of the Reykjanes Peninsula better than my own backyard at this point ;).
I flew over some of it last week. Bleak landscape. Katla was very impressive though.
I have the equations for the speed of pore flow somewhere.. Different parts of the system respond at very different time scales, which is why you get episodic behaviour. The current episodic behaviour is itself pretty regular, both at Reykjanes and Iceland, at least until something changes in the plumbing. I agree that Reykjanes may be getting closer to the end of the current phase, though. After that, anyone’s guess whether there will be another round next year or not.
Or the eruption waits until April 1st. As we know, the US tariffs shall begin on April 2nd to let Iceland get the full attention on April 1st
On the other side of Iceland: Has Askja really calmed down after the unrest 1-2 years ago?
I’ve read a study that there was some magma movement 2021-2023, but not enough for an eruption. Is this event over or does it continue anyhow?
ORFC station has most inflation now. Where is this station? ODDF is near Trölladyngja (Krysuvik). Is ORFC in this area?
It’s probably located at the greenhouse (ORF genetics). Just inside the berm SSE of Thorbjörn. That would be consistent with movement SE caused by the inflation.
extensive report on Myanmar earthquake by Judith A Hubbard and Kyle Bradley
https://earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/catastrophic-m77-earthquake-caused
I think these are recent shots from Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira its very intresting that most of the Albertine Rift is nearly completely passive in magma generation with deep baikal looking lakes due to lack of magma infillings, and then you haves Virunga a very powerful president local melting source thats deep under the crust
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JrmMyTAeuRA 5:40 – 5:54 scary really scary how fast that fluid nephelinitic lava flowed through Goma in 2002. And this lava flow was feed by the fissure vents that erupted just by the aiport sending a deadly river of lava directly through the main streets of the city, its not strange at all that persons where burned to death if you are caught dozed off or in your sleep. I remeber a family out of fear seeking shelter in a cellar and the lava flows flowed on top and it later collpased killing at least three persons
I dont have an earlier daytime screenshot, but this shows the difference at the vents between February 11 and today. The angle seems to be slightly different but its still a pretty obvious huge difference
Most of the difference is obviously the massive growth around the south vent, which was pretty sleepy in February but has really picked up now. Theres a lot of viscous spatter flows now too from the much taller fountains. So the interior of the cone/shield us probably not completely solid, maybe similar viscosity to a lava dome, and moves slowly.
The biggest growth is, as far as I see, uphill. The cone(s) try to climb up the cliff. Although now lava flows upwards there, the lava fountains are so massive and tall at the same time, that they cover the whole vertical slope. The position may cause physical inbalances, so it’s possible that an instable architecture of the cones leads to landslides.
There was a difficulty, when the N vent erupted slowly during the inflation phase, that we couldn’t really look in the S vent. So I was uncertain whether there also was some invisible small-scale eruption.
Another difficulty for observation is the horseshoe shape of the cones. They have a nearly horizontal exit. But the webcams don’t catch it. During the early hours of Episode 14 we suddenly saw lava flows in the caldera, but not how they occured in the cones.
Yes its building up the wall, like Pu’u Puai did on the side of Kilauea Iki. I imagine that it will accumulate on the walls and periodically slide down over the vents, which will also lift the vents up. So its actually possible the vents will end up much higher than the rest of the floor and a lot faster than expected. The vents have probably lifted up at least 50 meters already, 1/4 of the height of the back wall.
I would be surprised if the north vent is dead, but might not glow much until the episode starts. If it actually is blocked though then E16 will probably start up quicker and bigger fountains too. After the other day I have bo doubts this could go to 500 meters, or more.
Most of the E15 drop has been recovered already, at this rate E16 will be in the next day and full fountains within 2 days. The fact there isnt much glow yet probably means the vents might be more blocked and the episode could just start up really strong suddenly.
There are a lot of Fumaroles both at the cones and along the base of the caldera cliff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5zz9Sjw3E
They show that although the eruptions happen on the twin cones, the activity involves the ring fault along the caldera rim. In September 1974 the west wall of Kilauea was involved in an eruption:
” The fountains …rapidly migrated southwestward across Halema’uma’u’s floor, and at 01:45 a “curtain of fire” climbed the crater’s west wall.”
September 1974 was the last eruption in the area, where we now have the series of episodes. Unlike 1974 and 1971 the eruption 2024-2025 didn’t migrate from Halema’uma’u to the caldera rim, but started there with Episode 1 in December. Does this mean that the eruption is going to stay there until last episode, or is it still able to migrate further west or southwest like 1971 and 1974?
I dont think they show that, there have always been fumaroles around the caldera, most of them are buried since 2020. Nothing particular about those locations resulting in eruptions.
SDH has now reached the E15 trigger point. Within a day it will be past the average upward trend of the last few episodes too. But UWD hasnt yet, it had a flat day, its going up again but how fast isnt clear yet. Im less inclined to trust UWD though, given its recent malfunctions, the buildup to E15 might not really be how it behaved. So E16 is likely this week but probably with a different style again. No gas pistoning probably just a very immediate and sudden stsrt to high fountaining, and maybe only the south vent. If it isnt this week then maybe a bigger change is coming after all, which is a shame as this location is perfect for multiple reasons…
The twin vents both now have the problem that they’re blocked by erupted material of Episode 15: ” The lack of glow at the north vent had previously been interpreted as a result of episode 15 eruptive material blocking that vent. The lack of glow at south vent may mean it too is now blocked by material slumping into the vent, or that magma within the conduit is no longer as shallow as it had been.”
New rising magma has to clean the craters in the vents. This can be explosive. HVO has observed signs for a weaker magma supply:
“The slowed rate of inflation of the summit recorded on the UWD tiltmeter may indicate that magma replenishment has also slowed compared to other pauses.”
https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/volcano-updates
Inflation at SDH is unchanged though, so supply isnt lower. I dont really know why they seem to be eager to say its over when its not even been a week and its already recovered to some degree, doesnt look low supply to me… I have also learned that unless its important most of the main updates are summaries of the last day not usually updates of the very latest situation, but that might be my timezone.
Anyway inflation is ongoing and SDH has now far overtopped the E15 point, only UWD hasnt but its unclear how reliable the E15 point on that instrument is after its malfunctions last week.
In any case Kilauea is currently in a position to erupt anywhere, so if the vents now cant take it then new intrusions will start. Its not showing signs of that but its not like there is a lot of other options than to erupt somewhere now, nowhere underground except far down the ERZ and thats not going to hold long…
New update and they are predicting an eruption in the next couple days, 2nd-3rd April or later possibly. It seems like the surface activity is controlled by the shallow chamber under Halemaumau that is measured by UWD. But the strength of the activity is more related to SDH, which measures the major magma chamber underlying everything. It also measures the SWRZ connector with the green line but no big changes there.
It looks like there might be slight magma accumulation in the major magma chamber, so its far from over. I think the next episode is going to be big, possibly even the one that breaks the record. At this rate SDH will inflate to over double the E15 cut off point by the time UWD is at te same spot on its graph. Although to be honest current trajectory puts UWD at the E15 cut off in the next 2 days at most.
I dont knkw if we should expect any long build up activity, it might just go full power almost immediately. I also agree theres a possibility at least one of the vents could clear explosively at the start.
I’d expect that the next Episode 16 begins with a Strombolian ash & bomb explosion, followed by effusive lava activity.
Poor Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira buried beneath miles of glacial ice and swept by – 75 c fridig air in winter. What woud Nyiragongo look like in this odd situation?
If the air pressure at sealevel was higher than Africa even at the pole may not be frozen due to the fact that denser air spreads out the suns warmth better. With denser nitrogen it woud result in much less temperature differential between its pole and equator the real world Earth haves..because the air is denser and spreads out heat better. A denser atmosphere nitrogen woud perhaps need Earth to be moved further out from the sun to balance out the increased greenhouse effect from that.
This is an experiment with 1 bars pressure same as our sealevel
Mount Spurr on this Earth becomes a tropical paradise the ice woud quickly melt away under the strong equator sun
Something these maps never really consider is that all of Antarctica and the Arctic, neither would have had any ice at all for hundreds of millions of years. Antarctica got its first modern icesheets in the Oligocene at least and was largely its current conditition by the Miocene, but it has probably been cold enough for mountains to be glaciated since the Jurassic at least, maybe not continuously but still.
The Arctic is younger but Alaska was still only a bit warmer in the late Cretaceous than it is now, and only slightly further south. All of northern Canada, Greenland, Norway, they would never have created their characteristic fjord coastlines and stripped bedrock terrains. Iceland would be flatter and the old parts eroded by sharp canyons like on Kauai or Fiji.
Basically if the world actually looked like it does to us now but flipped that way, it would be obvious in the geology that the flip had happened. None of the glacial features of high latitude we think of would exist, the respective continents being much flatter and with all their topsoil. Rivers would be very different especially in North America, where everything would probably still flow towards Baffin Bay, no mighty Mississippi.
I think they are also being very generous thinking the Red Sea would actually exist, and not be all ice with a few volcanoes poking out. Or that the bit inland of the Drakensberg would actually be ice free. The bottom of Greenland in real life is in the ice free latitudes and in theory should be like that too but still an icesheet because it forms a microclimate. Maybe Madagascar could stay open, surrounded by ocean.
I guess, there is an entire field of biology to think about too. Wtf would the animals even be. Depending on the time if the flip, the KPg asteroid might have not hit the same place, probably ending up hitting Sumatra but half the crater missing to subduction. Its likely not all dinosaurs would be lost, and thus would be a part if Cenozoic evolution still, or even still dominant if any quadrupedal lines survived. Probably the only reason birds didnt dominate megafauna niches in real life is restrictive morphology on their skeletons. Theropods cant pronate their wrists to actually let them bear weight on the ground with them, apparently a feature that was never opposed in over 200 million years. and birds also lost a counterbalancing tail that let other theropods ignore that problem…
If the flip was in the Cenozoic at some point then probably the timeline would be the same up to that point but immedistely and radically differ upon flipping. But the fact Africa is off limits simply means we would never exist at all. Some other primate could evolve to be like us, or even another animal, but none of our entire extended lineage would exist at all if it happens pre Miocene.
Also, would the flip itself be a mass extinction… if the flip happened at the KPg, honestly multicellular life might have barely survived it at all, entire major lineages of animals, even entire clades, might have ended right there. A world we can just not understand at all. It might as well become an alien planet seeded with earth life spec evo at that point.
Regarding Nyiragongo, probably like Erebus but less massive and maybe hotter. Very lonely and isolated, a pair of glowing holes in the icy hellscape. A refuge more than a hell of its own.
Thats very intresting speculation Chad thanks!
For this map Sweden wont perhaps be that much different than it is by todays climate conditions but much warmer overall in summer since its lower in latitude. Thats saied Europe certainly overall will be much colder than today receving cold continental winter air from African Icesheet. Central Europe that today haves mild broadleaf conditions will in this alternative Earth descend into canadian siberian hellhole. Sweden maybe analougus to eastern US with warm humid summers with sometimes thunderstorms and winters thats mixed and sometimes very cold coldspells when polar air rushes down from the Mediterranean. Northen Sweden and Finland ( flipped becomes sourthen) maybe quite warm all year around with only occanional hard forsts perhaps like Washington DC the winds should blown from the land out east giving this alternative Scandinavia same weather as eastern US today or likey perhaps like Japan ( but a bit colder still ) thats sitting beside a very large cold continent in winter. Iceland out in a presumabley warm ocean and further south will be very
mild and pleasant in this scenario Reykjavik perhaps looking like Auckland in northen NZ
Iceland will become a very pleasant place to live in this situation since it sits at much lower latitude than today and still of course out in the ocean as well giving it an oceanic climate but much warmer overall than todays. Reykjavík maybe analougus to a large version of Funchal in Madeira in weather making this alternative Iceland a very pleasant place indeed to live in and that result in a much bigger population than it have today. The Reykjavík penninsula woud likey look like Afar landscapes around Erta Ale but it woud become as green as Auckland. Svalbard to the south will become a tropical paradise and so does Greenland 🙂
Something important is the map still seems to have Greenland with its icesheet elevation and not the actual bedrock elevation. When it first melts away completely the middle is below sea level, abd might actually be connected to the ocean too its hard to tell. Obviously it will rebound but the middle is lower still. Before it froze over it had a major river going north and its canyon is still there but I dont know if that system would still be intact after rebound. I guess in a few millennia we will know… I wonder what the chance is that minor rebound volcanism is possible in Greenland. It hasnt ever totally melted and rebounded in prior interglacials, and part of it apparently is lifted by the Iceland plume. Chance us probably still very small but unlike Norway and Scotland, Greenland actually did have volcanism after the North Atlantic formed, I think as late as the Miocene, so maybe more likely than it sounds. We wont see it though, but Antarctica might be a different story…
Anyway, Greenland would probably be all covered in jungle, even the middle. It might even have huge swamps or lakes instead of flowing water, like South America did in the Miocene. Lots of giant fish and crocodilians 🙂
Iceland I think would be green but not necessarily very many animals. Only rafting or flying, so probably lots of birds of many sizes but no mammals outside of aquatic ones. Like New Zealand 1000 years ago.
I woud like to have Seapole scenario so Scandinavia ends up on the equatorial region so I can have fantastic weather all year around = we call that scenario Scandiapore 🙂 Scandinaviapore
Europe’s micro continents traveled all the way from south pole to arctis over geological history. The sediments mirror this voyage over different climate zones … and the development of global climate. During Silur Baltica was on Equator. Imagine how Sweden and Finland looked during that time.
More alternative Earths 🙂 scenarios with tilt
http://www.worlddreambank.org/S/SEAPOLE.HTM
http://www.worlddreambank.org/S/SHIVERIA.HTM
http://www.worlddreambank.org/J/JAREDIA.HTM
http://www.worlddreambank.org/T/TURNOVIA.HTM
I’ve played a lot of Civilization V, the maps that can be randomly produced are similar! Then you can get down and dirty on them.
http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM
And more speculative exoplanets and other odd plays with Earths geography
Lyr will be a litteral volcanic hellhole.. cooking under its 7 Earth masses…
http://www.worlddreambank.org/L/LYRSOUTH.HTM
Lyrs odd south polar region very diffirent unlike Earths large stable continents!
Lyr is in geographic terms an excellent speculative work of how a Super Earth with many times the mass of Earth perhaps coud be like. Hyperactive broken up plate tectonics, a much denser nitrogen atmosphere and also much deeper wordwide seas than our Earth haves makes sense with the much bigger mass than Earth haves. It makes alot of sense with chaos tectonics ( only small broken up protocontinents ) due to the great internal heat budget that 7 Earth masses woud result in. It also makes alot with much deeper sea volume as a large rocky planet will be able to pull in alot of icey materials and be able to hold in alot more volatile elements like water. Its the same with the much denser atmosphere pressure a larger world will be able to hold on to it much more than Earth does. Due to the much denser atmosphere and huge deep oceans most of Lyr is warm and wet with mild and temperate poles and only half of Earths equator- pole temperature gradient. At 6 Earths atmosphere pressure that gives Lyrs 150 ppm of Co2 the same effect of 900 ppm on Earth
http://www.worlddreambank.org/J/JAREDIA.HTM
Map is from this fun worldbuilding scenario experimentation with Earths tilt
South Africa in that model of Earths tilt likey keept warm by warm ocean currents streaming up from warmer tropical regions thats the large warm ocean nearby Madagascar this woud be an excellent fishing grounds due to the collision of warm and cold seacurrents outside Drakensberg there woud be prolific sea life whales, great whites, many millions of sea birds in summer season and maybe a small cold human settlement at cape town looking rather like tierra del fuego
http://www.worlddreambank.org/J/JAREDIA.HTM
The frozen South Africa
Now this raises a question for the more informed contributors on here- are mantle plumes independent of the Earth’s rotation?
I’d assume not?
The Earth rotates as a solid body, so the same rotation period at every depth. As the plume ascends, because the viscosity of the mantle is so high, it carries the plume with it. So the plume rises straight up through the mantle, and rotates with the rest of the Earth.
Kilauea south vent has started to visibly degas again. Started at between 8 and 9 pm local. Still nothing else but it looks like business as usual just now. Probably lava in the crater by tomorrow
The vents have to clear the conduit before they can erupt orderly. Lava bombs of Episode 15 fill and block the craters. That’s a reason why they now aren’t glowing. Maybe they’ll do a cleaning explosion before magma can erupt effusively. 2008 the opening of Overlook Crater was preceded by explosive activity since March 19th: “A new, small crater formed from this collapse, which was also associated with an explosive eruption of blocks that fell around the Halema‘uma‘u Overlook.” https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/science/chronology-kilaueas-summit-eruption-2008-2018
Uunartoq Hot Springs in Greenland maybe it coud be litospheric warmth from the Iceland Plume
https://arcticexcursions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/IMG_6339-scaled.jpeg
Sundhunkur still defying expectations. I had it down for mid-Feb originally. If I was Italian I’d be imprisoned.
Looks like the tremor chart will peak again around 3-4am, but I’m done making predictions for this system.
I guess it is outshined by Kīlauea recently…
2000 deaths in Myanmar, around 270 missed so far, 3.900 wounded, but the USGS models 10.000 deaths, how is that:
-The US Geological Survey’s modelling estimates Myanmar’s death toll could exceed 10,000, with losses surpassing annual economic output.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlxlxd7882o
Governments like Myanmar don’t like data that put them in a bad light
All the numbers so far are a massive underestimate.
A M7.7 right under the second biggest city in Burma, over a million people, where construction standards are extremely iffy.
When the dust settles the outcome will be very very bad.
All
Ok way off topic post, but I found this interesting when trying to determine how much water fell on our 9.5 acres in rain storms. We sometimes get up to 3 inches of rain at a time, Sorry
We had a possible tornado pass over the house today at around 12:30, waiting on NWS to inspect and make a yes or no decision on if it was a tornado, or just straight line winds (60+ MPH), we are fine. While looking at the GFS forecasts for the next 10 days I noticed line of storms that were forecast over an area of from NE Texas, over to the NW towards Tulsa OK, and extending all the way up toward Ohio area. This is a long range forecast, usually we only look at 3 day forecasts, they are much more reliable.
GFS Total precipitation accumulation from 3/31/2025 to 4/11/2025
In this area they are forecasting from 5 to 14 inches of rain to fall over the 11 days, with some areas around also getting 1-4 inches. I am going to ignore the 1-4 inches for this discussion.
This area (dark purple to yellows) is approximately,
46,618,586 Acres, there are 27,000Gallons of water in an inch acre of water, this equals 1,258,701,822,000 Gallons
or 18,865,870 Hectares, there are 102,087 liters in an inch hectare of water. this equals 1,925,960,070,690 Liters.
A lot of water will end up draining in to the Mississippi River basin. I checked the river flow measurements of the Mississippi River near Memphis and for the last 10 days it averaged 680,100 CFS (cubic feet per second).
Converting gallons to Cubic feet gives us 168,263,958,843 Cubic Feet of water. Liters is much easier, 1,925,960,070 cubic meters.
So that gives us around 68 hours worth of flow the at the average of 10days at the Mississippi river near Memphis. If this forecast holds true, the damage to crops and flooding in the area may be more problematic.
Our property gets 257,963 gallons in an 3 inch storm, not counting the runoff from my two neighbors up hill who have around 14 acres between them. Typically, for most of the storms from 1-2 inches (depending on the season) I will see only a little runoff, most of the water is absorbed into the ground and shows up in several shallow springs that feed our one acre pond which overflows to a creek about 1000 feet down the hill.
Hope you all are well, waiting for Pele to clear Kilauea’s throat.
History of Flooding on Mississippi River From NWS
https://www.weather.gov/lix/ms_flood_history
Mac
Made a big math error. The computations for gallons or liters was off. I only gave the gallons for 1 inch of rain. When I decided to estimate the rain fall over the area it may be around 10 inches of rain (high up to 20 inches, low 5) so I decided to use 10 inches as the average rainfall in the area. New numbers are…
Acres and Hectares remain the same.
1 inch of rain, over 46,618,586 acres is 27,000×46,618,586=1,258,701,822,000 Gallons. Multiply that by 10 inches. 12,587,018,220,000 Gallons which is 1,682,639,588,437 CF. Divide that by average flow at Memphis of 680,100 CFS, that gives us 687 hours of flow in the Mississippi.
Got to watch the math stuff, that is a big difference.
Mac
As an englishmen who used both metric an imperial, these sorts of calcs are MUCH easier to do in metric. Its easy to convert everything to metric, do the calcs and convert back if needed. Rounded figures are as accurate as showing lots of digits.
Your plot 9.5ac – approx 4Ha (2.47per Ha). 4″ rain….
One Ha = 10,000 sq m, 4″ = 100mm = 0.1m, 1000 lit = 1m^3 = 1T rain.
So on your plot (4Ha) 4″ = 4000 m^3 = 4M Lits = 4000T rain.
47Mac ~ 20M Ha (200B m^3) , 10″ rain = 250mm rain so thats about 200,000,000,000 x .25 = 50B m^3.
700,000 cfs ~ 700,000 x 0.3^3 ~ 700,000 x .027 ~ 20K m^3/s = 20k x 3600 ~70M m^3/hr
So 50,000 m^3 ~ 700 hrs flow. Thats double for a month!!
= 50M
The Missoula Floods discharged that in less than 20 minutes. Each event released over 4,000 megatons of energy… they were probably most energetic disasters in the last 15,000 years.
I do remember watching a video by Nick Zentner on them before. Amazing
Mac
Meawhile, Great Sitkins’ lava dome is getting kind of huge… https://avo.alaska.edu/image/view/196392
At Kilauea the north vent is showing sparks of life; it looks like it isn’t totally blocked.
Yes, right on time 🙂
Spattering quite high though not filling with a lake yet. Also notable that this was the vent that HVO said was blocked, yet it has started first again. I imagine the south vent will wake up soon too.
The south vent was one of the two big fountains of day 1, but the north vent was just a small fissure barely avoiding being submerged. Interesting how it is still alive and even reactivates first over what is apparently the bigger vent. And that there were even episodes tge south vent skipped yet as far as I know the north vent never has…