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
There’s a LOT of wariness as this ‘identification’ seems to be based on very few spectroscopy lines. Yes, are there. No, can’t find any other match in the literature. This falls short of ‘confidence’, but has certainly ‘stirred the pot’…
IIRC, seeding those high clouds with hyper-tolerant extremophiles has been repeatedly, um, ‘floated’ by wannabe terraformers. To mis-quote recipe for stately homes’ grand lawns, Seed & roil, seed & roil for a million years…
There is now an independent indication for phosphine from archival pioneer-13 data. The detection of phosphine is generally accepted. The origin is of course a matter of discussion.
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.
Before a thing, event, or set of circumstances can come into existence, it must first be possible. A precursor state must exist upon which another force can act to result in the outcome as a changed state. This law applies to the entire universe and everything in it.
From the current state of global affairs, it is possible to achieve a global civilization that can satisfy the reasonable needs and aspirations of a sustainable global population by 2050; without depleting, polluting or otherwise harming the environment, biological diversity and resources of the planet for future generations.
Nuclear war is not only possible; but inevitable. The most likely trigger is a perceived existential threat to the USA from a civil war or an enemy, or both. If significant harm to the planet and future generations is to be avoided, it would be wiser to employ high altitude EMP and biological weapons in each continent. A better civilization and a sustainable population is the best outcome we can extract from such a war.
• The current model of civilization is ecologically and economically unsustainable because of overpopulation and overconsumption by a rapidly growing middle class; resulting in waste and pollution, degraded and collapsing ecosystems, habitats and species, competition for and over exploitation of resources.
• Competition by humans for territory and resources has already resulted in 83% loss of animals. About 60% of all mammals on Earth are now livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human and just 4% are wild animals. About 70% of birds are poultry for human consumption and 30% are wild birds. It is a massive human caused extinction event.
• A loss of about 50% of the world’s primary forests has been partly offset by industrial plantations and new forests caused by climate change in areas previously too cold to support them; but the new growth does not compensate for the massive loss of biodiversity.
• 7.8 billion people naturally wanting a good quality of life is the main driver for consumption; but competition for economic survival and prosperity is the main reason that consumption is ecologically destructive, unsustainable, wasteful, polluting and unequal in its benefits.
• As of 2012, the United States alone was using 30% of the world’s resources. If everyone were to consume at that rate, we would need 3-5 planets to sustain this type of living. If we consumed at the rate of Qatar, we would need 8.7 planet Earths.
• There is nothing more essential to life than water. From Cape Town to Flint, Michigan; and from rural, sub-Saharan Africa to Australia’s Murray-Darling basin and Asia’s megacities, there is a global water crisis. People are struggling to access the quantity and quality of water they need for drinking, cooking, bathing, handwashing, and growing their food. Water scarcity was listed in 2019 by the World Economic Forum as one of the largest global risks in terms of potential impact over the next decade.
• Resources are quickly becoming depleted, with about ⅓ already gone. With new consumer markets rising in the developing countries which account for a much higher percent of the world’s population, this number can only rise.
• It is mathematically impossible for the global population and global middle class to keep increasing and consuming at its current exponential rate without collapse by 2050 and there is no indication that rate is declining.
• Even if the global population was to magically stop in its tracks at 7.8 billion, of whom over 50% have now commendably been lifted out of poverty, with many achieving middle class incomes and lifestyles, there is no way to undo the damage that has already been done and it will continue to worsen as more people expect better quality of life.
• Every military decision maker with any intelligence, friend or foe, knows the current global population and overconsumption by the global rich and middle class is unsustainable and is the cause of irresolvable problems.
• They know only the realistic and achievable way to achieve a sustainable global civilization is to significantly and quickly reduce the global population; particularly the number of middle class consumers competing for limited resources and creating the waste and climate altering pollution; more particularly the highest and most wasteful consumers.
• The only realistic and achievable way to achieve such a drastic reduction, within human control, is by using nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, disease and starvation.
• The consequences of nuclear war include the destruction of communication and power grids, water supplies, sanitation systems, fuel delivery and transport systems by EMP, resulting in mass starvation and disease; particularly in energy, transport and technology dependant cities; rendering the release of engineered diseases redundant in all but undeveloped regions and rural areas.
• Nuclear war is an unavoidable progression of the next major conflict because nuclear weapons are ubiquitous, the most effective means of defeating an enemy and must be used or lost in a major conflict; and because a major conflict is inevitable. The conflict has already begun with a retreat into nationalism and protectionism.
• Notwithstanding its potentially devastating ecological impact, nuclear war is also the most efficient use of available technology capable of achieving a sustainable population of ecologically responsible consumers.
• An extended period of nuclear winter caused by smoke and particles lifted into the stratosphere may delay or reverse the process of human caused climate change; and even a worst case nuclear winter is survivable by those adequately prepared.
• A nuclear war is unlikely to result in the loss of the human knowledge and technology that has been accumulated over the centuries. A robust, technologically advanced, ecologically sustainable, economically viable and socially just global civilization can be quickly rebuilt in the aftermath; but with better, globally enforceable laws and regulations.
• The major powers are actively preparing for such a war and strongly indicating by their actions it is likely to occur within a few years.
• The only realistic defence in a nuclear war is a successful first strike, or having no strategic value. It is only a matter of time and opportunity before a military decision maker, probably American, decides the time to strike first is now.
Hm. I am more of an optimist. The problems we are facing are huge. But they are also solvable. The worst way to address them is by ignoring them. Some of the world try to do that, with predictable consequences. But reality always wins. The fires in the amazon, australia and california – and now russia – happened right when predicted. At some point even the most ardent deniers will find themselves overtaken by the facts. Our young people know better. And we are making progress. Even the US, with all its propaganda and denial, is actually doing quite well in reducing CO2 (obviously from a very high level, but still), and is leading in carbon-free technology. As for nuclear weapons, that seems so last century.. Even Trump, hardly the most restrained of people, has withheld from war. Every world leader has too much to lose. You would wish there were more Merkels in the world though. You are right with the biodiversity numbers. Our cattle is as big a problem as our own numbers.
Unless we can make food, of all kinds, completely artificially, we cant solve the food problems. Our obsession with meat is a big problem but it is also one without an answer, our species is not a dedicated herbivore and all the plants we can eat struggle to grow anywhere without a huge cost to the environment too, cattle at the very least can eat wild vegetation. Still, given the evidence that at least pigs and probably most large mammals are smart enough to realise their situation we probably need to do something else. Making stuff out of algae is probably a good first step because its already partly done and that will maybe also help with CO2 emissions if we get a large scale.
Really worldwide agriculture needs a total overhaul just as large as what is currently being done with energy. We need an Elon Musk of agriculture to disrupt the fundamentals. Elon is not a philanthropist (well, maybe he is but I doubt it), throwing money randomly does nothing except send it into organised crime, Musk has a total and utter determination to fulfill his personal goals, and a lot of money to play with that he will use very deliberately. He wants to live on Mars, to do that you need a colony, and to do that you need cheap transport in space and also vehicles that dont need air. Making that happen just so happens to mean reusable rockets, power without fossil fuels, and vast advances in battery technology, which will make a huge difference in the future, and until Elon actually leaves for the red planet hes still here with the rest of us, might as well put his tech to good use. It is more complicated than that but we need this over all sectors.
The current measures required to end to stop ecological devastation would lead to a huge centralization of power, and with the corrupt, greedy,xenophobic, narcissistic, and dishonest people in government, I wouldn’t be too dissatisfied with their response. The greatest atrocities in human history started with the excuses “We have to do this.” “There is no other way.” “It is our right” or “It is what we deserve”
Scientists should not retreat into despair concerning this issues, humanity has come along way and it is not a inevitable conclusion that we kill each other. Hatred and hopelessness doesn’t achieve anything. The world needs more scientific breakthroughs and less political bullS#I.
Man is fickle and I don’t think Allah will tolerate this anymore. [My religious side is dominant this month:)]
Dying from a higher power is much cooler than dying due to greed and selfishness. So we should go for that.
Most of the funding for the “ignore climate change” politicians comes from the oil industry, at least in the United States. Also I think in Russia, but there the government controls the oil industry.
I was going to actually say that in my other comment, except about the US puppet that I live in. Australia is great and you couldnt pay me to live anywhere else except New Zealand, but our obsession with fossil fuels is so absurd that the cost of ownership of an EV is actually higher than an ICE car in some areas, as well as the CO2 emissions per km, no that isnt a joke.
As a pessimist I can only be pleasantly surprised by unexpected outcomes.
With all due respect, 2012 data is pretty non-current, especially with the significant improvement in the Chinese and Indian economies in recent years.
I get that you had a bad experience with a crazy American girlfriend, but you seem intent on assigning blame for all evils on one country. Yes, we have a history of being militarily aggressive. That does not translate into “nuclear war is inevitable and will be instigated by US aggression”.
I agree with Albert that nukes are kind of 20th century. And there are many other conflicts potentially over water rights as the planet warms, that could be a risk to everyone.
I don’t assign blame for all ills to one country; and an unfortunate relationship 20 years ago has not coloured my perspective at all. People are a similar sense of being “me”, with similar needs, want and potential the world over. There are simply too many of us to provide for sustainably. The significant improvements to Asian economies is equally to blame for our intractable population and ecological problems in creating more unsustainable middle class consumers. Australians are probably worse than Americans for consumption per capita; and Middle Eastern nations certainly are. I simply see America as the product of history; one that is likely to transform into a necessary evil for the sake of a future good.
What do you mean by “transform into a necessary evil for the sake of a future good”? That sounds like communism, but it also sounds like America acting as world police (or mercenaries for hire).
What were your predictions for 2020 ten years ago? Were they wrong?
Most people cannot predict the future.
Current water-rights conflicts:
1. China in Tibet, not only are they suppressing Tibetans, they are controlling the source of the Mekong river.
2. high altitude posturing with India and China is about river sources in the Himalayas. 2-3 billion people depend on that.
3. Ethiopia and its dams along the Nile
4. Turkey and its dams on the Euphrates.
5. various US states and Mexico, over the Colorado River.
I also worry a lot about what happens when the seas rise and half of Bangladesh, Florida, Louisiana, other low-lying places are uninhabitable, and millions of people need to relocate. Oh wait, that’s starting to happen already.
The future good would be a sustainable global population (around 2 billion) that does not harm the environment or deplete the world’s resources for future generations. To get there in good time would require the death of over 5 billion people in a matter of a few decades. While that is an unwelcome prospect for those doomed to die, it would be a good outcome for the survivors in a future global civilization. There aren’t many means within human control to kill 5 billion people, particularly without reducing the habitable areas of the planet due to radioactive fallout. It can be achieved with high altitude EMP weapons to knock out global electricity grids and the critical urban infrastructure that depends on them, and engineered diseases, forcing competition for survival. There are strategists in each military who understand what is required. Such a war would be considered a necessary evil if a sustainable population is the goal. The USA is one of a few nations with the technology to achieve this. The current model of western civilization is failing, most obviously in the USA, which is doomed to civil war. A wider global war is inevitable. If so, it makes dark good sense to drastically reduce the population in pursuit of eventual sustainability. An ecologically sustainable and economically viable global civilization is likely to be socialist in nature because it has to employ and educate and protect all its citizens from harm. Social groups competing for survival in a Capitalist system may cut costs and regulations in pursuit of viability and profit; but will not cut the mustard as a global culture.
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).
PNAS Link now live, but pricey-paywalled…
{Sulk… }
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.
Yeah. That cluster around Atherton is around the same period as the Newer Volcanics Province. Has to be a different magma source.
That is a 3rd area then, Lake Eacham is about 9000-10,000 years old I found out and Lake Barrain is 14,000 years old, and theres a few other volcanoes there around that time, maybe there is actually a better chance of a new volcano here than in Newer Volcanics actually, its been longer since the last one and the repose is similar.
Atherton is sort of like Newer Volcanics in style though, small monogenetic volcanoes. Nulla, Sturgeon and Chudleigh are similar and possibly all one massive single field separated by erosional structures, much more voluminous with long intervals between eruptions of huge size, almost like a smaller version of the columbia river basalts. McBride is I think actually a proper volcano, a true polygenetic shield, but im writing a draft about that so no more spoilers 🙂
As the last continent to leave Antarctica, Australia can take the credit for the expert parking, as well as prior ownership of the vehicle, whose tank of fuels every other nation seems keen to siphon when our back is turned.
I noticed an intriguing article on nanocrystals and volcanic explosivity.
It is here: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/39/eabb0413
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ue7M5UW-6Y
Good video on the biology and enviroment of the Early Eocene High Arctic, Greenland and Ellesmere was even back then close to the North Pole as it is today. Greenland and Ellesmere Islands was subtropical back then, probaly very similar to everglades in Florida. Caimans and crocodiles swimming in the arctic ocean that reached + 24 C in seawater temps in summer estimates. Also quite extraodinary that sand tiger sharks swam in the Arctic ocean. 55 million years ago the PETM occured. From
the same time fossil palm nuts and seeds been found in Antartica and Greenland.
PETM Arctic was warm and Subtropical. The so called PETM is one of the most extreme greenhouse eras that Earth have ever seen. Massive flood basalts CO2 outgassing drove the CO2 content up to perhaps 2200 PPM around 55 million years ago.
It was an incredible diffrent world than today, extremely hot and humid. Equatorial seas May have reached
+ 37 C or more in seawater temps.
Very hot and humid with torrential rainfall in tropics and midlatitudes.
Earths Hydrological cycle going Into overdrive.
55 million years ago Greenland and South Pole had almost tropical climates?. Fossils of subtropical and even tropical leaves been found in ellesmere island that was in same polar latitude 55 million years ago. The Eocene world was almost completely covered in tropical forests. Sweden was a tropical swamp back then and coral reefs fringed South Greenland. This was a fabolous time for early primates and snakes and crocdillians who thrived in the global rainforests. Primates spread across greenland, europe, africa, asia and into north Africa.
This was when the modern rainforests evolved and appeared. The heat and humidity of the early Eocene epoch made it a excellent time for dense jungles and rainforests.
Today CO2 from human emissions are rising 10 times faster than PETM pretty scary.
In Early Eocene equator had avarge shadow temps of around 38 to 40 C thats around 10 c warmer than today.
But Eocene equatorial tropical forests thrived in the heat. Equator was a rainy steamy hellhouse far too hot and humid for any modern human to live in. Equator was rainforests even during these extreme hyperthermals, loots of rain and giant reptiles like titanoboa and giant frogs.
chad perhaps you haves an opinion? If modern hardwood megathermal broadleaf angiosperm tropical rainforest already covered almost the entire planet 57 million years ago.
When did modern tropical rainforest evolve? its already widespread in Colorado in 62 million years old desposits.
Did modern tropical rainforests exist during the very Latest Cretaceous?
Tropical Rainforest leave almost No fossil record because of fast decomposing. All rainforest fossils from Early Eocene are from oxygen poor lake and rivers where decomposition is very slow.
Modern Tropical rainforests in Eocene from equator up to latitude 66 apparently During the PETM 56 to 48 million years ago. Messel Pit is a spectacular ”modern” rainforest site from Eocene
But did they exist during the Very Latest Cretaceous?
Any Maastrichtian age ( KT boundary hardwood rainforest? ) 66 million years ago.
Most of the age of the Mesozoic was dominated by conifers and tree ferns.
Very diffrent from Eocene and modern tropics. But I knows that angiosperms flowering plants appeared during the early cretaceous. But the origin of the modern tropical rainforest remains a mystery, because they does not fossilize, only fossilize during anoxic lake .. streams conditions.
Perhaps Albert haves an opinion If Modern megathermal broadleaf angiosperm tropical rainforest… existed in Latest Cretaceous at equator?
Jesper, your fascinating comments remind me of the discovery that dinosaurs also ate grass, which was originally thought not to be part of the earth’s vegetation at that period in time. Here’s an article on the topic:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8336-fossil-dung-reveals-dinosaurs-did-graze-grass/
As you say, I doubt we would recognize earth 55 – 60 million years ago. And in geological time that is not very long ago!
Wow then grass existed during the very Latest Cretaceous!
Likley grew in river forest eustaries.
But the world was warm humid and wet, covered in forests.
Grass Savannah had to wait until the Oligocene – Miocene when the cooling and drying Earth, meant the retreat of the rainforests 34 million years ago.
When modern megathermal hardwood tropical forests first evolved, I dont know
Its possible that primate evolution was accelerated by the warm humid Paleocene – Eocene steamhouse.
Just after the PETM primtive primate looking clades where present on all continents, that where covered in tropical rainforest. The early eocene primates where primitive and almost certainly nocturnal The earliest branch are called “Plesiadapiformes” “carpolestidae” and thrived from the equator to the high arctic. Already by the Middle Eocene primtive monkeys had appeared and spread in America, Europe and Africa. This ancient world, that where covered in trees, required foreward facing eyes to judge distance and grasping hands. The rise of fruits also likley selected evolutionary process towards colourvison.
By Middle Eocene 48 Ma “New World monkeys” had spread from africa to europe, north america and south america. With monkeys running around in europe and canada. The Late Eocene calimate cooling and drying was a disaster for the primates of high latitudes, in Europe, americas they where wiped out as the rainforests thinned into woodland and savannah. Thats the reason why USA does not have monkeys today in its forests.
Looking at the braincase and teeth of this Plesiadapiform … there is only very little primate like features. But the hands are indeed extremely primate like. “Plesiadapiformes” are like a weird mix of primates, rodents and mustelids. But all modern mammal groups are descended from souch kind of small mammals in Paleocene or Latest Creatceous. Already by Late Paleocene there where pig sized hebivores and wolf sized predators.
All major groups of modern mammals were already around in the late Cretaceous going by genetics, the same with a lot of modern bird groups, despite Neornithes being a rather minor component of the bird lineage until the Cenozoic. There was also a non-Neornithine bird from the mid Paleocene, Qinornis.
There were already macropredatory mammals in the Cretaceous too with Didelphodon and Deltatheridium which were known predators of small dinosaurs (the last one was honestly terrifying given how tiny it was), and stem mammals were also still mactopredatory in the Late triassic right up until the T/J extinction, actually one of the largest non-mammal carnivorous synapsids was found in the mid Triassic.
Earliest really large carnivorous mammal after the K/Pg extinction was Ankalagon, a bear sized mesonychid from only 3 million years post extinction and found in north america, T rex was replaced fast it would seem. Mesonychids are closely related to the modern order Cetartiodactyla – whales and even-toed ungulates, so it would seem even rather derived mammals today already existed well before then.
Mesonychids where incredibley primitive 😂 enormous jaw muscles and equaly huge saggital crests.
But very small brains.
This mammal group did not surivive the Late Eocene cooling and rise of more efficent carnivorans. The typical Mesonychian had probaly only rudimentary cognetive abilities and was almost certainly solitary hunters, not enough brainpower for social groups. But these jaws and teeth woud be a impressive and scary killing tools. Strong bite forces.
Some of these Mesonychians woud be a pretty terrible and impressive sight!
Looking like giant wolve hyenas with extremely strong bite forces… crushes a modern human skull.
Another family Entelodonts evolved the infamous Daeodon in late Oligocene.. a sight that must have been a sight from hell, crazy bite forces. Daeodon is souch an impressive animal it coud be used as work beasts in Mordor. A whole Orc army with Daeodons woud be a terryfying sight
No other clade – group of mammals fascinates me more than Entelodonts
Specialy the Daeodon : ) Mordors beasts of burden and war beasts. Terminator pigs.
They are extinct for now, but perhaps something similar may evolve from boars in the future? if we destructive humans spare the large wild animal fauna for them to eat.
I wants re – evolved Daeodonts, just kidding… but exactly how these beasts lived is still being researched
Entelodonts were basically terrestrial hippos and probably looked somewhat similar (meaning a rather less rugged and probably more ‘cute’ appearence), but with a more varied diet than hippos which are only rarely omnivorous. I think the group in general is believed to have been generally omnivorous with varying degrees of both carnivory and herbivory favoritism, which is not dissimilar to pigs though Daeodon was certainly at least better adapted as a predator than any pig.
Entelodonts are believed to be close to the ancestry of whales. It is weird to think that whales are as closely related to antelope and cows as we are to lemurs, but I guess that is how evolution works…
Primitive primates coud have been present in Cretaceous going by genetics
( we have not found all fossils yet as few fossilize ). The very first primates where tiny, tarsier, bushbaby like creatures, like many mammals back then was nocturnal, and emerged at night to run over the paleocene jungle canopies. Solitary creatures that see only in black and white and white and eats only insects and nectar. Even earlier primates was probaly like shrews mice – squirrels but with grasping hands. The most primitive forms are present in Maastrichtian and Paleocene deposits. The early primates where nothing like monkeys today
There is beyond no doubt that the rise of angiosperm forests with nuts, fruits and their invertebrate pollinators is one driver of the evolution of the primates. Euprimates started to appear in Late Paleocene steamhouse and already by Early Eocene lemur like creatures had evolved. By Middle Eocene Simian monkeys with colourvison and large skulls and larger in size where present. When you finds fossil primates with nails rather than paws, its increasingly modern traits and defentivly close related to our own line. The global spread of angiosperm rainforests during the PETM clearly had a great effect on primate evolution, by middle Eocene the monkeys had already evolved. A world, that where covered in trees, required foreward facing eyes to judge distance and grasping hands. The rise of fruits also likley selected evolutionary process towards colourvison.
Do you know If there was primitive Simians even in the late cretaceous?
Apes evolved later in the Miocene
All things, including all life, are variations of the same original energy that resulted in this universe. Life is the ability of this universe to witness and experience its own existence. Without life, the universe cannot know of its own existence; and thus does not exist in any meaningful way. We, the self-conscious and intelligent variety of life, are collectively the self-awareness of 13.8 billion years of evolution from a pre-existing potential. It is our purpose to learn from and continue that journey.
I am confident life, including human life, can adapt to whatever the future has in store for us, regardless of the fact our ignorance has led humanity to author an existential ecological crisis. There are some great scientific discoveries arising from that crisis which should benefit future generations. Notwithstanding, the crisis is here and we can soon expect to face the threat of extinction; and that nature will continue to select the most appropriate forms of life for survival in whatever habitable niches are available.
I’m sorry, while sorta agreeing with much of your second paragraph, I found the first hilarious, though not in a good way. Looks like up-dated version of koan that asks, ‘If tree falls in forest with no-one to hear, does it make a sound ?’ Yeah, right…
It’s a big, big universe. Much, much bigger than we can see. SETI may draw blank, but its horizon is woefully limited. Given the simple, inorganic chemical processes that make the building blocks for even ‘life as we know it’, the odds are overwhelming in favour of life out there. Sadly, we may never find anything beyond single-cell organisms…
—
Koans: I made myself *very* unpopular with our ‘General Studies’ lecturer when he ventured into Philosophy, asking, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping ?’
I promptly ‘snap’ fingers Flamenco-style, draw students’ laughter and lecturer’s wrath…
I have no argument with the probability life is plentiful in this universe; and perhaps others as well. Perhaps you can explain how the universe can witness, experience and know of its existence without life, plentiful or not? Is a self-aware (big, big) universe hilarious without you to find it funny? Be glad your General Studies lecturer was not a Zen master. Remember me when you encounter the sense of humour a self-aware bamboo stick can display.
FWIW, he was smugly pleased when I failed my arts-weighted GCE ‘General Studies’ ‘mock’. He was stricken when I ‘aced’ the real thing, which was more balanced and, sadly, massacred his ‘Arts Streamers’. Seems most of us ‘Science Streamers’ grasped ‘Arty Stuff’ rather better than vice-versa…
{Disclosure: My wife {RIP}, a polymath, was much brighter than me. We did okay.}
Sorry for your loss. You’ll wind up liking my upscaled koan. It adds value to the dust speck we call home and all its temporary inhabitants.
Seismic crisis of several thpusand earthquakes at Piton de la Fournaise, at this time continuous for over 18 hours, much longer than before previous eruptions in the last few years. Piton doesnt do really big eruptions but it looks like this one will be pretty decent, probably an ocean entry at least which will be a first for 13 years.
The eruptions since the start of 2019 have all been oriented east/west as opposed to mostly north/south before, and the March 2019 and April 2020 eruptions in the same part of the volcano saw high fountaining (100-200 meters), perhaps a different deep structure is active right now. It has actually occurred to me that the entire period of high activity since 2014 has not included a single eruption within its summit crater which is still a gaping pit from after 2007, so a big eruption now has nothing to do with gravity.
Lava broke out in the caldera a few hours ago but stopped now:look at crater dolumeiu webcams new shiney pahoehoe first since 2007.
Piton de la Fournaise haves a very high magma supply compared to most other volcanoes, But Iceland and Hawaii haves a 10 times larger supply or more, as well as Galapagos that also haves a much larger supply than Reunion.
Knowing all pahoehoe around the main cone, Piton De La Fournasie probaly do something like ”shield building” sometimes with lava lakes and tubes. Looks like it was a small shallow summit chamber before 2007 collapse. But most historical eruptions been small fast fissure events. Small short lived lava flows is why Piton is rather steep. The winter eruption 2019 – 2020 was quite Impressive.
Quite like Hawaii then, alternation between long lived shield building and high effusion short lived fissures, it was doing shield building in the 18th century. I dont see that changing any time soon though, not until theres a new large volume chamber somewhere.
Mauna Loa does that exactly.. but on a much larger scale than Reunion
Grimsfall station looks interesting.
How many centimeters haves Grimsvötn inflated since 2011?
I think Carl has said before about 50 cm, but that seems too low or is an old number. I cant find the Grimsvotn data either 🙁
24 cm according to this graph:
I am not entirely sure of what the graph is actually showing, but it does appear to show the inflation, perhaps they removed isostatic rebound since it is “detrended”. It seems to refer to the Grimsfjall GPS.
Yes, it looks like the isostatic rebound has been removed. Note that all three coordinates are almost back at the same values as when it last erupted in 2011.
Rapid inflation on this one normally means it has been snowing.
Humans greenhouse gases are now rising 10 times faster than the Paleocene – Eocene thermal maximum event.. which is really really scary. By year 2200 cO2 coud be at many 1000 s ppm. Thats back to PETM in just two or three generations. cO2 is rising so fast that glaciers haves no time to react even.
BY year 10 000 AD Earth will be a superhot, superhumid steamhouse with tropical condtions right from pole to pole, just like it was 54 million years ago. The boreal forests will be wiped out and the deserts turned to green jungle. Earth will become one big rainy greenhouse, and chaos is the animal world.
Siberia and Greenland once again dotted with mangrove svamps and tapirs grazing. The midlatitudes turned tropical and temperate zone human agiculture will collapse. ( perhaps Sahara will be one huge svamp )
The entire world basicaly turns to jungle planet like Dagobath.
But the Icehseets specialy Antartica is enromous, its cooling and drying effect is still very strong today.
Even at 2200 PPM cO2 they will take thousands of years to melt
The worlds deserts will dissapear… a warmer world is more evaporation from the oceans and more cloud formation and rainfall. Basicaly more humidity in the atmosphere.
PETM was probaly a completely green earth
Hot yes, but I have strong doubts the world will turn green. This is a global warming but closer to a great dying event, which caused near global desertification. No Pangea today but I think the same result is on the horizon. I also suspect there will be incredibly few animals to colonise that world, all those future evolution speculations (trust me I have experience here 🙂 ) populate future earth with evolved rodents, but rodents as a whole are highly vulnerable to a lack of resources, probably even more than most other mammals. I suspect monitor lizards will actually be one of the few things of size to persist, being high metabolism ectotherms (a rare combimnation) that are superficially very similar to the early archosaurs that survived the P/T event, so basically im saying is future age of (not)dinosaurs :). I dont know what a good modern analogue to Lystrosaurus is, I dont think there is a very similar animal today (maybe pigs but thats still a stretch)
I also want to emphasise how equally apocalyptic the greenhouse earth will be to us as the above scenario, over half the earth will literally be so hot and humid that you would get pneumonia from breathing… Apes evolved in equatorial africa but still within the last glacial period since the mid Miocene, nothing like the PETM, mammals of large size cant live in such an environment. Europe will also be totally flooded if all the ice melts, as will some of the misissipi basin and (even more or) south east asia, up to the base of the himalayas, so basically 99% of the areas that are inhabited now are gone. as a bonus we might get a re-evolved Titanoboa if the amazon is still there (is that even a bonus?…)
I personally think this wont happen though, we will destroy ourselves before it gets that bad… 🙁
Apes evolved indeed in the Miocene… europe had a plentiful ape fauna back then.
But Monkeys already existed in late Eocene or early Oligocene
If the Deccan Traps and Chixlulub inferno did not happen…
Woud the dinosaurs still be dominant in cenozoic? woud they survive first PETM and the slow later the cooling and drying towards Plesitocene Ice ages? I knows that biology and evolution is extremely flexible and perhaps woud be the case.
Dr Polaris youtube channel is doing an amazing alternative evolution in Cenozoic with dinosaurs as masters
The answer to those questions is absolutely certain, yes, and then yes, and yes again.
But I dont like simple so here is a wall of text to answer all questions in advance 🙂
Furst off, dinosaurs were not reptiles and reptile is no longer a valid term for any group of animals, it pretty much refers only to Squamata, lizards and snakes, or as a general term for scaly animals. Dinosaurs in life resembled mammals far more than lizards, and of course some of them would have greatly resembled birds and indeed birds are dinosaurs nestled within the maniraptora clade of theropods, the current definition of dinosaur is ‘any animal closer to passer domesticus (common sparrow) than to Crocodylus niloticus( nile crocodile).
As far as is known, apart from the largest sauropods that were simply so big they didnt need to be (but doesnt mean they werent), all dinosaurs and actually nearly all archosaurs were certainly endothermic and covered in fuzz. Yes, fuzz, not feathers, because until complex branched structures evolved, and that only happened in the maniraptora clade of theropods, the difference between feathers, fur and the ‘pycnofibres’ on pterosaurs is simply some weird apes being pedantic and trying to make them separate because they want a difference to exist.
It is hard to imagine because of our long standing tradition, but lizards are probably secondarily scaly, and there is just as much of a chance that the earliest amniotes, even before the sauropsids/synapsida split, were some sort of fuzzy as opposed to scaly, and fur is confirmed for some unknown Permian animal prior t othe great dying. Both would have been suitable for terrestrial existance in the Carboniferous, and the early and mid Permian was actually a glacial period like now. It is also worth noting that crocodiles are secondarily endothermic and still retain bird-like lungs and 4 chambered hearts of endothermic animals, the extinct sebecidae family of terrestrial crocodiles were endothermic and highly active animals, kind of like a cross of a komodo dragon and a tiger…
Basically the only reason we think of extinct animals being cold blooded and scaly is because early tetrapods looked like lizards, that is all…
Yes dinosaurs and petrosaurs was very mammal like in some sense and many ways and where highly active and mobile animals.
Dinosaurs are indeed the birds and the feathered dinosaurs
( non avian feathered raptors ) was almost certainly fully warm blooded and had very good colourvison. These animals as Dakotaraptor was very much like giant ground hawks and eagles walking around. Good colour vison and intelligence and perhaps courting colourful feathers
Late Maastrichtian was the very last days of the dinosaurs, and probaly had the highest evolved “non avian” dinosaurs, as well as modern looking birds evolved from dinosaurs where present, but most radiation among modern Avian dinosaurs happened in Eocene. Late Maastrichtian 66 ma was probaly home to modern tropical rainforests at equator. Hell Creek was a subtropical swamp with almost complete domination of angiosperms flowering trees. The classical cycad conifer jurassic forests was almost gone by Late Cretaceous. Angiosperm flowering plants made an explosion in diversity in earlier creatceous. Late Maastrichtian was home to alot of mammal and crocodillian as well as turtle and tortoise diversity.
The dinosaur genus Ceratopsia was very abundant at Maastrichtian stage of the cretaceous. Hadrosaurs did well too and had great diversity. The Theropods hanged on well too. The rise and domination of flowering plants and trees probaly had a enromous influense of the hebivores in the late cretaceous.
The game “Saurian” thats still under development hard work
will recreate the Hell Creek ecosystem in all details. The demo is avaible for play
We humans probaly release as much cO2 as Siberian Traps did… or even much much more.
Yes the return of giant boas and pythons and oversized tortoises.
Permian and PETM was just as hot, but PETM was jungle planet, Permian was a desert caused by large landmass and lack of broadleaf plant evaporation.
Much of the worlds megafauna is already gone ( megafuna was most healthy at late pilocene )
Todays world is impoverished in large mammals, they have all died out.
Todays mammal fauna if humans never evolved.
Europe and America should be full of mammoths, lions, cave lions, cave bears, cave hyenas, giraffes, dire wolves, mastodonts, elephants, rhinos, leopards, bison. buffalo and many others.
Thats the natural mammal fauna of example germany during an interglacial.
Most of those other Pleistocene animals probably wouldnt have evolved either if there was something stopping us from existing. It is easy to forget we evolved as a natural part of the environment just like everything else. Earliest members of the Homo genus in Europe was over a million years ago.
It’s all the fault of the Neanderthals apparently…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2818-3
Tyrannosaurus in Fort Peck Reservoir
Late Maastrichtian was the very last days of the dinosaurs.
I have one question that may be difficult to answer. How old is the rock making the actual central volcano of Grimsvotn? The old articles on this site seem to say it is pre-Holocene but that is pretty polar opposite to the idea of Grimsvotn being a very active volcano. I dont know much about it but the Saksunarvatn tephra eruptions sound like they were dead zone eruptions before the Pleistocene icecap was gone and would have otherwise been effusive, Grimsvotn is not really the sort of volcano to do ignimbrite eruptions and I think an eruption like that is probably impossible in a basaltic volcano without water, a total foundering of a basaltic magma chamber would make a flood basalt.
Was there a point in the Holocene that Grimsvotn was not glaciated? I suspect that is when the existing nunatak was formed, as a sort of lava shield maybe looking like Pu’u O’o but way bigger.
The caldera cluster is a holocene product, the volcanic complex itself is probaly very Latest Pleistocene in age. Most of the central volcano was probaly formed well after Chibanian age. Grimsvötn emerged during a very cold part of earths history. When the first ”embryos” of Grimsvötn was layed down, Iceland was covered under kilometers of Ice, looking like a mini Antartica, huge massive ice dome covered all of Iceland.
Grimsvötn been very active in holocene and in pleistocene , But most of the historical magmatic materials turns to fine ash when it interacts with the icesheets. Grimsvötn is mostly made of pillow lavas and pheratomagmatic pyroclastic materials products of subglacial activity. The caldera walls are full of ash and hydroclastic materials.
If Iceland emerged in Tropical Atlantic, Grimsvötn woud be like a mix between Halema’uma’u and Fernandina
An elevated plateau of massive Aa lava flows with shields here and there, and a big deep caldera thats partialy filled by huge rootless lava lakes. That woud be Grimsvötn without a glacial history.
Grimsvötn haves pooled quite alot of basalt magma at current 2020.. gas emissions are massive now, and IMO confirmed that the system is much more pressurized and inflated now than before 2011.
The Ice near the caldera wall have melted into warm silty lakes. An eruption can emerge at any moment now. I wants numbers of tons of SO2 a day that they measured in march.
Vatnajökull have existed in one form or another since 2 million years back. Its likley it was almost competely gone for a short time, during the very warm Eemian Interglacial When the Northen Hemisphere was more tilted towards the sun. Overall Pleistocene been a very cold period with low cO2 and Iceland been competely unlivable most of the last 2 million years. I will research more on how old Grimsvötn acually is
IMO wrote that they never seen souch high SO2 levels for any sleeping volcano before, when they measured at Grimsvötn back in spring 2020.
The high Sulfur ammount is a sign that magma is just under the surface now. Is a vent about to open up in the glacial caldera wall? sounds almost like Halema’uma’u in 2007
Hopes Grimsvötn does something New and exciting next time it erupts : D
As always, I want it to escape the glacier and have a subaerial eruption from the central volcano. I suspect it will take a pretty huge eruption for that though with all the water around, another 2011 at least. Maybe that is not so unlikely though, so who knows. Once actually out of the ice I think eruptions will only be effusive if at that location, similar to eruptions in other parts of Iceland where there arent glaciers like where Holuhraun is.
Also might want to keep the comments a bit shorter too I think we have both got a habit of overdoing it accidentally 🙂
Grimsvötn have pooled a quite large batch now… so perhaps we may get an Surtsey Island like sequence in the caldera next time it erupts. I dont know the yearly magma supply to Grimsvötn, but its having a very increased influx since 2004 and 2011 s materials where very primtive mantle. The leading up to Holuhraun happened after 2011, so the 2011 magmas coud be from a plume sourge that feed both 2011 and 2014 as well as todays high magma influx under Grimsvötn. Grimsvötn is a large system, it goes from greip and down lakis south edge. Thats 150 kilometers long, grim is almost 60 km wide at north
and gets narrower as you go south. Absolutley of the largest volcanoes outside Hawaii.
The arera is extremely eroded by ice age glaciers
Yearly supply is likely comparable to Kilauea, but a lot of that will be passive due to rifting. That being said I actually have doubts the main rift zone is through Grimsvotn, it looks more like it goes through Bardarbunga at current. In this case I would assume Grimsvotn to have a lower supply than above, but higher eruption ratio. I dont think its supply is 0.5+km3 a year like in Carls famous article though, at least not all the time, otherwise it would never stop erupting.
Alberts recent article on the 1783 eruptions was interesting though, if that eruption was not directly fed from Grimsvotn then Grims average over the past 300 years actually goes way down, something like 1/4 of what it would have been if 1783 is included.
This is the calm before volcanic hell! It’s so boring now though.
There is a new report about the activity at Piton de la Fournaise, the swarm that began as the seismic crisis on 28th September is diminished but ongoing as is the deformation, but now a new magma pulse has begun at the summit while high CO2 at distant locations is still observed suggesting there is still magma rising from the mantle. Basically there is more magma coming in than there was a week ago despite the apparent decrease in activity, I think its still pretty evident a much larger eruption than most of the recent events is going to happen, the pressure is increasing and an intrusion has already begun so theres really only one outcome.
Is it just me or has 2010-2020 been a particularly productive decade for basaltic volcanism? I know I put a comment like this somewhere else but its an interesting discussion. Just off the top of my head, Grimsvotn, Nabro, Nyamuragira in 2011 at 1.5, 0.3 and 0.4km3. Then theres Tolbachik in 2012-2013 at 0.5 km3. Bardarbunga in 2014-2015 at 1.5 km3. Kilauea, Sierra Negra, Ambae and Ambrym in 2018 at 1.1, 0.4, 0.2 and 0.25 km3.
In addition right now Kilauea, Grimsvotn, Piton de la Fournaise, Mauna Loa and Bardarbunga all look to be at various late stages to another near future major eruption and chances are Grimsvotn and Piton will go before this years end. Maybe im imagining this but that is a lot of lava, 6.3 km3 and that isnt including that Etna, Kilauea and Erta Ale all had long lived effusive eruptions in that time too…
I dont think it is really unusual, maybe to have Bardardunga and Kilauea go caldera the same decade is a bit exceptional, but for the others it is business as usual, nothing extraordinary.
And most of the volcanoes mentioned can do much bigger, there was no one really showing off. The 12 km caldera of Ambrym collapsing, a Veidivotn eruption, a lava flood on the east flank of Sierra Negra, Mauna Loa throwing a Hapaimamu, or Dubbi (of the Nabro Range) doing a plinian eruption followed by fire fountains. Those would be events to truly be remembered for a lifetime.
I am aware individually these are all quite average (well maybe above average but not exceptional) it is more that all of these are in the same decade. 2000-2010 I believe the biggest basaltic eruption was probably Piton de la Fournaise 2007, or maybe Hekla 2000 and both were maybe 0.25 km3. Nothing clost to 1 km3.
Of the examples you mention actually 1 of those exceptional eruptions has occurred in the lifetime of a lot of viewers on this site. Sierra Negra erupted in 1979-1980 and that eruption was apparently responsible for creating nearly all of the massive a’a field on its north flank. I was sceptical but all the sources including the original field observation back this up, and I finally found a picture that also confirms all of it. I guess this just shows we have a lot of big volcanism to think about sometimes and that it can come from anywhere. 🙂
I was thinking of an even bigger eruption in the east flank of Sierra Negra that looks as if the volcano had erupted most of the contents in its shallow magma chamber in not more than a few days. But yes the 1979 eruption was a big one no doubt.
Here is a photo of Holuhraun at very peak strenght, massive jetting lava fountains driven by gas and magmastatic gravity pressure. The materials comming out here are around 1185 C one of the hotter eruptions on Earth recorded in action. Very impressive and beautyful sight
https://www.flickr.com/photos/zunderman/15031141528/in/photolist-oUfwGy-p2LbfD-py9JnE-oPkTX5-wQLTga-pjmXKh-oXXRrX-wboTLV-HjPvDZ-oUfxjf-oUeYBJ-qz7myn-oVhLTm-x5XcMG-p7TFd2-p4QM98-oQ8mgy-rwYUN9-pnDhyy-p7RU6h-oQoJGK-p7RJVU-qCbH7v-putc34-oXaTVD-p7CoZM-NTGkuE-p7RRUd-pfq5F9-p3zYuw-oXXTjL-pdqaLq-XUPGMa-oXXSbT-pfq4M5-p6iaCY-oQoERZ-oWcRgR-oXXdHj-p5RDGd-pfs628-pjimDK-oQpswL-quhza1-qPAzk4-pfs5ZV-pfdNq9-p7Cgur-vgnon7-pgbjbr
The lava rivers at that moment where stunning, Bardarbunga had these ”standing waves” in the flow.. something only low viscosity very quickly moving channelized flows do. The thermal radiation must been intense at that phase
Off-topic fun
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d9pgu35UPSg
Well HVO fixed the tiltmeter and its still going up actually a lot more than I thought it would from the preceding signal. By a lot I mean 1 microradian, which is tiny and on its own insignificant but the tilt is being very persistent and a few quakes happened again, it is more that I thought it would stay flat for at least a week but it hasnt.
Maybe until something happens we can place bets or make a poll post, which volcano is next to erupt out of Kilauea, Piton de la Fournaise or Grimsvotn. I just chose those 3 because I know about them and what the potential is right now, im sure there are more that could be suggested for this. I guess its a win win for everyone though in the end 🙂
“Scientists find intact brain cells in skull of man killed in Vesuvius eruption nearly 2,000 years ago”
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/05/europe/brain-cells-vesuvius-victim-herculaneum-scn-scli-intl/index.html
Best of BBC by a looong shot https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv9hn4IGofM
Speedy crust formation! https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/doi/10.1130/G47952.1/590927/High-precision-geochronology-requires-that?redirectedFrom=fulltext
One for Albert, perhaps?
Pay-walled…
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Sentinel map of California. Rusty brown is the burned regions. Credit: https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/ Full resolution can be found there
After the Chicxlulub Impactor the entire planet was charred
Reentering ejecta created a Firestorm high in the skies, radiating heat towards the ground.. cooking the biosphere.
Terrible day KT was 🙂
Landslide in Iceland. A farm had a lucky escape
https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2020/10/06/thetta_var_svakalegur_havadi/
It is coming, Hell is being fashioned, a terrible pain is being perfected. The men are laughing..From every corner of the world it will rise, and there will only be dread. I can see it. Wait. my friends and you will see what I see, and feel what I feel. The Earth’s vengeance, a divine wrath. It is coming, my friends. I am happy and you will be to.
Just wait and you’ll all see. (: I am so happy. I can’t wait.
For the Lich King!!
lets darkness descend over our civilization!!!
I would prefer to let civilization descend over darkness. We have massive problems but overall, our society (and especially treatment of each other) is better than it has ever been. Civilization pays off. Everyone finds it difficult to accept cultural or physical differences from what we are used to. That is human. But we are learning to recognize those others as people just like ourselves. We have come a long way from our days of small tribes in a hostile world.
And then a volcano goes off and couldn’t care less..
Just kidding
Yes the first step towards that, is a much smaller global population. The ideal world community is just a few million, that lives in a highly ecological and technicaly green way.
The smallest Scandinavian countries are a good model. But global population is as large as it is now
Colonizing Mars is a must,it coud be an ideal home… underground cities in a few
1000 years. With humans thrving on Mars, Earth coud be let in peace.
I wants Earth to be transformed into a huge national park, where the non human lifeforms can live in peace and evolve without us.
But first many other problems on Earth haves to be solved.
Yes I think the globalization is positive, sharing information and knowledge about the state of our planet and the natural beauty that still exist.
That level of Martian colonisation is something measured in decades not millennia, at least if Elon Musk can have his way, plans of martian cities self supporting in 2050. Mars is actually more habitable than some places on earth that are regularly visited so I see this as pretty plausible, the danger is in getting there.
Would love an article on the African and Pacific superswells (particularly the african as it possibly formed less than 10mya). Fascinated by the processes in mantle circulation that caused these two areas.
They’re antipodal also which is probably significant – maybe they exist because Earth is an oblate spheroid rather than spherical? My personal opinion is that a particularly large impacter may have changed the dynamics of mantle flow some time in the past (and that this has happened on multiple occasions).
I’ve always wondered why we’ve never found real evidence of the impact said to have created the moon (although to be fair the evidence could have been long destroyed) – we recently found rocks in hudson bay that are older than the moon.
IIRC, recent simulations suggest the nascent earth/moon system was reduced to a swirl of white-hot debris, ‘Something Greco-Roman Beginning With S’, um, Go, Go, Google…
Ha !! A SYNESTIA !!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synestia
Other than that, the Moon bears witness that there were many lesser but still mega-wallopers whizzing around, and young Earth must have collected several times more than the young Moon.
There’s the Vredford, Sudbury & Carswell ‘signatures’ of mere ~10km impactors. IIRC, there are other candidates, including a big ‘very probable’ in Australia. Also, wary conjecture that several enduring ‘plumes’ may be the spoor of ocean impacts, their primary sites long-since subducted by plate tectonics. Several deep anomalies, ‘atypical’ core/mantle ‘Blobs’, may relate…
Regarding the Hudson Bay rocks’ age, though I don’t doubt their vast antiquity, comparison with Lunar rocks is fraught due to sampling issues. IIRC, orbital geo-mapping now suggests that many Apollo samples, necessarily surface-collected, were *significantly* contaminated by mega-impact ejection debris…
https://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com/2020/04/identifying-worlds-oldest-impact.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13985-7
**OPEN SOURCE !!**
“The ~70 km-diameter Yarrabubba impact structure in Western Australia is regarded as among Earth’s oldest, but has hitherto lacked precise age constraints. Here we present U–Pb ages for impact-driven shock-recrystallised accessory minerals. Shock-recrystallised monazite yields a precise impact age of 2229 ± 5 Ma, coeval with shock-reset zircon.”
Impactor estimated as ~7 km diameter, initial crater ~~70 km diameter. Erosion has planed site down to just the nub of the base of central rebound…
Fascinating. As craters go this one is not huge. Vredefort and Sudbury are much larger. But this means two huge and one large impact happened within a few hundred million years. This was at a time the continents were forming. It is plausible that older craters would almost always have been oceanic – and long gone. It makes Early Earth quite a hostile environment for life.
Or the impacts helped create the right chemical mix for life to begin? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2149168-life-may-have-begun-millions-of-years-earlier-than-we-thought/
-155.279495239258, 19.3993339538574
Depth: 2.07999992370605 km (1.3 mi)
Magnitude: 3.05999994
Date: 2020-10-11 14:54:57 local
2020-10-11 03:54:57 UTC
Age: 0.1 days
Distance From: 6 km SW of Volcano, Hawaii
Mgnitude 3+ quake on the south edge of Kilauea caldera at 2 km deep. Its not very big but I havent seen any near that size in this location since the eruption ended that I can recall, so interesting. There has been a few quakes there in the past few days actually,.
It was a long period event with rhythmic pulses. The earthquake is in the typical location of shallow LP events but I don’t remember any this large before.
The earthquake also took place just before tilt started to drop sharply at 18:00 Hawaii time (a DI event), I don’t think this is a coincidence, I remember at least one other time when shallow LP events preceded a sharp DI.
I wonder if this DI event will be odd in any way since it opened with an unusual earthquake.
The depth is interesting too, probably right at the magma chamber. There isnt any sort of really obvious signal from this quake but with so much activity I think it must be getting close to erupting by now. Quakes began happening in the magmatic system in June, I think that point was when the drain from 2018 was finally recovered by the supply rate and since then it has been in a pre-eruptive state where the only thing stopping an eruption is that there isnt enough pressure to break the lid yet. Must be a pretty solid lid, 4 months of supply at Kilauea is about 70 million m3 of magma and its not showing signs of failure so we could be in for a real firework show when it finally fails, I want to see something like 1959 🙂
This quake does not clearly show up at the seismographs. It is a very drawn-out affair. Magma or gas flow, but no rock cracking.
The magma supply rate at Kilaueau is reported at 0.09-0.11 km3/yr. Episodically it can reach up to 0.18, but this is balanced by episodes where it is near zero. There is no evidence for an average of 0.2 km3/yr.
A well above 0,1 km3 supply is the reality for the many many km3 that have been produced from 1983 to 2018. The Leilani eruption is 1,2 km3 confirmed by USGS.
The Puu Oo eruption maybe close to 7 km3 or more, alot of lava dissapeared into the pacific ocean. These lava tubes that seems so slow.. acually flowed at high rates, miles long hidden rivers. Around 4 km3 remains on land If you count the thickness and extent on land, But alot vent into the ocean. Puu Oo erupted at input supply rates.
These are the published rates. There was a supply peak in 2003-2007 when it briefly doubled, but after that it returned to normal values of 0.1km3/yr. Pu’u O’o produced 4.4 km3 overall (most recent numbers from USGS). Leilani depleted an existing magma chamber and was not fed by continuous magma supply.
I think there are actually several such papers on the magma supply to Kilauea and they all seem to be slightly different. There have been points it was a lot higher back after collapses, decompression melting etc, which is applicable now I think, and there has certainly been a lot of magma input since 2018 just no-one knows how much for sure. Published rate for the hotspot is 0.21 km3/year and Mauna Loa is not fed with 0.1 km3/year so the rest must be going somewhere.
I cant find a source saying it stopped while the eruption was ongoing. I think assumption that it stopped is for simplicity of modelling not that HVO thinks that actually happened.
Jesper maybe 10% of the volume of Pu’u O’o is in the ocean as an unknown probably not even that, the total volume is probably at about 5 km3 max which is close to the published volume of about 4.5 km3. Kupaianaha stage was not exceptional in effusion rate either only slightly more than 61g, the highest average rates were during the high fountaining years when ~0.5 km3 of lava was erupted in 3 years (from GVP bulletins)
I just realised you meant that the 2018 flows were fed at such a rate by draining the existing chamber not a big new intrusion of 1+km3 of magma, that is true probably could have worded it better. What I meant is that the trickle of magma that fed Pu’u O’o for all those years never stopped while the magma chamber drained it was just completely obscured by the high drain rate.
It was my hypothesis that the 6 m3/s difference in the rate of collapse vs rate of eruption presented on the video represents that inflow rate from the mantle, possibly enhanced from a slightly lower rate before by the decompression of the system as it drained.
Puu Oo is a very underestimated eruption. The Icelandic FB volcanic groups are never impressed by Kilaūea.
Puu Oo had lava tubes, thats hidden lava rivers thats where perhaps 15 kilometers long.. and even much longer during the 2014 – 2015 Pahoa flow. The lava in a Puu Oo tube can flow much faster than you can run and can flow for many years. The 2007 summer event at Puu Oo was amazing.
When souch tube bursts lava flows many 100 meters in a few minutes.
Some sources say that around 70% of the large Kupaianaha tube system ended up in the pacific ocean. Really big ocean entries in 1980 s and 1990 s as well as late 2000 s
And 2016 – 2018 61G lava flow is impressive in its own right with the firehose and large benches
I hopes Iceland does a shield building eruption soon… That woud be a tourist 🧲
Give me a shield ”Grimsdyngja”
A typical Puu Oo flow can last for many years and form a complex network of 13 kilometers long lava tubes and many ocean entries and repeated bench collapses and buildups.
The lava flow rates in the tubes can be very fast and sometimes lava tubes bursts forming fast sheet flows as well as tubes on top of tubes.
The largest historical lava tube on Kilaūea is the Kazumura lava tube thats almost 70 kilometers long and was active for maaany years
I have seen the lava of Pu’uO’o. It could not get into the ocean without being noticed. It is an almost perfectly observed eruption. To almost double the amount of lava without the local volcanologists noticing seems a bit unlikely, given the quality of those volcanologists!
Including the fleets of tourist helicopters that fly over the site daily. We took one once and were able to see vents (windows) and flows on a slow day.
Mac
I wanted to see it all decade but somehow felt it would end before I got to see it, and what do you know… 🙁
Certainly there will be many more eruptions at Kilauea in my lifetime probably even in the next year, but I have no idea how likely it is for another Pu’u O’o, a multiple decades long flank eruption. If the east rift is still the prefered location of eruption after 2018 then maybe it could happen pretty soon but otherwise it might be a very long time off, having to get lucky and be there for a 1 day eruption once a year is not quite as fun as playing with lava with a shovel…
Truly one of the things that is taken for granted until its gone, only then is it realised how special it was.
I seen the Puu Oo flows 5 times!
Everytime it was amazing and taking a showel and messing with the pahoehoe.
Hawaii haves extremely low viscosity. When lava flows haves a smooth and shiney crust that almost mirror like, thats a sign its been truley molten and fluid with most of the crystals melted. Only the most fluid lavas do that. Hawaiian fast moving lava channels can be as shiney as aluminium in daylight.
chad on the very coolest smallest
Red Dwarfs ..in the Sunspots there Thats way colder than our suns sunspots. Does it rain sillicate and iron?
Is there sillicate or Iron cloud condensation in a Red Dwarf sunspot?
Probably if there is enough of those materials. I dont think it is known for sure if red dwarfs have starspots though, the convection cells are very small scaled to the star itself vs the sun. Brown dwarfs are often very magnetic though so maybe red dwarfs are too and sunspots are related to the suns magnetic field.
I have wondered at times what would happen to a star mass terrestrial planet. I think iron planets are limited only by the electron degeneracy force because iron doesnt undergo exothermic fusion, so an iron planet can be as massive as a star, but silicate planets are made of elements that can undergo fusion in extreme conditions. If you add mass to gas giants they become stars, but what happens if you clump terrestrial planets together to that same extent? Probably impossible in natural circumstances but a solid planet as massive as a star surely is a very monstrous object, maybe the sort of thing a type 2 civilisation would create.
Souch a massive terestrial sillicate world .. will become a magma ocean for billions of years.
Lots of internal heating on souch a ”Mega Earth”
You should read about diamond planets then, they initially have mantles of silicon carbide but water from more distant parts of the system would react with this under the conditions of the planets interior to generate a superficial silicate crust and carbon that turns into a diamond mantle. Because it is so rigid you get no plate tectonics and the increasingly dense atmosphere undergoes a Venus effect on steroids heating the surface of the planet to its boiling point and no that last part is not a typo, the greenhouse effect is several thousand kelvin… this also happens independent of the star.
Jansen/55 Cancri e is the closest such planet but they are presumed common in the universe.
Your entire Mega Earth.. will be one big lava lake for quite a while … huge mass means huge radioactive heating
When it forms a crust it woud be super ultra – fast plate tectonics with microplates everywhere
Award winning Etna
Yea Etna is always beautyful
And seems to have basalt thats always much more sticky than Hawaii and Iceland. Its never forming any smooth surfaces… Myself and Jesper been there many times, and you almost never finds any pahoehoe.. and No smooth glassy shiney flows
Lava there isnt as hot usually, about 50-100 C cooler than Hawaii lava. You do get some fluid lavas though like the 1669 eruption which began with hawaiian-type fountains and lava at nearly 1200 C so very much like plume basalt, smooth fluid pahoehoe rather than the lava in that picture. One of the flows in the 1970s (1979 I think) and also 1981 was also very fluid and fast flowing, advancing at near walking speed in both cases.
I think Etna is probably the origin of the stereotypical volcano, beign that it is mostly basaltic effusive but also an actual mountain not a shield, not to mention its very long history surrounded by the base of our modern civilisation.
The sillica content for Etna is acually lower than Kilaūea and Bardarbungas ( Etna is 47% )
So Etnas lavas must indeed be quite alot cooler than Iceland.
Cooler lava is more crystaline
Lava temperature during slow effusive eruptions is about 1080 C, during high fountaining eruptions it is at least 1125 C so similar to Hawaii which is probably why you get massive lava flows during those eruptions that flow several km in a few hours. Eccentric eruptions like 2001 and 1669 are like summit paroxysmal eruptions on the flanks of the volcano so probably erupt at similar high temperature.
Holuhraun was
1188 C extremely hot and gas rich. But supprisingly crystal rich ( still a very fluid eruption ) me and Jesper will try to visit the lava field in the comming years. The lava lake in Baugur splashed like a washing machine.
It is actually something I have wondered what the highest possible eruption temperature is in Hawaii or Iceland. I know there is a confirmed value for the overlook lava lake at 1220 C, and one of the fountains in 1959 was nearly 1300 C, and a few east rift eruptions also got to about 1200 C. I dont know if any Icelandic eruption in recorded history has reached or exceeded 1200 C, but Holuhraun was hotter than fissure 8 at the same distance away from the source magma chamber so possibly the main magma chamber of Bardarbunga is hotter than that of Kilauea, it is possible then for hotter eruptions? I suspect that some of the lava in 1783 was over 1200 C, dredged up from the depths.
I think the true liquid point of tholeiitic basalt is at 1200 C, or about that.
Kilaūea is a very very hot and active system, I doubt Bardarbunga is hotter. But its true that Halema’uma’u magma stoorage acts as a stoorage vat where magma cools and crystalize. It still erupts at over 1200 C.
Kilaūea is generaly way more active than Bardarbunga too.
Chad yes Holuhraun was a very hot eruption over 1180 C. Im awe struck that it never made any smooth surfaces near the vent channel, but it haves to do with the large content of microlites in that magma. Bardarbunga 2014 was 1185 C and 49% sillica and had a very low viscosity. The gas content was stunning too ”sloshing lava foam” in Baugur.
The hottest holocene erupting magmas in Iceland was 1270 C from kistufell near Bardarbunga. The Iceland Plume head is little over 1500 C. Bardarbunga – Grimsvötn and Askja erupts the warmest lavas in Iceland.
Theistareykjarbunga shield seems also hot, knowing how fine and thin its pahoehoe ropes are
It looks as though both places are very similar temperature then, maybe Hawaii being slightly hotter but probably within a margin of error. It is something to wonder what such a crazy hot lava flow would actually look like in full eruption, 1959 was inside a pit crater but a similar eruption 1 km south would make a flow. I guess if all that deep magma under Kilauea surfaces we might find out soon enough 🙂
Would be a big surprise if anything unusual happens on Hawaii soon.. The swarm at Pahala didn´t start when the lava lake of Kilauea drained, this was just the moment where most people started noticing it. Ever since there are doomsday fantasies about this swarm, but actually this is going on for many years already, any theories on it are pure speculation.
I also expect an eruption withing the next 5-8 years, but this will be because of the usual magma supply rate, not because any kind of extra supply. Looking forward to that though, since I wasn´t able to visit the eruption back in the days.
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It is actually more from the massive increase in the Pahala quakes since about this time last year, which does postdate the 2018 eruption.
I am gonna mention it again. Because I find it so interesting, the unrest at chiles-cerro negro encompasses 3 other different volcanoes and they are all undergoing seismic activity and deformation. The most significant part of the activity encompasses 2 different volcanoes! That has to mean something. Stressed faults? Shared magma source? Regional resurgence? The hell if I know!
I will put it like this. 2 volcanoes that have had no eruptions in hundreds of thousands of years, that have no data or information on their dynamics due to a lack of urgency have are now starting to make noise during another neighboring volcanoes unrest…How is that not interesting?
It still isnt erupting, nor does it look set to in the near future, we are used to watching basaltic volcanoes which often have major eruptions after less than a meter of pre-eruptive deformation, silicic volcanoes can go far beyond this and only do tiny eruptions or not even erupt at all.
Kilauea inflated by only 30 cm in 3 years to throw a 1.2 km3 lava flood while already erupting somewhere else in the mean time. By contrast Campi Flegri spent half a century rising tens of meters just to erupt a small cinder cone that was only active for a week. There really is quite a discrepency, and the latter also shows how long it can take to even result in anything at all. Many of the volcanoes in the Andes are actually deforming at similar rates to Chiles Cerro Negro, some even more, but there is no expectation for any of them to have major eruptions as most volcanoes there are entirely effusive.
Some part of the disinterest is probably from you making it out to be a conspiracy to hide the data too when there is no such case it is just not in english, it does have to be said.
First, I never said there was a conspiracy to hide data, I said there is an egregious amount of inconsistency with reporting the data. Look at his report. https://www.igepn.edu.ec/informes-volcanicos/chiles-cerro-negro/ccn-semanales/ccn-s-2020/24262-informe-semanal-chiles-cerro-negro-14-04-09-2020/file
Bull$#!)
Have a look at the SGC’s reports.https://www2.sgc.gov.co/Noticias/Paginas/Boletines-semanales.aspx#InplviewHash6e6a390f-eb59-4f64-aa9b-7231cd54708a=Paged%3DTRUE-p_SortBehavior%3D0-p_Created%3D20200916%252001%253a04%253a31-p_ID%3D2258-PageFirstRow%3D31
Needless to say, that’s a huge difference that can only be explained with human error. Another thing is that this unrest is not static, it keeps changing and fluctuating. This volcano is stressing regional faults so even if it doesn’t erupt It could produce a major tectonic earthquake.A volcano doesn’t have to produce an eruption soon to be interesting,
What do we know about the magma chamber? Nothing.
What do we know about the Intrusion? Nothing.
What do we know about the relationship with the other volcanoes? NOTHING.
That’s the issue, These agencies are not bringing any of this information to the light. It is ridiculous and you can’t say it isn’t. I am not even talking about in the context of a major caldera forming eruption. This volcanoes have erupted explosively in the past producing a VEI 4 eruption. In fact one of the surrounding volcanoes is a caldera for heaven’s sake.
Potrerillos is rising at rate of 3 cm a year, undergoing seismic activity and hasn’t erupted in over 12,000 years. So logically an agency looking at this should realize that this volcano could be active and undergoing resurgence so they should setup instrumentation and get some information on what exactly is going on. How many instruments are at this volcano?
ZERO!
Most of the earthquakes that happen at this volcano don’t even get located! only 10%-25% of them do! I know how much magma is going in Corbetti and I know what is causing seismic activity at Tatun. Do i know everything about these volcanoes? No but I do know that scientists are working to find out more information despite no agencies tracking them. I can’t say the same for this volcano.
The question is why? Why isn’t there more information? You and I can’t say.
It could be a lack of resources, they can’t carry out detailed studies because of a lack of funding and since they can’t assure the safety of scientists traveling from abroad.
It could be incompetence, They are just too stupid or lazy to do anything and were promoted based on B.S
It could be malice, They might now something that we don’t.
IT COULD BE ANYTHING.
The lack of data is ridiculous. for a volcano whose last swarm consisted of 150,000 earthquakes in a year.
The lack of data is ridiculous for a volcano that’s been restless for 7 years.
The lack of data is ridiculous for a volcano that is stressing regional faults and whose activity encompasses 3 other volcanoes.
I have acknowledged that my models and thoughts is the very worst case scenario and have brought up other explanations.
Theistareykjarbunga is one of Icelands very largest monogentic shields, its pahoehoe is 61 kilometers long, and 33 kilometers wide! And ( 700 m ) meters thick at the shields higher areras.
The slow eruption must have lasted many many 100 s of years non stop. Like a very much overgrown Kuapainaha. Theistareykjarbunga was a lava tube feed eruption from lava lakes that constantly overflowed. In the shields summit pits the lava lakes was likely active for many 100 of years feeding tubes. The pits on Theistareykjarbunga are very similar to ERZ collapse pits. Chad anyone here is it possible that this eruption lasted for a millennium? knowing the sheer size of the lava fields and the thickness of the pile?
Theistareykjarbunga pahoehoe covers all areras in Northen rift… north of Krafla and around it, east of husavik.
If a Theistareykjarbunga happens today again… we wont run out of active Iceland lava in our lifetimes!
I want it to pop out in Westman Islands.. That woud bury the entire archipelago under lava!
I dont know how big in volume the shield is, but if it is 50 km3 that is about 10x bigger than Pu’u O’o, so 300-400 years maybe. As you say though the tubes are quite big so probably the eruption was not nearly so long and a bit more intense, still at least decades and plausibly over 100 years. I dont know much about magma generation rates in this part of Iceland though I doubt something like this is possible now, probably only in the Vatnajokull area is an eruption of this scale possible today.
Theistareykjarbunga probaly was like Kuapainaha in eruptive style. But on a larger scale. The two main lava lake pits in Theistareykjarbunga are 700 m wide each, loots of lava feeding buried lava tubes.
The shield is very thick, even 100 meter thick layers in collapses in Asbyrgi canyon far away from the summit.
The total thickness is close to 700 m or more close to the shield summit.
For many decades each the lava pours non stop into the Arctic ocean… the lava bences are covered by river sediment now at the coast.
I wants this to happen again in Iceland it woud be what lava tourism needs. Perhaps one below Askja or in Grimsvötns caldera
I dont know much about Askja but it doesnt look currebtly active, deep recharge but no imminent activity this decade and most eruptions there are fissure eruptions not shields too.
Grimsvotn, as I have probably said at least 10 times now 🙂 is probably the best bet if you want to actually see it yourself. Next eruption will maybe escape the glacier and then with an open subaerial vent it just keeps going with frequent small eruptions after that. We wont know until after it next erupts and whether it keeps going after the initial blast. We might know that answer in a few weeks or in over a year.
It does matter a lot what actually stops the eruption, is it quenching of the vents or lack of pressure. Only the former has a chance of shield building.
The volume coud be 100 km3
This was a very long lived eruption and perhaps the largest monogenetic shield in Iceland. I wants a new one, it woud be excellent for tourism.
Carl says its magma system may still be alive.. it lasted long and heated up things below
My most silly dream is a Theistareykjarbunga that pops up in Grimsvötns caldera next year 🙂 omg … it must happen for me to be satisfyed.
Grimsvötn haves the open conduits and magma supply required for that. The So2 emissions from Grimsvötn is massive all the time now.
Im worried over my eyesight.
Chad .. Albert may know, since you guys knows alot.
2015 many years ago we had a wonderful half eclipse in Scandinavia.
I got to see it in the early afternoon.
It was an extremely moist foggy afternoon, with fog like stratus close to the ground. The sun became a pale white little ball almost without any glare, and the dark shadow of the moon half swallowing it. But never the infamous ”ring of hellfire” looked like a flashlight in dense milk water, basicaly white pale orb. I felt the cold too when it was blocked.
I looked at it a few times, many seconds each without protection.
NEVER look at an eclipse without eclipse special googles. Did the very heavy fog reduce the dangerous UV rays? I knew the risks back then too.
The retina photorecptor cells NEVER regenerate, once they are dead they are dead. Did I damage my eye receptors?
My detail and colourvison vison is excellent today 2020 very high visual capacity, but Im very nearsighted since 10 years old.
You were lucky. The UV is also reduced by the fog, by the same fraction as the visible light. You will be fine: eye damage by the sun is fast and you would have known very quickly. The instantaneous damage is mostly by the direct sunlight, not specifically by the UV.
As a dumb child ( 4 years )
I have also looked directly into the Noon sun many many times.. and these green – blue flashes fascinated me on retina, I never knew how dangerous that was back then.
Today I do everything to keep away from the sun… ! sunglasses and hat when Im outside. Sunglasses should be worn all year around! to protect against blue light and glare.
In winter it removes snow blindness too. Im very careful now, and is lucky I acually been alot of an insider at computers and books.
NEVER look at the sun at any time.. its equal too looking into the Tsar Bomba at close range
Not even close, looking at the sun is certainly dangerous for the health of your eyes but looking at the tsar bomba at what can be considered a close distance you would explode. Theres videos of tests from weapons tiny by comparison where the gamma rays evaporate the steel structures ahead of the blast wave, those metal vapor explosions are powerful detonations in their own right but it doesnt matter in that situation… that is what your body looks like being close to the tsar bomba 🙂
Sadly, my usually sensible wife viewed one of our rare UK eclipses through non-eclipse goggles. No immediate harm but, with hindsight, it accelerated her familial narrow-angle glaucoma’s progressive damage by at least a decade, possibly two…
🙁
Imagine if Earth fell into the sun.. or was placed under the photosphere. Everything we see woud be destroyed. The entire planet woud cease to exist. Earth woud start to vaporize, and become ionized plasma itself. Earth woud be like a little hard chocolate ball thrown into a boiling kettle of water. Earths legacy woud be a minior increase of solar metals.
During the hadean when planet formation was chaotic and Jupiter was on the move, probaly was many young protoplanets that was pushed into the sun itself and terminated. One paper acually says that one or many Earth mass rocky planets where pushed into the sun.. where they burned up. Another paper even says that the young sun swallowed a Super Earth that was ripped from its orbit.
What’s an inclinometer good for concerning monitoring volcanoes or tectonic faults?
When it goes ballistic you know the volcano has exploded underneath
Measures changes in slope so it is good for monitoring deformation, they are quick and precise.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=efUjc3sKvVg&list=PL6xPxnYMQpquNuaEffJzjGjMsr6VktCYl&index=8
Part 8 of the Alien Biospheres of Planet
TIRA 292b. Deserts and Tundra life
Part 9 will be about the tropical rainforests.. this is an amazing imagined exo ecosystem
Snaefellsness! Hmm… now that is unusual.
5.6 and lots of stars about Reykjanes (not so unusual these days!). But 5.6, though. Is that the most powerful from these recent swarms?
Everyone, take care now.
If Planet Mercury was ”carefuly placed” on the suns photosphere, it woud sink into the suns depths. It woud sink into the suns mantle. But it woud stop sinking once the plasma around it reaches a higher density than poor mercury itself? That planet is doomed, like a little chocolate ball submerged in boiling water : ) Straaaange thoughts today from me. The sun is a perfect place for annihelation : D
On a Red Dwarf star thats one of the most crazy highest surface densities of all main sequence stars, poor mercury might just float on souch stars plasma surface? if it was placed there.
Also the surface gravity of M Dwarfs are crazy strong. But on our larger sun, mercury woud sink into the mantle
Albert you seen this?
”The density of the smallest red dwarf star is estimated to be 240 tons per cubic meter, or about 30 times the density of solid iron!. Although similar in size to the planet Jupiter, this red dwarf star contains about 100 times the mass of Jupiter. Having such a high density, this red dwarf star is probably the densest hydrogen-burning star discovered so far.”
http://beyondearthlyskies.blogspot.com/2013/02/smallest-hydrogen-burning-star-yet.html?m=1
Thats crazy! coud I stand on plasma thats so dense?
Thats the photosphere density of some tiny red dwarf stars
The Red Hypergiants are on the other scale of photosphere density.. they are like bloated vaccums. Vy Canis Majoris are like a hot vaccum. Its extremely bright.. but haves really no surface if you was close to it. Very low density stars
IIRC, there’s a really weird Red Hypergiant with cyclic activity for which the only robust explanation is a much smaller binary partner orbiting within the visible star’s now-bloated envelope…
FWIW, Betelgeuse, though a mere supergiant, is now thought to be 25% closer than previous estimates.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-supergiant-star-betelgeuse-smaller-closer.html
quote:
Co-author Dr. László Molnár from the Konkoly Observatory in Budapest says the study also revealed how big Betelgeuse is, and its distance from Earth.
“The actual physical size of Betelgeuse has been a bit of a mystery—earlier studies suggested it could be bigger than the orbit of Jupiter. Our results say Betelgeuse only extends out to two thirds of that, with a radius 750 times the radius of the sun,” Dr. Molnár said.
“Once we had the physical size of the star, we were able to determine the distance from Earth. Our results show it’s a mere 530 light years from us—25 percent closer than previous thought.”
The good news is Betelgeuse is still too far from Earth for the eventual explosion to have significant impact here.
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Another question:
what woud happen if earths moon was just carefuly placed on the earths surface with NO velocity momentum?
What woud happen if the moon was just carefuly placed on earths surface? I knows that it woud still be catastrophic.
I assumes the moon woud start to slowly burrow and sink into the earths mantle.
Perhaps ”carefuly placing” the much smaller Asteorid Ida on earths surface woud not do very much. More than a mountain stickning up into space.
If both of these smashed into Earth at orbital speeds,
Earth woud be transformed into a ball of magma and vapourized rock hotter than the sun, like it was in early hadean.
But just placing the moon on Earth without any orbital velocity, woud have a another but still very catastrophic effect. This way is physicaly impossible in real life
They woud still merge, but not as violent as collision in orbital speeds.
If the moon was
”carefuly placed on earths surface without orbital velocity”
It woud still be terrible as the moon woud start to slowly burrow into the earths interior. 😆
The planet woud shake of earthquakes and huge flood basalts woud spourt from stress related cracks in the litosphere. With the astenosphere exposed and decompressed. Perhaps the slow motion merger woud generate enough friction to melt parts of the merger side of the Earth competely. It woud still destroy us all
This is impossible in real life universe but a fun mind game
Mass is apparently very important when
”carefuly placing”celestial objects on earths surface.
Small objects like kilometers sized asteorids becomes just another mountain. But its when you place dwarf planet sized objects on Earths surface like our moon that things go really absoutley crazy.
These stuff are impossible is real life
Mountains and mountain ranges have a deep root to support them. Mid-ocean volcanoes provide an analogy: How deep is the Hawaiian ‘moat’ caused by isostasis ??
Jesper is right, if the moon were carefully placed on the earth’s surface, it would have devastating effects, even without oribital velocity. The entire thing woud start to burrow into the earths mantle. The friction and earthquakes woud heat things anyway. It woud be a magnificent sight indeed