Welcome to the Volcano Café bar, a place for all things on or off topic and inane ramblings. There has been a need of late to find a place better suited to various theories, long comments and enthusiasm. This page will be less moderated than the main article pages and cleared out every month (this may change depending on use).
Have fun and don’t forget to tip the barman 😉
On a non-destructive topic (for me at least)
Turns out Venus may have some life after all!
http://astrobiology.com/2020/09/phosphine-detected-in-the-atmosphere-of-venus—an-indicator-of-possible-life.html
Constraining Santorini / Thera eruption date.
One of the problems is that there’s not much *local* carbon-dating calibration material from around then.
Another is that there’s a sorta-plateau in the *global* carbon calibration curve for that era, creating ambiguity.
Also, eruption records in lonnng ice-cores, sediments etc etc records are ‘busy’, with multiple candidates…
There’s some massive timbers from eg Gordian (E.Turkey) spanning that era, but their tree-ring sequences were ‘floating’, as not sufficient match to eg Irish bog-oaks and US Bristle-cones.
I’ve belatedly found a big PNAS article which, as my link put it ‘Cuts The Gordian Knot’.
Looks like they’ve managed to disentangle the complex, oft-contrary effects of mega-eruptions on tree growth at different altitudes, latitudes and seasons.
Beyond ring narrowing and widening, there are distinct chemical changes *Within The Rings*, apparently related to volcanic effects.
If proven, would eliminate one date for Santorini / Thera, incidentally confirming that ‘outlier’ as an ‘orphan’ eruption, and looks likely to revise much of the Eastern Med’s dating. YMMV…
https://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2020/04/cutting-gordian-knot-of-tree-ring.html
which led me to…
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/15/8410
Note reference to corrections, which were too arcane for me to grok…
Still, as they politely say…
“Chemical analysis of the dated tree-ring sequence identifies a chemical change in their growth environment around 1560 BC which, while requiring further substantiation, may be evidence of the Thera eruption.”
There has just been a 30 km deep earthquake under Kilaueas southwest rift, mid way between its summit and the deep swarm. Maybe nothing important but if more happen I think this is the beginning. Maybe a plot could be made of all the quakes in 3d space under the big island like what was done at Holuhraun.
🙂 i better hurry up with my article draft before it turns into a report.
Yes, only if more happen will it be significant, with more I mean several, not just 2 or 4, otherwise it would be within background levels.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=rQpwmB0J2MU
Nyiragongo lava fall! flowing out from a tube and into the lava lake ”firehose flow perhaps ”
Chad yes You right
Nyiragongo in this video appears to be similar in viscosity to Hawaii and Galapagos hot basalts.
I cannot see any diffrence from Hawaii in viscosity, indeed looks very similar. The sillica content is FAR lower than Hawaii, but temperature is important too. It seems
NO good temperature measurements haves been done at Nyiragongo. But the lava fall does Not look ”more fluid” than normal Hawaii lava
This lava is fluid and smooth: 35% sillica
Woud it be possible to blow glass with a blob from the lake? or is the sillica content too low for a nice strecthy glass? Many ocean entries in Hawaii forms so called glass bubble flakes ”Limou Pele”
Blowing glass from Nyiragongo lake is perhaps not possible?
Too little sillica and too much gunk? Nyiragongo haves so low sillica and little polymerisation that it never forms hawaiis long peles hairs.
Interesting star and actvity east of Hamarinn, Iceland. The buddy of Grimsvotn
It’s been so long….. How is Lurk doing? He is a little close to the hurricane going into Fla…. is Lurk still on the planet … did i miss any important annoucement ?? Stay safe, Lurk! Best!motsfo
The 1998 SO2 plume from Nyiramulagira thats quite huge.
Wow!!! thats huge!
Most of Congo Africa interior.
But it coud be a sensitive satellite and the SO2 is of very low ammounts. Virunga magmas tends to be very alkaline and rich in CO2 but I have not expected the massive SO2 content
Both volcanoes are some of the most prolific SO2 sources on Earth, they are probably connected to a lot of shallow magma in the rift because the SO2 is always high regardless of activity, unlike Hawaii or Iceland where it drops like a stone after an eruption. I think you are right though in that instrument being very sensitive, the 2011 eruption was much larger and caused no wide scale effects. I think if you looked at holuhraun with that instrument it would look like the apocalypse had begun, or at the simultaneous plumes from fissure 8, sierra negra and ambae in 2018.
Alkaline magma can have high SO2, at that temperature acid-base chemistry probably doesnt happen the way we are used to, or at all. Kilaueas lake is being kept at a higher pH than you would expect because its reacting with the rocks, so same thing just not as much. When it stabilises I hink it will quickly become much more acidic, down to pH of <1 like most acid lakes. That is assuming it survives long enough of course.
Nyiragongo is a Nephelinite so indeed its an extremely alkaline volcanic rock and very insanely low in sillica. Its also rich in volcanic CO2, Nyiragongo is very CO2 saturated.
The sillicate Nephelinite seems to have a relationship with the non sillicate magma Carbonatite. Both of the plutonic versions of these are often found togther in rock outcrops.
Most of Lengai is built from Nephelinite with carbonatite being a later addition in activity. Both of these magmas are very high in CO2 gas
Nyiragongo haves indeed a huge SO2 output GVP reports between 8000 and 6000 tons of SO2 everyday!
Thats on pair with Halema’uma’u in 2017 and perhaps even more so.
Nyiragongos 2019 emissions was often around 7000 tons of sulfur everyday.
Nyiragongo does not seem to produce the massive VOG clouds that hovered over Hawaii for 36 years.
Perhaps because atmospheric conditions are diffrent over Continetal Congo?
Nyiragongo is tall and prominent and the top is also very windy and cold, the emissions blow away. Kilauea is much lower and has no prominence at all, so its emissions hug the ground. Mauna loa also creates a low pressure zone in the trade winds that sucks the vog in where it cant escape.
Also, are you two the same person or know each other in real life? You also really need to stop repeating the same comment so much, its on every page that I have gone back and looked at and copied almost word for word.
CHAD yes Icey cold Sweden remains one of the worlds most happiest countries 2020 for third year in row!. Sweden is a very small uniform country, with an extremely high living standard and excellent gender equality. Social Democracy provides free Healthcare and Education. And persons haves trust in society and plenty of paid vacation and acceptable job wages.
Having free acess to healthcare and university is a HUMAN RIGHT and not something for just a few. And thats very central here in Scandinavia and northen Europe.
Scandinavia is absolutley amazing at equal opportunities for everyone.
Its a very Democratic country too Sweden
Its around 7 parties in the parlament to vote on. Freedom of speech is very very strong in Finland and Sweden. And democracy insututions are very sequre and stands very strong, compared to many other places in the world.
Sweden like all Scandinavian countries are also very very very safe to live in. It is one of the most peaceful countries I think.
The taxes are higher than US
But you gets plenty of left in the pocket.
The system is made .. so you get gets plenty left in the pocket after tax. And thats the thing
Thats why noneone complains about taxes here.
Scandinavia is also a very GREEN society
Almost all our electricity comes from hydropower ( river electricity ) and we recycles Absolutley everything we waste.
Sweden is a liberal capitalistic society mixed economy
built on good socalist ideas, and it works very well. The freedom of speech is specialy strong Here in North Europe, and been that for 250 years
Not the same person, but I knows watcher, its a very close friend.
Watcher likes volcanoes and is a close Swedish friend.
I was realtively long ago since we meet. Quite close friend indeed
Both haves a love for africa
Quite long ago I meet her, close friend but perhaps not the closest.
I haves many other friends too, My friend count here in Sweden have been decreasing over the years. Corona destroys alot of stuff.
I lives in Stockholm, ..she in a smaller city south of me.
So whats my opinion on Sweden? well I finds it boring to be stuck here..
No active volcanoes, No spectacular landscapes, and we haves an ocean thats so sick and overfeed with agicultural runoff ( Baltic Sea ) that the entire sea here looks like a pond in a farmfield. BUT Sweden does have alot of nature.. alot of beautyful forests. Most European countries outside Scandinavia have destroyed their nature long ago.
I advise against moving out of Sweden, it is easily one of the safest and best places on Earth to live in and is the envy of most of the Western world for its sustainable energy and high standard of living. I wanted at one point to live in Hawaii with the same reason in mind of living in a geologically stable (boring) area, and specifically to live in Puna exactly because I watched that short documentary on the eruption there in 1955, and thought I would one day see a volcano form in my back yard. This was way back in 2011, if only I knew…
Now you couldnt pay me to live there, visit yes but theres a lot of problems you dont see on the advertising, least of all the absurd cost of living and low minimum wage. Its a rich persons paradise and a prison for everyone else.
Children always want to be adults, but adults wish for the ignorant bliss of their childhood. There is supposed to be the wisdom of old age after that, but im not overly optimistic anyone under 30 today will get that far with the way the world is going… 🙁
Here is the right field to comment lol
Yes Sweden is amazing…. all Scandinavian countries are
The best combination of capitalism and socialism in a democratic ways
But yes… its boring here… NO active volcanoes, and the Baltic Sea is in
a very very very dire condition.
I loves Hawaiis Big Island too!, the tropical small town life quiet and far away from anything, and that crystal clear ocean.
Living on the Big Island… is not easy there is hardly any jobs…
Im wanting Iceland now, the next best thing and its Scandinavian
The Baltic Sea here is in such a terrible state here, thats its almost unbelivable! the entire sea is becomming a green plankton sludge.
The smell is so bad in summer that the coasts are being abdandomed.
For 100 s of kilometers the dense green sludge spreads out. Soon the ecosystem will collapse. Visibility in summer is around 20 centimeters, with as low as 5 centimeters inshore. Russia, Baltic States, Poland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden… pours down agicultural runoff in this ocean.
Yes Sweden is amazing… but boring, and our ocean is tragicaly sick
A happy country indeed, but just as the western world,
we are perhaps not the healthiest, Arteryschorosis runs rampant here, heart disease kills almost everyone here. Im not safe either from becomming a victim of this, despite being only 25, many young already haves it. But swedish health have increased alot since 1990 s, and thats good, more physical activity and less sugar among the population.
Still we are getting older in Sweden and haves high rates of cardiovascular diseases.
Yes of course I known JS, been friends since childhood, we lives at completely different locations now since a decade.
Yes watcher is my friend and JEEZ if I wrote comment above here its because I thinked what she coud say…
wrote what I thinked… I apologize came from my mind…
we are not the same person.
Last time I meet her was in 2015, wonderful person
“Watcher” lives in a small town outside Gothenburg, often rainy there.
She is one that help me to get adopted into Sweden as a smaller kid.
Exactly where she lives… I will kepp secret
2006 SO2 plume from Nyiramulagira, just as crazy looking! But a sensitive space instrument.
We have a bout of tremor on the big Island associated with some deep quakes.
2020-09-16 13:26:13 2.3 44.8
2020-09-16 13:21:23 2.8 40.7
2020-09-16 13:17:38 2.4 35.4
Lurk….. how are You…???
Lurk is ok. It is a bit wet out there and powerless but we are getting updates
Glad to hear it. That is one very wet storm.
Good! This time he failed his own mantra “not to be there when it happens”
If you don’t want conspiracy theories about your response to covid 19 then you should be truthful!
https://fox17.com/news/local/covid-19-emails-from-nashville-mayors-office-show-disturbing-revelation
Removed. We are not a conspiracy site. -admin
removed -admin
The root of all conspiracy theories is the belief that some powerful people have something to hide and immoral interests to pursue. Unfortunately people use conspiracy theories to add some spice into their life by pretending to study and fight boogeymen, and boost their ego be pretending to be against powerful interests. Some use as vessel to expel prejudice, put their desired group in a victim position to emulate their heroes without doing any work.
It should be known that most governments of the world are full of immoral and greedy men whose morals are dependent on how much they get paid and their reelection. I believe that everyone should be on guard for shady actions done by governments and corporations.
The mere fact that several operations existed to align public interests into desired positions should alleviate any skepticism in government outreach and the numerous experiments on civilians show the immorality.
removed -admin
removed -admin
Albert / anyone here
How cold was the Mediterranean during the peak of the Pleistocene Ice Ages?
( Saale Glaciation) That was a very brutal glaciation, with the icewall going well into Ukraine. Mediterranean is told to have been 11 C colder than today during the winter. ( really freezing during winter? )
It was never frozen, though the shallow parts were less saline than today due to increased freshwater inflow from the glacial lakes further north and probably got some sea ice, the ocean itself was about 4 C lower than now. There is apparently also evidence of periodic increases in volcanism associated with the act of rising sea levels, but I only read this in a book once so it may not be an accepted theory anymore.
Etna also began to turn from a tall glaciated silicic stratovolcano (Ellittico stage, about 45000-15000 years ago) into a basaltic volcano with massive supply at the beginning of the holocene, this is probably a coincidence but who knows.
it woud be alot drier too
11 C cooler in winter the reading the data for Mediterranean.
Very little rainfall, as the icesheets sucked up atmospheric moisture.
And a colder Earth means less moisture in the atmosphere. Less evaporation. Much of Europe became a frozen tundra with permafrost going down to Romania during the height of the glacials. In the Glaciation Europe, trees was a rare sight in the cold and very dry climate.
Mediterranean was a ”cool steppe” back then, with cold and dry adapted animals like saiga antelope, camels, reindeer, musxox and mammoth present as far south as South Spain during the coldest parts of the Ice Age.
Wow Reindeer and wholly mammoths as far south as Gibraltar almost in this article
https://www.google.se/amp/s/phys.org/news/2009-07-steppe-mammoths-roamed-southern-spain.amp
The air temperature was
11 C cooler in winter for Mediterranean during the Ice Age. The most significant diffrences was that it was alot drier than today
Don’t forget the sea-level fall. 100 metres ? 120 metres ?? Made the Med look a very different place. When did Black Sea become isolated ? Gibraltar Sill stayed open, though. The End-Messinian (Zanclean ?) mega-flood’s canyon seems to have found a new role. Still, the Med’s rivers must have cut down into their post-Messinian deltas with some enthusiasm.
Did the hydrology change much ? With climate bands being squeezed towards Equator, and more rain in North Africa etc, there were certainly many permanent and seasonal waterways where we now see only barren wadis. Did the Tibesti Massif make its own weather ?? What was the new balance between river / Atlantic inflows / outflows ??
Nik Kelly
Africa and the whole world became alot drier during the Ice Age. Sahara expanded enormously during the dry glacials. ( sahara was largest during the ice ages )
Ice Ages is when deserts are largest, because of the cold dry atmosphere. The desert extended 100 s of kilometers north and south during the Ice age.
It was during the warm Interglacial peaks like Eemian and Holocene Optimum that Sahara became rainy and Green.
Steppe and Desert and Savannah where the major biomes during the Glacial Peaks
Trees where a rare sight, the climate was simply too dry.
And the low carbon dioxide levels at 170 PPM made it difficult for forests to grow during the Ice Ages
Did somebody not have the idea to irrigate the Sahara not long back? (May well have been the Nazis?)
I wonder how different Africa would look with a giant sea in the middle of it, and the mediterranean obviously a lot smaller. Having said that a lot of land from ancient civilisatios has been lost as the sea level has rose in the Med.
IIRC, several projects have been ‘floated’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression
HVO updated their webpage.
I’m hoping this link to Nature is okay but delete it if you wish.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02506-y
Just published in Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-covid-19-reinfection-means-for-vaccines/
And, from India a new pre-print at The Lancet (so not yet peer reviewed).
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3688220
And also the following two also peer reviewed and not from wacky sources. Delete if you think not suitable.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jmv.26478
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bies.202000091
Snag is immunity response to ‘caught in the wild’ Covid may differ very, very markedly from vaccination prompted…
This is why *good* clinical trials are done with ‘Due Care’, scrutinised with near-paranoia.
FWIW, I had my trivalent seasonal ‘flu jab two weeks back. Nothing for a couple of days, then my immune system ‘kicked off’ like a marching band. Hot & cold sweats, crazy dreams. Whatever, I got a new SciFi tale from the weirdest of those ‘Fevre Dreams’…
For a more technical look at some of the analysis so far (peer reviewed)
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/21/11727
I am of the view that America is about to destroy itself in a second civil war and that the repercussions present an existential threat to the entire planet. If there is anyone who cares to debate the topic, I am happy to elaborate my reasons. This is not an attack on any American political ideology, merely an observation from the outside.
In brief, both sides of the partisan politics in the USA have crossed the Rubicon and are committed to violence. Withdrawal by either side would be an unacceptable win for the other. The usual method the USA uses to paper over social divisions is to employ patriotism by waging war on an external party, America has lagged behind China and Russia in developing new weapons and is likely to lose or fail to win a war against either.
America has more guns than people and a second civil war is likely to cause deaths in the tens of millions. There are many issues of potential conflict, the main ones being economic. America has exported manufacturing and jobs to Asia to maintain competitiveness and profit and is unable to rebuild its domestic industries. The Covid virus has caused further loss of jobs and plans to reopen the economy are likely to make the death toll and economic consequences worse. Competition for jobs within the USA is likely to exacerbate already tense racial issues. There is a religious expectation of Apocalypse that is likely to be self-fulfilling. There are many more areas of potential conflict.
Every friend, enemy and economic competitor of the USA can clearly see the potential to exploit the existing social divisions and cause America to defeat itself by supporting one side or the other, or all sides as the case may be. No help is available for Americans to avoid the march of history. All we can do is watch in dismay.
Yes bad stuff is on horizon
Soon Trump will annex canada
”trumpchluss ”
Just kidding lol
I don’t think it will come to civil war, but the tensions have been there since the 2008 financial crisis (and in some cases, since the birth of this country).
I do worry about dictatorship if a certain person gets reelected however.
The news is making the violence look much worse than it is. This is also what they do with natural disasters.
Volcanos don’t just force ‘volcanic winters’, they may craft ice-ages, too !!
https://phys.org/news/2020-09-island-building-southeast-asia-earth-northern.html
Island-building in Southeast Asia created Earth’s northern ice sheets
fair-use quote from lonnnng article:
The Greenland ice sheet owes its existence to the growth of an arc of islands in Southeast Asia—stretching from Sumatra to New Guinea—over the last 15 million years, a new study claims.
According to an analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara and a research institute in Toulouse, France, as the Australian continent pushed these volcanic islands out of the ocean, the rocks were exposed to rain mixed with carbon dioxide, which is acidic. Minerals within the rocks dissolved and washed with the carbon into the ocean, consuming enough carbon dioxide to cool the planet and allow for large ice sheets to form over North America and Northern Europe.
/
More information: Yuem Park el al., “Emergence of the Southeast Asian islands as a driver for Neogene cooling,” PNAS (2020). http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2011033117
{Nik-note: This link not yet live, nor its Arxiv found…}
FWIW, looking for that, I found some interesting open-access stuff on the Pleistocene & Neogene SE Asia / Indonesia Through-Flow. That’s the ‘tentacle’ of global thermohaline circulation which sorta sneaks through area’s maze of islands rather than take the lonnng scenic route East of Australia / New Zealand…
http://searg.rhul.ac.uk/pubs/kuhnt_etal_2004%20Neogene%20Indonesian%20throughflow.pdf
https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/specpubgsl/355/1/1.full.pdf
Add it to the list of suspects. I note that again, Australia is at fault for careless driving .. Other suspects for the CO2 reduction are the Himalayas (monsoon rains and erosion), Central America (breaking the east-west flow and forcing sea currents north-south) and the evolution of grass (an extremely efficient vegetation, as shown by the density of animals that live off it as opposed to forests).
Australia needs to retake it’s test or it will end up like India & Africa i.e. involved in a crash.
It should take note of Antarctica’s expert parking and the Carribbean’s maneuvering in a tight space.
There’s some concern, IIRC, that ice-cap thinning and isostatic rebound of Antarctica may spawn significant volcanism. Not too significant if up North on the lonnng Antarctic Peninsula, but multiple consequences if beneath the main ice-cap(s). Beyond the likely jökulhlaups, and possible triggering of massive glacial surges, ash-fall may change albedo across a wide area…
Speaking of eruptions, isn’t Australia’s Eastern Hot-Spot now beneath the Tasman Sea ? Not so much the Hot-Spot’s own motion, but Oz’ tectonic plate trucking Nor’East at 62~~70 mm /year…
East Eustralia hotspot is I think under Bass Strait in theory, but I dont think it is actually conclusive that the hotspot has been active in the last 6 million years, the Newer Volcanics might be related to uplift of the area and decompression melting. The east coast of Australia is a ‘volcanic passive margin’ and there are volcanoes all along the coast that are of all ages from the Cretaceous up until under 1 million years, there are holocene volcanics at Undara/McBride field, and also at Newer Volcanic field which are at opposite ends of the line. I think a lot of hotspots are probably actually something to do with this effect, only a few really big ones like Hawaii seem to have deep mantle roots like all the diagrams show.
I noticed an intriguing article on nanocrystals and volcanic explosivity.
It is here: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/39/eabb0413