The VC Bar

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 😉

4,748 thoughts on “The VC Bar

    • The active part of the lake is rising again now that it is smaller in area, up a few meters from yesterday to 194 meters deep. I would guess the dome fountain was because the outlet of the tube was submerged only a small distance, but now that outlet is deeper with the lake rise and the extra pressure is easier to erupt out the top of the cone.

      For a sustained eruption at this point the eruption rate is pretty high and there has been no overall deflation since the end of the year. The supply must be higher than it was before 2018, in the same range as the activity in the early 19th century.

      I do hope we see a high fountaining eruption, something like the golden pumice. Jesper has asked what the 2011 eruption of Grimsvotn would look like without ice… 🙂

  1. Media was saying the Caribbean was getting active, anyone know what’s actually happening

    • Its not really, pretty normal. It is probably because of the notoriety of what happened in 1902 that is why the area is getting attention. Having Pelee and St Vincent at elevated alert, and then one of them erupting, is better than the average volcano title, even if in all likelyhood this eruption will be harmless. A future eruption at Pelee will never be as bad as it was in 1902, St Pierre is much smaller today and no doubt will be evacuated at onset of eruption.

  2. Wow Everest mountain complex summit is almost 9000 meters above sealevel. Thats why the oxygen is so low there.. infact the mountain haves the infamous ”death zone” humans are not evolved for being at jet heights

    Umm Everest is getting crowded .. during the climbing season dozens a day try for it. Climbing as high as the jetliners fly. Taking on Mount Everest is among the most dangerous pursuits in the world! Human beings aren’t evolved to function at the cruising altitude of a 747. The mountain is getting crowded by waste, dead bodies and leftovers and tons of excremenent and food scraps. I knows that 11 persons died in 2019 climbing season.

    How long woud it take for me to die,
    IF I was left without oxygen at the summit and not – acclimatized?

    Strangely some birds haves no problems at flying at 11 000 meters

    • Woud not supprise me at all if Himalayas will get up to 10 000 meters in the geological future and there certainly been taller mountain ranges than Everest in the geological past of the Earth

    • Birds have more efficient lungs, their respiratory system goes through their bones too, and this was the case of all bird line archosaurs. This respiratory and skeletal system is something that mammals have not yet been able to replicate despite true mammals first evolving at a similar time to dinosaurs and therapsids that were very similar to mammals existing since the mid Permian.

      There is a trade off to this though, birds are highly sensitive to atmospheric toxins, all of those tropicbirds flying above Halemaumau are dancing with death.

    • Everest is rapidly becomming unsanitary…because of climbing becomming common. the cold temperatures prevents microbial breakdown of dead bodies and human excrement.. everything is in deep freeze, with bacteria inactive.

      I read that 20 000 kilos of frozen poop was removed from Everest very recently : ) the crew describes the weight like two very large Savannah elephants. And enormous ammounts of other waste too.

      The mountain is full of corpses too from fallen climbers .. they sleep and never wakes up. Most have never been brought down … they will be frozen for millions of years.. no decomposition.

      • I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if Everest ended up being declared completely off-limits to climbers in the near future by both Nepal and China (remember Everest straddles the Nepali-Chinese border).

        I know there are a number of peaks in the Himalayas there are totally off-limits. This is especially true in Nepal’s neighbour, Bhutan, where all peaks above 6,000 m (~19,680 ft) are off-limits according to the government. But this is due to spiritual/holy beliefs rather than environmental reasons.

      • The frozen corpse of
        ”green boots”
        He is frozen for ethernity in perfect flesh condition.
        His gut bacteria is frozen so he cannot decompose. He is a major landmark on an Everest hike. 100 persons every year see him and 10 persons a year goes the same fate. In 1996 ”Green Boots” died on Everest. The thin air robs your brain of oxygen and you shuts down…

        you may never wake up or be able to walk if you gets tired at the summit

      • When you die .. your intestine bacteria instantly start to break you down.. when immune system de – activates.. goes very quickly, your body feast for your own bacteria.. and you are very quickly recycled back to nature

        But on Mount Everest in that cold.. all your cells and bacteria are frozen and inactive.. and decomposition cannot happen in the body. Everest victims are preserved in cold storage for a very very long time indeed..

  3. Hmm, I don’t know about that, as long as Earth continues to undergo its current period of glaciation, which could last for at least 15-20 million years from now.

    But the Himalayas could have been even higher than today during the early to mid-Miocene (21-14 Mya), during the Early Miocene warm period, before glaciation began intensifying about 8 Mya. The highest peaks could have been up to at least 35,000, or even over 40,000 feet high (~9145-12192 m) during that time! Whoa!

    • I don’t know what on earth this is doing here. This was supposed to be a reply to Jesper Sandberg’s comment on the Himalayas getting higher in the future:

      Woud not supprise me at all if Himalayas will get up to 10 000 meters in the geological future and there certainly been taller mountain ranges than Everest in the geological past of the Earth

    • Better to close off Everest competely.. tens of tons of human waste there that needs to be removed! it accumulating over the decades… as JS say

      • Right .. there is so much crap buried in the snow there, that you cannot set up a base camp without sleeping on others waste. Tons of it around all mountain camps, luckly its all frozen but still a major biological hazard.

        Around 66 tons of it maybe around the mountain camps, buried in the snows before the major cleanups began.

        Everest is also full of gabrage and trash and food scraps and plastic waste.. because of
        ”distasteful humans”

        But luckly the crews there are doing a fantastic job of cleaning up Everest, many tens of tons of waste and trash, been carried off the mountain since 2019 I think.

  4. At a glance, I know some of this is false but I call upon you for some aid, recently the Nation of Islam has made lecture concerning the new covid 19 vaccine. I couldn’t care less what is thought of new vaccine but there are some bold claims in this lecture that haven’t been substantiated with sources. I would like some help debunking some of it as it grows in popularity.
    Some (A lot) will it find offensive so gear up!

      • Is there a transcript ?
        The scrap I watched before my wits went ’tilt’ totally matched the wilder notions our media’s been debunking almost daily…

        • Unfortunately there isn’t any transcript as far as I know, so it might be better to take the lecture in smaller pieces. I have built up a high tolerance for this level of unsubstantiated and crazy statements.

      • Can’t speak for each vaccine but given the amount of medical professionals involved in creating and administering it (and i’m assuming people have deconstructed it) if it did have anything nefarious in it such as a viral vector (or a tracker – I mean come on, you’ve got a phone) I would think it would have been detected.
        Not sure why it would be likely to cause harm to black people in particular or how that would work, there’s very few physiological differences between white and black people save for melanin in skin and genetic adaptations to our ancestors environments. (Hope I am using the right terms here – please correct me if not)
        If the vaccine included something that only harmed poor people then it might be more believable.

        • Aside from several infamous, well documented medical ‘oops’, there’s been some ‘false flag’ stuff.

          The MMR vaccine is a horrible example. IIRC, the ‘autism’ scare’s starter had undisclosed links with a company making the individual vaccines, stood to earn a lot of money.

          IIRC, the CIA’s hunt for a certain well-known villain across the Tribal regions of Pakistan used genuine health care provision as a way to do genetic sampling, trace kin-links…
          To put it politely, that rather fouled the well…

          Beyond that, there’s the problem with faith-based authority figures feeling undercut, or having an exceedingly narrow world-view. IS and other ‘fundamentalist’ sects are grim examples. IIRC, they see their people as Male = Warriors and Female = Baby machines. ‘Full Quiver’ evangelists complete the full arc of such aberrant ‘horseshoe’ geometry. Neither extreme grouping welcome technology, education or even health-care beyond the minimal. Except, of course, for ‘cadre’…

          Given the number of people who cling to notions such as ‘Moon Landings Were Faked’, ‘Flat Earth’, chemtrails, the mind-blowing qanon conspiracy bundle, now augmented by the vocal ‘WE WUZ ROBBBBBED’ crowd, is no wonder many people trust no-one outside their chosen echo chamber.

          The snag with teaching people to apply scientific thought processes to an issue is it may unleash an avalanche of falsification upon so much else…

  5. A magnitude 4 quake down in the mantle under Hawaii, part of the Pahala swarm. It shook up the tiltmeter at HVO, which usually only quakes much closer to the caldera can do…

    What looked like a DI event has also transitioned directly into continuous inflation, and the eruption is still sustained low fountaining with an open channel, the lake is about 200 meters deep now.

      • It is interesting how many of these lakes form islands, though probably none of them have the backstory that the main island in todays lake does.

        Lava lake is 200 meters deep now, the pressure at the bottom is like being 700 meters underwater. There was inflation at the JOKA station early last year so magma can flow freely that far, how much pressure is needed to force magma up to the surface from there?
        At current Pu’u O’o is not pressurised so there doesnt seem to be any imminent ERZ event but the summit inflation is ongoing, this might change on short notice. The tilt is still showing inflation.

  6. Interesting little swarm in the eastern part of South Iceland Seismic Zone, just west of Hekla. This is one of the places where it has been suggested that the next M6-7 might happen (another place is west of Hengill, in the other end of the SISZ). The earthquakes in 2000 and 2008 only released about half the strain built up since the last large earthquake sequence in 1896-1912, so there is potential for more large quakes in the near future.

    • Will be interesting to see if this triggers an eruption along the fissure swarm like in 1913.

      I have been trying to map out all of the basaltic vents in the Hekla area and their age, theres not a lot of data and most have margins of error that will make you pause and look twice, but it does at least seem like the hard shutdown during the historic period is not actually a thing, most prehistoric eruptions were also small and there have been at least 5 fissure swarm eruptions since 1104, and a 6th in the century before that.
      Some of the bigger mid Holocene eruptions also happened from the same fissure Hekla has formed on and their vent is likely buried by it, so it is pretty much impossible that Hekla isnt connected to the basaltic volcanism at depth. Its different magma must be coming from a second source that is flowing into the area from the north and overriding the local source, and which has probably increased over time to the present. I would take a guess that if Hekla erupted long enough it would eventually erupt the same basalt as the rest of the fissure swarm, but an eruption that big is probably not possible today so we are left to wonder…

      This area is my number two pick of the next big effusive eruption this century too so best keep watching 🙂

  7. Currently reading up on double divergent subduction, like that of the Molucca Sea. A rare and strange situation where subduction is occuring on both sides and an arc-collision is inevitable. This is also happening to the Adriatic plate but there isn’t a great deal of volcanism on the Croatian side.

    Here’s the ramifications for magma production:
    Partial melting of mantle generate mafic dyke intrusion. Because the mantle is the primary source, these dykes record isotopic characteristics of the depleted mantle in which the 87Sr/86Sr ratio is near 0.703 and samarium-neodymium dating is positive.[2] On the other hand, partial melting of the lower crust (accretionary complex) leads to S-type granitoid intrusions with enriched aluminium oxide throughout the evolution of divergent double subduction.[2][6]

    When the oceanic plate detaches from the overlying crust, intense decompressional melting of mantle is induced. Large amount of hot basaltic magma intrude and melt the crust which generate rhyolitic melt.[6][2] This results in alternating eruption of basaltic and rhyolitic lava.

  8. Theres a second lava river going into the lake at Kilauea now. Theres a picture from a few days ago of this happening in the day, and theres been a few other flows out of this second vent, but now the second flow is a lot more robust and comparable to the original flow.

    • What woud Big Islands climate be like if Hawaii was on the equator? I know that there are already something like 12 climate zones there on Hawaii Island.

      But Hawaii is quite a distance from the equator in the northen tropical trade wind belts.. means a wet and dry side. Hawaii is in tropical Lat 20.

      On equator its competely convective and no trade winds.
      And perhaps Big Island woud lack a dry zone on Kona if it was located at latitude 0.
      I think Hawaii woud be even greener located there

      Woud Hawaii be even warmer at the equatorial equator?

      Iceland Hotspot on the equatorial MAR woud also be a very diffrent Island!

      • All equatorial volcanic Islands and volcanoes are very green indeed..

        But Hawaii haves indeed very strong mountain Orographic precipitation on wet sides making it as green as Congo at Hamakua coast.

        With no dry zone caused by lack of trade winds in equator.. I guess the entire Island woud be green as heck

        • Chain of craters road woud be deep pit lakes at Latitude 0 with millions of carpfish brought there by the polynesians : )

      • Saõ Tomé Island outside Gabon is analougous in climate for your fictional scenario..indeed a completely dark green Hawaii

      • Temperature wise a bit hotter but not very much IF Hawaii was located at Lat 0

        Mostly the weather woud be very much more convective with Big intra – tropical convergence zone oceanic thunderstorms.. Kailua Kona and Kohala deserts woud be as green as Congo if Hawaii was at that location.

        No hurricanes either

  9. https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/global-positioning-system-k-lauea-summit-past-year

    It has been long enough now that the GPS has updated a bit, it still looks to be on an upward trend, same rate as between June and December 2020. At this rate it recover the drop from the start of the eruption in about August if things stay stable, which is impressive for a volcano that is already erupting.

    HVO hasnt said anything about eruption rate for a long time and SO2 has been stable for weeks, so it is probably still at about 10 m3/s. The lake is at about 30 million m3 now, after adding another 7 months at the current rate it could reach a volume of over 0.2 km3, which is about as big as the entire volume of the Mauna Ulu eruption according to official HVO numbers. Way before that though if the lake ‘only’ doubles in volume to about 60-70 million m3 it will begin to flood the vent, which at this rate will be in about 40 days or early March. Maybe this is when we get a big lava geyser, but really anything could happen.

    • You mean the caldera length, not the GPS upward movement. The GPS’s on the south side of the caldera are still going down (marginally). The one on the north side may be going up a bit. All are still 5 cm below the pre-eruption level and in no hurry to fix this. If inflation resumes at the pre-eruption level, then indeed it could recover in 6 months. But that has not started yet.

      • Those south caldera stations record deeper magma storage, the one on the home page does correlate with inflation of the shallow storage which is why I talk of it moving upward even though it is a distance across not vertical movement. It is set up to mirror the tilt and record activity of the shallow system above about 4 km depth which includes the connection to the rifts.

        Since June the supply increased and a lot of magma accumulated in the deeper storage space which is the big vertical spike in those south caldera stations. The fall after the eruption has not returned to the level it was in June yet so there is still pressure in the deep system. This area isnt really a magma chamber it is probably the same olivine crystal mush as the deep rift but with a higher melt fraction from being above the deep conduit.

          • Indeed and the other vent is back to normal, it must be a shallow connection. HVO said it was first observed after a piece of cone fell into the vent but that didnt look to be the cause of the recent episode.

  10. https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentinel-playground/?source=S2&lat=64.40168493621215&lng=-17.37436294555664&zoom=14&preset=1-NATURAL-COLOR&layers=B01,B02,B03&maxcc=20&gain=1.0&gamma=1.0&time=2020-07-01%7C2021-01-19&atmFilter=&showDates=false

    Direct link to satelite

    Loots of melting near Grimsvötn caldera edge.. glacial lakes are growing and seems to grown alot since last year.
    This is increasing geothermal heating from expanding upper magma body. It looks like the next eruption coud be larger and more long lived ( and slower ) than 2011. Perhaps it will last long enough to build up a Surtsey in the caldera lake.

    Infact all Grimsvötn caldera eruptions is a surtsey pheratoplinian at the beginning. But the historical ones shut off before they became effusive lava. It happens in an ocean of thick ice, but otherwise same as sea eruptions

    • Its the 2011 hole thats by 2021 become an growing ice lake with very large sulfur emissions, the caldera walls there been heating up too with over a 100 C in many cracks.
      Is an open conduit forming here? Grimsvötn was certainly not like this in between and before 1998 and 2004

      • Can you really see the lake in that picture? The blue part that looks like water is actually the shadow from the south caldera wall.

        Cool link anyway. You can see a lot of interesting features, like the ice cauldrons along the Bárðarbunga caldera rim, or the fact that the Holuhraun lava field is basically free of snow so probably still quite warm.

        • I can send more photos over FB messenger later …

          Grimsvötn is amazing now and how this massive system is heating up. Grimsvötn have become really warm and gassy during the last 6 years.

          The magma chamber in Grimsvötn is extremely shallow.. just 1700 meters below the caldera. Thats as shallow as many other open conduit lava lake volcanoes.

          The next eruption maybe a Surtsey Island in the caldera of Grimsvötn

      • It is an open lake…
        Just its surface frozen sligthly in winter storms.

        Here is the edge of that open lake.. with ice falling into the lake as slab cracks.
        Grimsvötn did not have this open lakes in 1998 and 2004 probaly is a sourge of magma supply. Perhaps its forming a pathway up.. since very large sulfur output been apparently measured.

        https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentinel-playground/?source=S2&lat=64.40289013783541&lng=-17.380478382110596&zoom=16&preset=1-NATURAL-COLOR&layers=B01,B02,B03&maxcc=20&gain=1.0&gamma=1.0&time=2020-07-01%7C2021-01-19&atmFilter=&showDates=false

      • It is disappointing, but most of the ‘lake’ is a shadow, only the bit that is on the left side seems to be water. There is also ice at the bottom, it is melting but it is barely keeping up with the flow of ice from outside, as for it being new and previously not seen Vatnajokull has also melted a lot since the 90s.
        Grismvotn isnt really the sort of volcano to do long lived eruptions anyway, it appears to be similar to the Galapagos calderas where eruptions are fast and brief, more or less high frequency and typically not that big. Bardarbunga seems more suited to do shields, as does Askja, both much more so than Grimsvotn.

        Grimsvotn to me has been hyped up too much, now we are all expecting the eruption of the century only a 5th of the way through (and only a decade after its biggest eruption in over 2 centuries). It is like Katla in 2011 where everyone was expecting a VEI 6 for some reason when Katla hasnt had an eruption anywhere near that size since before Eldgja. Neither are the sort of volcanoes their reputation holds them to be with a few rare exceptions, the key word being rare. 2011 may well have been one of those rare exceptions, so to expect another is compounding a rare thing with another rare thing. Bardarbunga does the big effusive eruptions, but it has already done so for this cycle so it is also out.

        The 3rd option is where we should be looking. Hekla changed in the 20th century, its magma supply doubled, its magma became more mafic, and its eruptions became more frequent by an order of magnitude. Hekla erupts just as much lava every year as Etna, but it is going on 22 years now since it last erupted which is the longest such interval since 1970 when the new activity became prominent, one can imagine if Etna didnt erupt for 20 years…

        • It is an open lake JS is correct.. its just covered with a thin layer of ice in winter… the ice shelf itself can be seen crumbling into the glacial lake.. look closely

  11. It is a water lake.. just covered in winter ice. Here is the cracked wall of the ice shelf.. north of the shadow.. https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentinel-playground/?source=S2&lat=64.40758064957454&lng=-17.379555702209473&zoom=15&preset=1-NATURAL-COLOR&layers=B01,B02,B03&maxcc=20&gain=1.0&gamma=1.0&time=2020-07-01%7C2021-01-19&atmFilter=&showDates=false

    And here is the glacial lake in Grimsvötn seen by helicopter shot.. image 4 in the photo slider .. its melting alot by the increasing geothermal heat https://www.flightseeing.is/project/grimsvotn-eruption-site-2011-2004-1998-1996/

  12. There is another DI event ongoing at Kilauea, the lake has pretty much entirely stagnated even near the vent. it might even entirely pause for a day or so and then restart when the inflation resumes.

    • This is quite a strong DI event, it’s surprising how fast the lake froze in reaction to the event, and all over its surface. The fountain seems to still be alive but pressure keeps falling.

      • HVO Volcano Watch today was about the lava composition, it is not new lava from depth but the same as the overlook crater stuff. It seems the stuff that was causing all of the deep inflation has not reached the surface yet, so future activity might see hotter and more gas rich lava.

        The DI event seems just recently to have reached its bottom, and started to go back up.

        • The new stuff doesn’t get to the surface, it mixes with the other magma in the storage zones, and the new magma still comes from storage that is just a little deeper.

          The only volcanoes at which magma can rise to the surface retaining its primitive composition is at some volcanic fields that only have storage in the mantle.

          Major differences in composition usually arise from the different parts of the volcano that eruption tap into. Eruptions with cold sticky lavas usually tap magma reservoirs in the far end of the rift conduits, that seldom get resupplied, like the early lavas of the 2018 eruption that came from the reservoir under the JOKA station, or the lava of Fissure 17 which came from a reservoir under the Puna Geothermal Venture.

          Eruptions with fluid, hotter than usual lavas, like Keaiwa, Kilauea Iki, or the fissures at the southern caldera rim, probably feed from deep levels of summit storage. The Kilauea Iki 1959 eruption was located in an area that just sagged slightly during the 1500-1790 collapses, a magma storage deeper than the ERZ connection which did completely fall apart during those collapses more than once. That’s possibly why the Kilauea Ikl magmas were more primitive or more gas rich.

        • The magma chamber is large and only lost a fraction in the 2018 eruption. New magma has been added but still much less than what was lost. The eruption will continue to have the composition of the magma chamber. Fissure can source from near the bottom of the chamber, but summit eruptions do not.

    • This is old stoored magma from the summit resovair.. yet so very fluid

      A fresh batch from the volcanos depths woud perhaps erupt at well over 1300 C and erupt as Iki fountains or taller

      Kilauea haves a very large summit magma stoorage and allows for sligthly cooling and lots of degassing of large ammounts of melt. Still its erupting at perhaps 1170 C today.

      • The study in the article regards only tephra collected on day one, it actually makes no mention of later samples. Given the longevity and volume of the eruption so far I expect lava now is likely to contain some level of deep signature, the widespread inflation from the deeper source reversed with the eruption so whatever magma was doing that found an outlet.

        This is though definitely a story that will be followed up on.

    • See above, there is a deflation-inflation event ongoing, during Pu’u O’o activity often paused during the deflation and resumed again when inflation restarted. The current one has just reversed back to inflation so it would be expected the eruption rate will increase significantly in the coming days. It might do this frequently from now on, all it really shows is the system is in equilibrium at the moment, so this eruption is likely to last a long time.

      It is also not as likely but still possible that the intervals between eruptions increase into discrete episodes, like at Pu’u O’o in the 1980s. This would be long enough that pressure could really build up, resulting in possibly much higher fountains.

  13. Grimsvötn caldera year 2023…
    If we are lucky: A larger and slower longer lived eruption maybe a possibilty with all the accumulated magma. Perhaps lasting long enough to build up an effusive Island in the meltwater lakes. All Grimsvötn eruptions are the start of a potential glacial surtsey Island, but most never makes it beyond the initial pheratoplinian – surtseyan stage.
    Another scenario for next eruption is just another brutaly fast VEI 4. But perhaps the next eruption will be the upper scenario.

    In year 1784 just after Laki a red glow was apparently. spotted over Grimsvötn caldera summit.. and it erupted during Laki too and 1785 I think. This is signs that there was a very long lived caldera eruption .. that built an caldera Island and became effusive lava.

    But the next eruption coud also be .. just some pheratomagmatic bursts that last a day… who knows

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G0SRSTtjPkQ

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XiGN2TKEFPc

    • Skafta fires included rifts under the glacier too, and given how remote the area is and what had just happened to the population I would not place any bets on the certainty of the glow being at Grimsvotn itself it could have been anywhere in that part of the glacier.

      If there is an eruption this year and it is a normal south caldera fault eruption it will max out at 0.1 km3 because it is just a pressure release and that is how much magma a decade supply is. This could still be a VEI 4 but nowhere near 2011. If it is outside the caldera it could be bigger but the ice is thicker too so in all likeliness a flank eruption will do nothing at all. If the eruption doesnt happen for another 10 years then another 2011 is much more plausible, but then we also have to wait 10 years… Thordarhyna is possibly capable of a much more sizable eruption but I dont know anything about its history so I wont comment further on it here.

      As I have said Hekla is the volcano to watch for another major eruption, and possibly Oraefajokull if it keeps at it, rhyolite volcanoes are rare and tend to make their presence known. If Greip is an actual thing then if it decides to erupt through an intrusion into Grimsvotn it could get interesting, but that would require a rifting event, Grimsvotn doesnt rift often and its last event was as major as you can get… 🙂

    • Oh, dear…

      Given the recent discovery of ‘Old Deep Blobs’ of sundry provenance plus, um, complications produced when peripatetic hot-spot-ish whatsits leave lonnng trails or up-grade ordinary suture zones or ‘spreading ridges’ unto ‘locally lively’, it’s time to ‘Break Out The Pop-Corn’ !!!

    • Well that’s a heated argument. If I ever write an article about this, which I probably will, it will lean closer to the plate theory actually. The vast majority intraplate volcanism is probably due to extension, and the Afar Traps were probably set off by the reactivation of Makran subduction which pulled Arabia towards Asia.

      However anybody who knows Hawaii closely (or Yellowstone, or Iceland) knows there is “something” in the mantle beneath that doesn’t care much about what plates are doing. The idea of extension fails to explain how a spot that is only 50-100 km across turns into an absolute beast of melt production (Hawaii produces about 100,000 m3/km2/year, in contrast even a flood basalt may only get to 1,500 m3/km2/year since they affect far bigger areas), and then goes on unabated for tens of millions of years without depleting that location of all its meltable material.

      • None of this really explains volcanism outside the earth, Mars and Io have no plates, Venus has rifts but its not total. At least Io has massive volcanism and Venus I expect is probably comparable to the earth. We have only had continuous observation of Venus for 20 years or so and to actually see something through its atmosphere you need a major eruption and to be in the right place to see it.

      • Fair arguments, the LLSVPs (whether slab graveyards or not) must have something to do with this excessive production. What caused the antipodal pacific & african LLSVPs whether it’s the eccentricity of earth or impact events is still debatable of course.
        Definitely more melt available in those 2 areas than elsewhere though.

      • Think it’s also worth mentioning the Basin & Range areas and Mt Baekdu are caused by long-past subduction of slabs that haven’t dipped into the mantle and disappeared for eternity. How much other intraplate volcanism is down to subduction long gone? Mt. Elbrus could be for instance.

        • I can think of quite a few more volcanoes/volcanic regions likely generated by that kind of subduction. The Wrangell volcanoes in southern Alaska come to mind, with its massive mostly andesitic shield volcanoes like Wrangell and Sanford, as well as the stratovolcanoes Mt. Drum and Churchill.

          During the Eocene, areas of volcanism like the Challis Arc (SW BC, Idaho and Montana) and the Absaroka Volcanics in NW Wyoming could’ve been generated by slabs detaching/detached from the Kula Plate.

  14. TechRax ( Taras Maksimuk ) is an incredible stupid and sometimes really fun youtube channel… He is really odd indeed.. with his crazy addiction of ”IPhone Terrorism destruction”. Here is a fun video of an old IPhone 5S that gets totaly demolished by a train. I wonder if there is any risk of de – railing.. but the phone is super – light and the train is super – heavy at great speed.. it just moves on.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd1ICZhtR8s

    Thats for the VCbar
    Anyway I will never de – rail my phones

  15. Something interesting I have noticed at Kilauea, Pu’u O’o GPS is still showing contraction of the rift zone today, while the summit is showing extension, and also erupting at the same time.

    I think what this means is that before the eruption began there was a considerable overpressure in the east rift, when the eruption began it created a vent to release pressure.
    We have all been speculating on it being just a matter of time before a rift drain occurs and activity shifts to the east again, but it looks like the caldera is actually too empty and deep to allow that, the lava lake is over 200 meters deep or at about 710 m above sea level and there is still signals of magma being focused to the summit area. I doubt that magma is actually directly backflowing from the east rift to the summit but the hydraulic connection is favoring that direction.
    Pu’u O’o saw its last inflation begin in June of 2020, same time as the summit signals, I would guess that is reflective of the amount of overpressure we are seeing in the area, and that we wont see any sort of change in activity outside the summit until that is cancelled out – when the east rift is not under pressure. The lake seems generally to rise about a meter or two a day, if it takes another month for Pu’u O’o and the MERZ to deflate then the lake might continue to rise another 50 meters or so from where it is now, at least 30 is plausible which puts it at vent level.

    • During the Pu’u’o’o eruption, deflation-inflation events were able to deflate Pu’u’o’o very fast, and sometimes in a way identical to the summit, this shows that magma does flow back from the East Rift to the summit, even with very small changes in pressure. The magmatic pressure at the East Rift down to Pu’u’o’o and the Summit is roughly the same. If pressure falls at the Summit the flow reverses and the rift drains, which is what is happening right now.

      This has some interesting consequences, because it means that parts of the East Rift can be overpressure while the Summit is underpressure, since the load of rock is much less in the distal parts of the East Rift than at the Summit, it is easier for magmastatic pressure to exceed lithostatic. This is probably what concentrates activity in the East Rift at times when there is a well formed connector conduit.

      • That is true I didnt think of that correlation. Still it looks to me like at least for a while the summit is going to be refilling, and given the longevity of the vent now it is more likely to be in a single event rather than multiple discrete eruptions, that is this lake will rise until there is an outlet on the rift.
        On this note however, if there is an open fluid connection between Pu’u O’o and the summit, and presumably everything inbetween too, then it makes perfect sense this eruption happened where it did, because you have to go east of Pu’u O’o to reach the elevation of the current vent above sea level. This eruption happened at the lowest elevation on the open system.

      • There was normally a couple of hours delay between DI at the summit and at Pu’u’o’o. That is too fast for magma flow and it makes it more likely that the connection is a pressure wave. Magma is not much compressible so pressure transmits very well. But I doubt there is much of a connection at the moment.

        • The conduit is very wide, it had to allow the flow to fissure 8 which has recently been calculated at around 500 to 1500 m3/s, way higher than initially predicted. A 2 meter wide conduit was what was necessary for Pu’u O’o but evidently the flank sliding has increased the size vastly, it is unlikely the plumbing has cooled down. The slower response is likely because there isnt actually a vent on the east rift now, its not an open loop.

          • I should say that eruption rate was during surges and towards the later part of the eruption, when the caldera began to sink on the ring fault instead of caving into the plumbing of the former lava lake. Probably 3/4 of the volume erupted was when this happened, in under 1 month. It was not initially obvious because the channel was much deeper and more established by then.

            Given that there was no intrusions during surges the conduit cross section must have been at least 1000 m2, which means a conduit 5 meters wide would have been 200 meters high, generally speaking the connection through the rift should be very open now, but the summit was and still is too low for eruptions on the rift at present, though with the lake rising by the day it could be a different story before the year is up.

          • The numbers of the eruption came from a paper that I saw on one of the livestreams of the eruption, I will try and find it but it could be paywalled. It did though very clearly show peak eruption rates of surges in the 1000+ m3/s range.

            The other number is sort of arbitrary, its how big the conduit would need to be if the flow speed in it was 1 m per second, but that isnt based on anything. It is pretty obvious with the situation that happened either the conduit got way wider in 2018 to allow the eruption at that rate, or it was always that big and HVO had very much underestimated the dimensions.

          • The published number for the typical flow rate is 100 m3/s. Peak rates will have been higher. But if these are piston-driven (summit collapse), they don’t need larger conduits. It is pushed out at higher speed.

          • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKEIwSs0DQ

            About 1 hour 9 minutes in, I dont know the name of the paper though it isnt displayed on the stream. While they do mention this isnt the DRE, it is pretty much impossible for the bulk number to be an order of magnitude higher than the DRE because of that, for eruptions like this, probably the difference is only around 10%. The numbers also come from the channel which is after much of the gas has escaped already too.

            Maybe it doesnt really work this way but a tube that is 1000 m3 in volume and 2 meters wide has a length of about 320 meters. To have the eruption rate of fissure 8 without changing the hypothesised Pu’u O’o conduit (supposedly 2 meters wide cylinder) the magma within it would need to be going at 320 meters a second which is 1152 km/hr…

          • That is not what the rift looked like. Think of a sheet, a couple of meters thick and hundred of meters deep. You are thinking of a lava tube but that is different. A vertical conduit (connecting to the rift) can be tens of meters wide. Peak ejection speeds are probably around 10m/s (as judged from 50 meter tall fountains), propelled by the degassing and pressure waves. So no problem. Flow rates in the deep rift are much slower, of course. 10 cm/sec might be more realistic there.

          • That video does not mention where they get their data from. (I did not have the patience to watch more than a minute or two though.) However, the plot they give is ancient. It is from Wadge, 1981. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0377027381900202). The numbers come from Etna, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, I think, but their table shows that peak values for Kilauea are only around 500 m3/s so the highest values must come from the other two.

          • Many Mauna Loa eruptions goes far beyond 500 m3/s during opening phase .. and Halemaumau golden pumice also far beyond that

          • The eruption officially has a volume of 1.1 km3, and about 90% of that was erupted by fissure 8 between May 30 and August 3, 64 days. That gives an eruption rate of 180 m3/s, which is consistent with HVO who give rates of 150-200 m3/s. The surges could have been much higher at the peak, close to 1000 m3/s is not implausible, there were also points the flow looked like it almost stopped by comparison.

            I think realistically the magma conduit is probably large and relatively undefined at the edges, its pretty much a molten top of the deep rift structure. The idea of it being a tube I think simplifies it too much, or even a defined dike. There are sizable magma chambers along the rift to create the big pit craters, and maybe some more that have not made pit craters too, based on the seismic signal I think there is only a fully open permanent conduit to the magma body underneath Makaopuhi and Mauna Ulu, at current it probably goes as far as JOKA which sits above another chamber, but doesnt always get this far.

      • https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2020.606992/full

        A bit further down on the twitter feed there is a link to this. It looks like the area is better considered to be active rather than dormant.

        Something I have been thinking about with Tarawera, before the Kaharoa eruption in 1314 all of the holocene eruptions at Okataina were at or near Haroharo (and Edgecumbe to the north, but that might not be a part of the system) and all of them were mostly effusive and really huge rhyolite eruptions, except the last one at the Rotokawau maars near Rotorua which was basaltic and maybe not directly related. Both of the most recent eruptions were at Tarawera though, and maybe more importantly two within 1000 years which is above average. 1886 also saw no silicic magma at all and the volume left after the explosive stage of the Kaharoa eruption was smaller than typical alongside a large shallow basalt dike, it looks like perhaps the silicic magma body under Tarawera has mostly solidified and the last of it erupted in 1314, there is a distinct possibility that future activity there will be basaltic like 1886 or perhaps not so like 1886 but still mafic nonetheless. Haroharo will likely stay rhyolitic in future eruptions given it is more recent to show that activity, and it might well go caldera on its own. Tarawera might become a really weird volcano in the future, well weird for where it is.

        Just some speculating, but maybe not so unlikely as it seems.

  16. It’s Burns night tonight. Just discovered today that you can get haggis pizza!
    Also just seen a recipe for haggis kebabs…who’s trying that one out then?

    • I was assured by my wife, whose ancestors hailed from that region, that Haggis is the epitome of the caution that you really, really do not want to know the makings of such ‘sorta-sausage’. Similar considerations apply to ‘Black Pudding’, ‘White Pudding’ and a zoo of ‘Garlic Sausage’, ‘Salami’ etc etc.

      Personally, I find any Haggis loathsome, bad as ‘Heart’, but I judge the others on individual merit…

  17. There is a webcamera at Grimsvötns summit.. do anytime knows the link?
    Albert perhaps.. where are the link?
    I seen posts over FB with screencuts with this webcamera

  18. Interesting eq swarm ongoing in the Prestahnúkur fissure swarm, Langjökull area Iceland.

    Last serious volcanic activity would be about 900 CE, estimated recurrence time is 2000 years, but as some of the lava fields aren’t dated, that may be less. M 3 is quite large for the area.

    Interesting because the P fs is north of the Hengill fissure swarm, the spot where some of the VC contributors suspect a start of renewed volcanic activity in the Reykjanes area. This area is showing unrest for a longer period (about a year) now.

    • There are so absoutley huge pahoehoe fields just North east of Langjökull. One is 55 km long.. they are mossy and hard to find in Google Earth

      So the system is capable of very long lived but infrequent eruptions.

      Langjökull and the entire western rift zone is dying..

      Because the main focus of spreading and mantle plume activity is under Icelands Eastern rift zone thats becomming more and more dominant with time.

    • I think the area is pretty certain not to have erupted in the historic period following the eruption of around 900 AD. That eruption was very big, it probably lasted decades, it created the Hallmundahraun lava field which today has accessible lava tubes. Apart from that the area is poorly explored but all of the lava flows which are obvious have been dated with a reasonable accuracy. Most of the activity happened following deglaciation, so maybe something could happen some time soon, but it is not unlikely the area will erupt anyway in the next few centuries.

      This rift isnt really related to Reykjanes though, there isnt any cyclic recurring activity, though I think the last eruption at Hengill was during a reykjanes eruptive period, making the lava field of Nesjahraun and the island of Sandey in Thingvallavatn. Its sort of hard to tell if Hallmundahraun was related to anything at Reykjanes, it was at the right time but didnt happen at the beginning of the event and is very far away. There was also a single small eruption way west of Langjokull in the Ljosufjoll system at around the same time, and while not connected directly that rift points at Hallmundahraun too so could be a sort of weak spot. Hallmundahraun is also a shield, so possibly there was no rifting at all and it just happened from a short fissure or a hole in the ground, which might have begun a bit like this swarm.

      • I think you cannot be pretty certain Chad. You do have not knowledge about the lava fields that haven’t been dated. That something can happen is a logical thing.

        About the rift. All events in Iceland are related to rift (the permanent pulling of the plates apart). It goes bit by bit, event after event, building up stress, now and then (in a cycle of about 12 years) the hotspot gives the pulling an extra kick. The fact that Reykjanes area is active a year now, could be very well part of that cycle. Check 2008 before Grimsvötn. If we had eq data starting some hundreds years ago, we could be more certain.

        Lets not estimate based on patterns to much. Hekla would pop at every 0. magnitude within minutes, thoughts of few years ago. Grims isn’t that predictable as we wished for, but knew that! What a silence up till now, during what should be a volcanic activity top of the rift cycle….

        So, …. we do not know much yet.
        It is fun watching, though. 🤔 😃

        I’ll order a beer for you at the bar Chad, Cheers!

        • 🙂

          I remember reading a pretty detailed and extensive study on the matter of dating these flows around Langjokull, the reason I say that theres only been one eruption in the last 2000 years is because all of the other flows had a tephra layer on them, I think the Hekla 3 tephra but maybe another layer, and that has a reliable age. In any case despite the remoteness the age of lava flows pretty much everywhere in Iceland can be estimated to a fair degree of accuracy from this. Maybe younger eruptions have happened under the glacier though.

          I think also because this area is in a very slow rift and was a slow eruption from two distinct vents, it might not have been a rift eruption. I dont think the Langjokull volcanoes are well known at all, Hallmundarhaun is on the fissure swarm of Presthnukur but it doesnt follow a fissure and it you make one up to link the vents then it pretty much goes right against the grain so to speak. There is also supposedly more vents to that eruption that are buried by the glacier, and they also dont line up with anything neither with the fissure swarm or the still exposed vents, its really a very confusing system…
          It is possible Presthnukur and Hveravellir are old and dead volcanoes and only the deep feeders are still active, in which case Hallmundahraun might be kind of like an on-land version of the new volcano near Mayotte.

  19. Here is the webcam over Grimsvötn it updates very very frequently.
    Soon this huge volcano will erupt. Grimsvötn have become very geothermaly and gas active compared to situation with 2004 conditions. The increase in magma accumulating under Grimsvötn haves to do with the current pulse in activity with the Iceland Plume.
    Geological crew measured very large sulfur emissions last spring from Grimsvötn caldera wall.

    http://webcams.mogt.is/

    • I keep seeing comments about a current ‘pulse’ from the Icelandic plume. How do we know this to be really the case when everything else about mantle plumes seems to be so very uncertain?

      • I think it was an idea going around after Holuhraun erupted, that there would be more eruptions in short order and that this has also happened historically where there are some periods where volcanoes erupt more often than others. This is probably true to a point but it might not really be as big or exiting as the speculation suggested, its been 6 years since Holuhraun which is rather a long time for what is meant to be more active than usual. It is likely this year will break the drought though, Grimsvotn has been put in alert which wasnt done any time before in the last decade and probably means an eruption is expected in the next year. But it might be best not to expect too much afterwards, just see what happens and hope for a bit shorter wait to the next event…

        If we really want to be guaranteed lava then we need to hope for a shield eruption. Grimsvotn isnt the place for that, but if the swarm near Langjokull is anything magmatic then we might be in for a chance, that area is more in line for shields than big lava floods. Going outside Iceland there is also the lava lake at Kilauea, historically its got a precedent to last a long time and with high supply and no flank vents maybe just maybe this one will manage what its predecessors have not and overflow the caldera into the adjacent summit area, probably the single most accessible place on this planet to see lava. Or maybe in deja vu of 2018 it will destroy itself later this year…
        I guess we will know in a few years whether any of these things has happened.

  20. I am sure you all might’ve heard about what’s happening at wall street and let me just say that it makes so happy to see all these people, for once, to put aside that partisan BS and agree on how hypocritical these rich (Numerous Expletives Here) are being.
    Occupy wall street 2.0!

  21. The tiltmeter at Pu’u O’o is showing a sudden drop, its not big but it completely cancels the day-night noise and also happened following a deflation. It would be strange if this was a magmatic signal, theres nothing changing at at the summit except for the GPS showing slight inflation, but it is an unusual signal.

    • I am not sure, maybe the instrument went bad? There has been some interesting changes to the tiltmeters IKI and ESC.

        • There are several instruments right on the edge of the of the caldera from what I remember. Maybe with all the rain and wind they had it moved or fell in? I have no idea where that instrument is.

  22. What would it look like if a fresh intrusion pushed into a dike that recently fed magma to an eruption? Would it be very noisy, or would it be relatively quiet since there’s still a lot of heat? I’m thinking Bárðarbunga or Kilauea’s lower east rift.

    The reason I’m asking is because there was a quite large swarm at Greip and after that there has been a progression of quakes along the dike. It’s nowhere near a progressing swarm, but it got me thinking about what such an event, if even possible, would look like.

    • For Kilauea there are magma chambers in the rift, hence the pit craters that are almost large enough to be calderas in their own right. These magma chambers are rootless though, fed by the main one under the summit not their own deep mantle source. The lowest magma chamber is just uprift of highway 130 and there also seems to be one under Pu’u O’o, the 130 chamber fed the 2018 eruption. Based on the locations of earthquakes there is a permanent connection to the summit with the magma chamber underneath Makaopuhi crater, and in all likeliness given there is a response to the summit at Pu’u O’o it goes down at least this far all the time. Magma also has flowed into the area near highway 130 several times since 2018 and in the mid 18th century a shield formed here, so it is probable the conduit is open to this area as well though perhaps not with unobstructed flow. Basically despite the great distance the path to the LERZ is about 90% done and only got enhanced after 2018, in all likeliness the only reason theres not an eruption there now is because the summit is much closer to the deep source and until recently at the same elevation. There is a not small chance that this lava lake will just rise until the pressure causes a sudden eruption down near highway 130, with such a huge supply rate this is entirely possible to occur this year.

      Bardarbunga I think is much more simple, it isnt active enough to keep rootless magma chambers in its rifts so probably a future dike would look very like Holuhraun, much more obvious than Kilauea. If Greip has connected to Bardarbunga that changes a lot of things, on its own I think Bardarbunga would be asleep for a long time after Holuhraun, possibly the rest of this century, but if its getting a helping hand then that might entirely nullify that repose period. Veidivotn hasnt rifted in a long time, it might be on the table…

    • It can actually be easier for a dike to break though cold rock than through a recently solidified one. It is like pushing putty: it gives a bit and this distributes the force over a larger area. This reduces the pressure. On rock, the tip of the dike can focus on a small break and put all of its force there. (In practice it is the gas that does the pushing.) This gives a lot of pressure. If the force is strong enough, this will proceed faster. If insufficient, it will instead slowly push into the putty. In reality it is more complex than this, but dikes normally form a new one parallel to the previous one, rather than re-using the older one.

  23. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJGmkOFBDvg

    Good video on Auckland volcanic field…a product of a tiny hotspot…. but problematic if a nonogenetic eruption happens in the city. Rangitoto eruption was the most recent one.. 600 years ago.. and produced a Mauna Ulu sized lava shield. Rangitoto was aquite lenghty eruption… 5km3 over perhaps 11 years.
    Most Auckland eruptions are far far smaller and resemebles Eldfell 1973

    • Likley i9s one of the smallest hotspots on the planet… Auckland volcanic field…
      Only 20km3 produced 200 000 years…with most of activity in holocene and late pleistocene

      • I dont think it is a hotspot. ‘Hotspot’ was first used to explain Hawaii, which is a mantle plume and a big one at that. But most hotspots are not mantle plumes so it is probably not a very good application of the name. There is extensive melting under the North Island, Auckland is likely an outlying part of that, as is possibly much more northerly Kaikohe volcanic field which also has Holocene activity. Theres also a lot of inactive volcanism on the Tasman coast west of the TVZ, which is mostly basalt volcanic fields like Auckland.

        I think a post on the volcanism of New Zealand is definitely in order, it is really just the short historical observation that has limited our view on how prolific the TVZ is.

    • Auckland volcanic field… is a minute even compared to most other continental volcanic fields
      But stupid building a large city on it

      • Auckland was settled in the first place by Europeans for its large natural harbours. The Māori especially liked this area because a number of old cones made perfect places to set up their pā, or fortified walled villages. And of course, the area also had fertile volcanic soil aplenty. Of course, people back then just didn’t realize how potentially active that area could be.

        There are a few other medium/large cities around the world in the same situation geologically as Auckland – being built in or so close to an active volcanic area. Naples is one good example, Mexico City is another,but lesser known.

    • But the chance of lava flowing in the city streets during our lifetime there is miniscule…
      I will not sit around and wait for that… not going to happen..in my lifetime
      Whats Alberts opinion?

    • Given the way the Pacific-side plate is heading SW down NZ flank and sorta-kinda subducting in places, I’m wondering…

      Is there more than a passing analogy with US Pacific coast, the ‘San Andreas’ meeting sundry now-more-or-less subducted mini- and micro-plates and their assorted terrains ??

      Could this monogenetic zone, the ‘Paracutin’ Mexican equivalent and, perhaps, Paektu & Co on NK/Chinese border all be due to the ancient subduction of an atoll or other juicy terrain ??

  24. The recent update from HVO has the SO2 emissions of Kilauea being 2200 t/day, which like every other recent update has said it is lower than the overlook lava lake.

    Something I have been thinking about is that there was that recent finding of the pre-2018 lava being more degassed compared to the lava lake in 2011. They didnt release any other data to determine if this was a linear increase but this makes me think the overlook lake SO2 was exaggerated relative to the supply rate, that there was degassing of a large part of the volcano over that time and at a rate that was higher than the supply could replenish it with new SO2-rich magma. The numbers right now seem to be very similar to Pu’u O’o before 2008, and the reported eruption rates for the current vent (4-5 m3/s) is also very similar. I guess it makes sense that a 250 meter wide and who knows how deep cylinder of lava would lead to greater SO2 emissions, even at the high end the lava in the overlook crater was only half as dense as solid basalt, if SO2 usually comes out of solution at 1 mile depth normally then under the overlook lake it could have been degassing at 2 miles, the main magma chamber is about 3-5 km deep and 2 miles is 3.6 km, within range.

    I guess this means the whole upper magma system in the caldera is probably too degassed to drive a really high fountain 🙁 we will need to get deep magma that bypasses the magma chamber for that, though theres probably a lot of decompression melting going on so who knows. The east rift might be able to high fountain though, none of the ERZ magma chambers had open conduits in the last 40 years except the one east of Napau, and Pu’u O’o was still never the 200 meter wide tube that the overlook lake was.

    • It does make sense a lava lake would degas faster. I don’t think the current eruption will show any high fountains because it taps the least CO2 rich (shallowest) storage in the volcano and as you say it may have also lost part of its CO2 in 2008-2018.

      The fountains of fissure eruptions tend to taper off at about 250 meters, taller fountains have been produced by the circular and wide (but not too wide) conduits of the early Mauna Ulu and Pu’u’o’o eruptions. Kilauea Iki was a very rare case of an eruption that fed from as deep as 4 kilometers, which is very deep for Kilauea. The most powerful summit fountains and plinian events have probably been related to major caldera collapses.

      I’d say the best chances to see high fountains at Hawaii would be the formation of a new satellite shield in the ERZ. Then a major collapse will probably take place at some point that ends the current summit-ERZ cycle of Kilauea, but that could be decades away.

      • Yes a new shield would likely begin as a fountaining vent, possibly a big cone, that is of course what happened at Mauna Ulu and Pu’u O’o, and HVO has said it also happened at Heiheiahulu too.
        Heiheiahulu is also fed out of the JOKA magma chamber too, which pretty much proves that at least in theory this place can do eruptions like that, also the high fountaining of 1955 and even to some level in 2018, and that it has probably been refreshed by new magma in the 2010s. Fissure 8 erupted some lava that had been at a temperature of 1350 C at some point recent to the eruption, not all the lava was older stuff from the upper system.

        I guess a big variable is actually knowing if a batch of magma is rising quickly from depth, especially as eruptions are so frequent anyway that this is likely to be missed if it was at the wrong time.

  25. Canada is alot colder than Europe is.. and home to the worlds most sourthen polar bears.
    In canada Polar Bars can walk down to James Bay in winter! thats as low as latitude 48! same as France in Europe. This is the only place in the world where Polar bears walks down into confier forests and comes into contact with temperate fauna. Hudson bay chilled by the canadaian winter high, is home to the worlds most sourthen polar bears… living at same latitude as berlin.

    Scandinavia and England does not have Polar Bears because the sea cannot freeze… warmed by the Gulf Stream. But Canada is very diffrent…enjoy the video

    • its the Canadian Continetal Winter High Pressure that makes latitude in low 50 s and high 40s
      in America Subpolar… basicaly severe winter snow as far south as northen meditteranean.
      In Russia the continetality is even more severe…. brrr

    • Polar Bears been spotted deep inside manitoba there .. walks deep into the conifer forests .. They walks very south there during the winters ..

      In the summers continetal temps can rise to over 30 C and this polar bear population gets huge problems with that

      Amazing that they walks so far south there

    • Amazing How Cold Canada is compared to mainland Europe!
      But they lacks the Gulf Stream

  26. Speaking of Hudson Bay: IIRC, it is merrily rebounding due post-glacial isostasis at a similar rate to the Gulf of Bothnia. Again, like that Gulf, it is mostly shallow, though there do seem some deeper parts, either glacial scraped or relict lakes…

    I’ve seen several guesstimates of future up-lift rates and ultimate topography, none convincing. YMMV.
    IIRC, the only factor they had in common was that progressive up-lift would surely derange extant drainage patterns across the entire area. Switching from current, sorta-concave ‘Bayward’ to a sorta-convex doming drained radially outwards would have multiple effects.

    Then, there’s ‘second order’ isostasis: As Hudson Bay rises, what falls ? And how far ?? Seems unlikely to spill Lake Michigan South via a reversed Chicago River into the Mississippi catchment, but may coax another ‘New Madrid’ quake from the vast Reelfoot Rift….

  27. Please tell me this is not true.

    https://www.universetoday.com/149920/a-crater-on-venus-indicates-the-planet-hasnt-been-volcanic-for-a-long-time/.

    It appears that Venus has not had volcanic activity for up to 1 billion years, as well as no plate tectonics!

    If this is so, how can a rocky planet, with similar size, formation, & composition to Earth (including radioactive elements) had volcanism that died out much, much earlier than Earth. Venus resurfacing effects, if occurred, would have been before the meteor impact, which could have been before 1 bya, rather than accepted 300-500 mya.

    Either the theory on planetary formation is wrong or that something else is keeping Earth hot & alive inside. This would rekindle the theory on the effects giant-impact hypothesis & tidal effects of the Moon when it was much closer to Earth.

    Of course, Earth’s Oceans helps create plate tectonics by lubricating plate boundaries.

    Your thoughts on this, please.

    • Venus is geologicaly active ..
      Been very hot thermal ground emissions seen from cloud penetration satelites. Last eruption in 2009 I think..
      Venus is with certainly geologicaly active last eruptions came from fissures more than 10 years ago

    • Moon-making impact increased core size, took a lot of mantle / crust material off-planet ? So, after the impact’s magma ocean calmed, cooled, there was a much lower ‘lid/core’ ratio compared to Venus, plus that furious tidal stirring…

      We’ve seen how ancient continental ‘shields’ may inhibit our volcanism, takes ‘something special’ to ‘blow-torch’ a way through…

        • Yes Kirishima is an underrated volcano, it is a volcano cluster inside an old caldera and surrounded by massive calderas. It is though at a way more advanced stage of filling. Its magma is still not rhyolite just andesite, so it might not yet be fit to blow up. Its been pretty active in the last 10 years though so might do something bigger.

  28. Imagine If Earth spinned the reverse way
    That woud mean a very diffrent climate wind patterns and perhaps seacurrents.

    If that was the chase.. Europe woud get the full force of the Siberian Winter High every winter.. bringing temperatures down to – 30 C in the Mediterranean every winter! As it does in similar latitudes in Asia and Russia in winter. Much of Europe woud be extreme continetal with supercold winters and very hot summers.
    Getting eastflow continetality air from the east instead the normal Atlantic air.

    America woud get the Gulf Stream blowed in from New east..winds turning much of western Canada Subtropical like western Atlantic Europe is today. The Canadian winter woud not be as severe with reverse spinn of the Earth.

    How Africa, South America and Asia woud do with reverse airflow.. I dont know

    Only Antarticas climate thats a cold closed isolated closed current system woud be unaffected with reverse Earth spinn

    • You may be optimistic about America here. The Gulf stream runs from the Gulf of Mexico. Reverse rotation, and this water may remain locked up in the Gulf. At the current time, the west coast of America (equivalent of Europe) has a cold current. Reverse, and this might happen on the east coast, fed from the Labrador Sea

  29. Low ground temperature anomaly (LGTA)

    Not an anti-volcano, maybe not an anti-blacksmoker but somehow interessting and I would like to know more about the ‘cold earth’ spots in figure 1 (L-1 to L-16). Do you know any links to this spots?!?

    wikihttps://www.nature.com/articles/srep34184

        • But at Kilauea the eruption just sort of moved some of its mass to the side at a lower elevation, actually the volume of the eruption is bigger than the caldera so there was extra magma, which is basically the opposite of an anti volcano.

          I also dont think it is really possible for a caldera to be created entirely passively, even if the intrusion never surfaces the collapse is an inherently violent process. Technically this process also still involves upward magma movement too.
          For me an ‘anti volcano’ would be something where the entire magma system under a volcano gets sucked back down into the mantle with the force of an eruption, and there is no way I can think of to cause that, the closest thing which is still very far off is an impact crater on a volcano.

          I guess it could also be a volcano on a planet made of antimatter 🙂

          • First I would ask you a question:

            Is it possible or already common accepted that we cloud have vacuum bubbles inside earth mantle and/or inside the earth’s crust?

          • with some fantasy you should be able to see Torricelli’s mercury barometer in the last three answers:

            http?s://?en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum#/media/File:Baro_0.png

          • No voids in the mantle or lower crust, caves are a surface feature within the top few km.

          • I dont know what that has to do with the original question. Magma is buoyant and there is a lot of pressure inside the earth, you cant get magma sinking back down into the mantle.

            Theres often an ambiguous description that calderas can form from magma withdrawl without eruption. It is in pretty much every bit of information I have ever read on calderas. What that means is a dike and a rifting event takes magma away from the volcano laterally, it will erupt there but it doesnt erupt at the summit of the central volcano. This is Holuhraun and fissure 8, Holuhraun is a particularly good example because Bardarbunga itself didnt erupt at all, its magma drained away and some (maybe most) of it erupted 50 km away. But this all still counts as magma moving upwards, it doesnt go back down to the mantle at all.

          • Inside of paraffin tanks and/or pipies is also a lot of pressure and still are there vacuum bubbles…

            If not inside different viscous magma (why not?) than for sure in the border area crust/magma chamber/earth mantel…

            Do you really think the physic explains 1500 m deep Permafrost soil with “moving cold”…no way!

            Only if you would have a wind from the cold atmosphere down into the underground you would be able to reach such deep layers to remove the heat in such short time frames…

            Did that video happen or not?

            https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/largest-gravity-changes-ever-recorded-2018-k-lauea-eruption

          • Love the thought of an anti-volcano, with Hawaii being the perfect example!

            Bardarbunga could be mentioned too – but here an intrusion from below triggered the eruption instead of the weight of the magma. Hawaii was simple drainage, so pretty neat thought of a volcano “erupting downwards”.

            If you spin the thought a bit further even Taal could be seen as anti-volcano – with the drainage event it had. Or “universal” volcano since it went both ways

        • Looks somehow that there is more money for oil or gas chamber drilling than for magma chambers, for sure not because of the energy content inside such chambers…

          https://www.icdp-online.org

          Where there ever any projects for a magma submarine? It would not have to go down to the middle of earth like Jules Verne’s but maybe a bit deeper than the lava lake surface?!? With engines or just to go down with gravity…communicating back do the surface with some Morse code…10001110001111…at least some geophones should already be in place to listen…

          • I would prefer a cover of some cm Tungsten, which survives the heat and is pretty heavy, so it would dive down. Between the heart and the cover a vacuum chamber like the one’s in a NMR (4 Kelvin liquid Helium / room temperature in a few cm for over 100 days).

            As mentioned the communication is an issue (vacuum isn’t a good medium for seismic waves) and the question which instruments should be on board…very basic or more like the Parker Solar space probe?

            We are able to dive into a few km ice crust on the Saturn moon Europe but not 1000 meters into a lava lake on earth? Impossible!

          • For technology issues, perhaps look at the history of Venus landers.

            But, unlike those ‘thermo-bottled’ electronics, go with solid-state thermionic valves to shrug off such temperatures. What sort of battery tech would be appropriate ??

          • I would try not to use any batteries, I would prefer to build a powerplant inside the sub, (very) high temperature thermovoltaic compunds…but even without, there are NMR’s which are stable up to 1500 °C, it’s technical possible to have a stable “room temperature” with a delta 1700 Kelvin for an unknow long period inside the magma submarine…because of the need of high vacuum isolation I guess the pressure could be a problem but Tungsten and/or Tungstenoxids are some of the hardest known materials, don’t know about the brittleness…

            https://www.designworldonline.com/harnessing-waste-heat-for-electrical-power/

  30. Somewhat strangely overwhelmed

    Were there really no earthquakes over sea level in earth’s past? Not in the Anden and not in the Himalaya? And not on any fire mountain?

    I had a look into the IRIS Earthquake Browser, into the animated view and the 3D view, with a lot of earthquaks since about 1970 (worldwide):

    http://ds.iris.edu/ieb/index.html

    Is it physically not possible to have the energy for a crack on for example 5000 m over sea level in a mountain with >M3? Other explanations?

    • The depth is calculated from arrival times. But without extra data and calculations it does not distinguish between above and below sea level (really, the altitude of the receiving station). It is only since very recent that USGS has been reporting quakes above sea leve, adn as far as I know only in area with a lot of seismographs.

      • THX – Albert, but we would recognize the p and/or s waves even there is only an orthogonal crust connection to the rest of the world on the almost top of the world (sorry), on the almost top of the mountain?

        • It is not trivial. You can get it out of time delays at distant stations, but that gives the vertical distance from plane of the receiver (normally close to sea level). It does not tell you whether that distance is up or down. Or you get it from the time delay of waves that are reflected off the earth’s surface, but that does not work for earthquakes above the surrounding crust. And as most earthquakes are kilometers to tens of kilometers below the surface, it was not often a problem. Even in Hawai’i it has only been measured in the past few years. Before that time a lot earthquakes bunched around ‘0’.

          • Remember that all those stations are in the same 2d plane, at sea level (more or less). You get a very good location in that plane. Less so in the vertical direction.

    • Just someone would like to use calculated data form earthquakes above sea level smaller than M2:

      http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/de/earthquakes/switzerland/explosions-last-90-days/

      There should be more data from seismic stations up to 2500 m above sea level from all the huge 24 hours 365.25 days monitored arch dams hidden in the Swiss alps.

      Also not a bad source for earthquakes back to 1291 in the area around and inside Confoederatio Helvetica (CH):

      http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/en/earthquakes/switzerland/all-earthquakes/

      @Albert some have a negative depth, maybe that stands for above sea level.

      • Some have a ‘depth’ of ‘-5’. I am not sure how to interpret that, unless as an airburst! The vertical location will have a larger uncertainty, especially for small and noisy events. ‘0’ may refer to sea level or to the altitude of the seismographs.

      • Worries are the one thing that’ll never leave me just like the and unquenchable thirst for blood, and the unending hatred for men, jinn, and roaches. Thank you for putting 1 more worry to rest


        GL Edit: I’m not even gonna try. Please clarify this “unquenchable thirst for blood?” Should the lead-in be ‘just like my’? Also be aware that I have encountered “vampires” in the training pipeline (when I was a Naval Instructor) and promptly processed him out of the course. {under direction of base legal}.
        For All: It’s a long and very stupid story not conducive to our discussion of volcanoes. I’ve only gone this far since we are in the VC Bar.

        Additionally, I am reticent about going into detail in a public forum. I do not wish to potentially malign someone who was just having a difficult time in their life. And No… he wasn’t an actual vampire, but good luck convincing him of that. I’m fairly confident No, I am certain that he was eventually processed out of active duty.* Once he was out of my course it was no longer any of my business. But Lordy was he “entertaining” while he was around.

        *→ In all likelihood he is still incarcerated in Illinois. IF that happened, I know he’s out because I had to go retrieve a completely different ex-service member’s Military ID card once he was transferred to the State prison system for murder. Another very stupid story. (I was “Navy Police” at the time)

        • Addendum to my inline comments above. Both those individuals are outliers. The other students I encountered were pretty normal. We do our best to “weed out” the irreparably weird. “Weird” is not generally a problem unless it affects their ability to accomplish a job or task. [in this case, learn]

          Mentally, I have assigned names to each of my more memorable problem children. The Vampire, Psycho-Kitty, and Electro-Girl are just a few of my more interesting incidents. (Electro Girl scared the crap out of me, I sent her to the hospital for an electric shock incident. Upon investigation, she got “zapped” by a multimeter that was not plugged into anything, and had dead batteries. In the chilly dry winter you can nail the crap out of yourself just from ambient static that you pick up while moving around. But since she was near electronic equipment and was a student, my responsibility is to treat it as a safety issue.)

          (I’ve worked in and with electronics for 40+ years. One little thing that you (eventually) learn about is “delayed death.” A very real hazard to anyone who gets zorched. The victim may have no outward evidence of getting hit, but could have sustained internal cauterization. If a clot breaks loose later, it could adversely affect a vital organ.)

          Side note. The human body can have a resistance as low as 300Ω under extremely hot and sweaty conditions. Using Ohms law, E=I*R. 0.1 amps of current can cause cardiac arrest. 0.1 * 300 = 30 Volts. That is why anything over 30 volts is dangerous voltage.
          Side-side note. One of my previous CDP managers used to love to play with students heads and use their freshly learned knowledge of ohms law to mathematically “prove” that a 9 volt battery could destroy a town by having them calculate the current draw on the battery under lower and lower resistances. Run that data through the power laws and you will see the energy output approach that of a nuclear warhead. The trick? He was using an “ideal” 9 Volt battery for the sake of argument. There is no such thing. In fact, when a battery encounters a short (the zero ohm worst case maximum current draw condition) it undergoes rapid heating internally and the components of the battery start to break down. As that happens, the voltage output drops precipitously fast and that “Ideal” battery is never realized. I DO NOT recommend ANYONE try this. You may not get enough power to explode a town but the battery could easily start a fire. (Not to mention release potentially toxic or explosive gases.)
          Lord help you if you do it to a Lithium Ion battery. Those could explode. And please, do not bend or stab a cell phone battery. Those are Lithium Ion and they will not respond well to such abuse. Not only will it void your warranty but it might burst into flame in your pocket.

          First Responders please refer to guide 138 of the 2020 edition of the Emergency Response Guide for further instructions if you encounter these things…like in a Tesla automobile. They apparently will fight you harder than a magnesium engine block on a VW Microbus if they are on fire. (The Magnesium block will spit fire right at you if you hit it with a strait stream. Been there done that, got the scorch marks on my helmet to prove it.)

          • I can relate somewhat to that soldier, I don’t believe I am vampire or a cannibal, so I am not delusional . I know how strong those feelings can be and hopefully he will find some help.

  31. Are there any other factors to dry the earth atmosphere (lower H2O concentration) then the SO2 input from all the possible sources and/or globalcooling?

    • Are there any sulfur isotope analytics studies or already publications which gypsum and/or sulfide minerals deposits had source of which volcano?

      I guess there are differents between Icelandic, Hawaiianic or Antarctic SO2 isotopic fingerprints?

  32. 1:10 = https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1DHz308DSo

    Two green eyes glow in the night.
    slowly a misrable pale hairless monkey like creature creep down to vertical rock wall under the seemingly peaceful the Moon light. His long icey cold wet fingers grasp the wet dark rocks.. slowly creeping down to the sleeping frodo and sam..

    And from the miserable starving looking creature a hissing…

    ”The..thieves! … the thieves…
    The filthy little thieves!!!!!
    Where is it?…Wheeeeeeere ..is it???!!
    They stole it from usssss..
    My Preeeciousss..Curse them! We haaaates them! It’s ours it is!.. AND WE WANTS IT!!!!!!

    Peter Jacksons three films are amazing How They bringed life to Tolkiens wast Legendarium. Gollums potrayal in the films is amazing, Andy Serkis motion capture performance of gollum, its incredibe. Gollum is for me one of the most impressive CGI creatures ever made in films.

  33. Shinchi library, Fukujima area after the M 7.2 past saturday.

    Well, the stool is still in place…

  34. Cooking time inside Taal:

    I guess in inner lake we reach 77 °C and a pH of 1.6, saddly no earlier lake data…so the change happened in the last 24 hours?

    Better not for hard eggs 😉

    Push up news form the app:
    https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/taal/news/121994/Taal-volcano-Luzon-Philippines-elevated-tremor-increased-hydrothermal-activity.html

    Offical:
    https://www.phivolcs.dost.gov.ph/index.php/taal-volcano-bulletin-menu/11294-taal-volcano-bulletin-16-february-2021-08-00-a-m

    Mainstream state media to the inner lake:
    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44661949

    After the lunch some coffee?
    https://www.volcanocafe.org/taal-eruption/

  35. Once again I call upon your aid! For some reason the IGEPN has not released it’s monthly reports for Chiles-cerro negro in since October, concluding with the August report. I have inquired on the cause for this and they said they had an issue updating their reports and it would be fixed in a few days. That was a month ago and nothing has changed. I will once again ask (nicely) on what in the hell is going on but I would like some advice on my approach.
    I think the unrest could actually trigger a large earthquake in the future, The Inclinometers for chiles and cerro negro have both registered significant changes and this is likely due to the movements of faults in between the volcanoes.
    https://www2.sgc.gov.co/Publicaciones/Informes%20tcnicos/Informe_tecnico_volcanes_del_sur_sep_2020.pdf
    https://www2.sgc.gov.co/Publicaciones/Informes%20tcnicos/Informe_tecnico_volcanes_del_sur_ene_2021.pdf

    • Most alkali basalt volcanoes look like this though, strombolian cones. All of the vents in the Katla-Hekla area are like this too, the basalts around Hekla are all massive a’a flows and there are strombolian cones but not a lot of pahoehoe flows. Very similar to the eruption in 2010 before Eyjafjallajokull. Eldgja is also like this if you look closely, it was not actually very similar to rifys from Vatnajokull except in size, it would have been much more like an Etna eruption, very fast a’a flows and violent fountains. It was much more violent than Laki, which saw high fountains only at the first vent and that might be phreatomagmatic.

      Hualalai and Nyamuragira are actually outliers in erupting very liquid lava, but theres many reports on GVP of Nyamuragira eruptions turning strombolian, and Hualalai has had subplinian eruptions about 1000 years ago. It might fall under the oversimplified idea of less SiO2 = lower viscosity, temperature is more important and also Na and K ions are larger than Fe or Mg ions, might have something to do with it.

    • Nyiragongo haves very low viscosity.. probaly because of quite high temperature as well as its crazy low sillicate content

      But its true that most Nephelinites are Aa viscosity and strombolian as they tend to emerge at lower temperatures than subalkaline basaltic melts

      Most Basanites emerge too as viscous and cold .. strombolian

    • A merry eruption is okay. Provided there’s no rifting etc that would destabilise the seaward flank. IIRC, that’s not failed for at least 8 thousand years, but made a helluva mess of facing coasts when it did. I can’t find if it also released a ‘Mt St Helens’ lateral blast, or just mega-slumped…

      Um, flank currently moving ~14 mm/yr ?? Up from ‘historical’ ~5 mm/yr, but may partly be due to inflation associated with latest activity.

      Hopefully elevated water-table due recent rain won’t cause maar-type activity on weak flank…

      • Probably didnt do a lateral blast, you need pretty viscous dome forming magma for that otherwise it leaks out of cracks before a cryptodome can form and you get no pressure. Etna is too fluid to do that but I would expect it had a major effusive eruption afterwards, the entire contents of its upper magma system erupting and fountaining out maybe even big enough for the fountains to become plinian like Tarawera. I dont know if the Valle del Bove actually ever took out the summit, it looks like it stopped short, which would favor more effusive decompression eruptions rather than a sudden blast.

        That being said Fuego and Pacaya are basaltic mostly effusive volcanoes that did lateral blasts when they collapsed, might have something to do with how steep they are more than anything else but who knows.

  36. Etna is starting up again a bit late but maybe that should be expected after the last eruption. This one will now go to 1500 m 🙂

    • Well, that would be impressive, there’s got to be a limit though, or maybe not. How is the NSEC crater recharging magma so fast? Each paroxysm must leave the conduit depressurized, nonetheless it is up again in no time, ready to erupt again, and even bigger.

      The magma should be more gas rich with each paroxysm drawing magma from deeper within the volcano (because Etna doesn’t have any large shallow magma chamber to stop its rise).

      • September 1999 paroxysm was apparently 2 km, and an eruption in the 1720s was 3 km tall. I guess the limit is where a fountain just becomes a plinian eruption column, that limit might be when lava flows dont form.

    • SEC cone complex will be the tallest on Etna and only appeared 30 years ago
      With NEWSEC appearing in 2011

      INGV says that hot and gas rich magma is rising through the system.. now

      • Technically SEC is closer to 50 years old, 1971 crater which began fountaining a few years later. NSEC began as a pit crater in 2007, and began erupting in 2008. So a bit older than your numbers but definitely still very rapid growth. SEC complex will probably keep growing until there is another large flank eruption that leads to pit craters forming at the summit somewhere, which will probably grow into a successor.
        That might be a while off though, the NEC began erupting in the 1920s and was still doing paroxysms in the 1980s. It had paroxysms in 1995 and 1996, and a small flow in 1998 too, as well as the northern fissure in 2002 starting there. And of course it is still active today just not fountaining.

        • The NEC did not do much fountaining when it started, unlike the SEC, which has done more paroxysms than all the other craters combined.

          I’m amazed at how little repose there has been in between these last paroxysms, the supply must be extremely high right now.

          • Not sure if any official number exists for the recent eruptions, but the last eruption from the SEC to reach 1 km high fountains was 2013 and that eruption was 1.5 million m3 of lava in 45 minutes. The last two eruptions were much larger than even this, 1 km fountain sustained for 3 hours the other day, and about 1.5 hours just recently. My guess is that the eruptions just now are in the range if 1-4 million m3, maybe 5 million. The lava flows all reached Monti Centenari (or what is left of it) which is further away than most summit flows reach.

            Todays fountain looked to be a record breaker too.

        • If we are really lucky ( with this extremely high supply 0,08 km3 every year according to INGV )

          Etna may drege up hot and really fluid stuff from the depths.. perhaps we will get Galapagos looking rivers from the summit.. If hot fresher stuff arrives. Its already most primitive ever seen from the summit according to INGV

          • That could happen but I think the volcano will fail before that. Theres not a lot of instances where fountains this big recur at the same place for a long time. The other problem is that the flows are fed by spatter fallout, at Pu’u O’o the tallest fountains made thick viscous a’a flows that rarely made it more than a few km from the cone. This might well be exactly the situation we see at Etna now except the fountains are twice as tall if not more, we will have to see what this effusive vent does now.

            A flank eruption is imminent, and if theres a very high supply and influx of deep magma its really not unlikely for it to be an eccentric eruption. Those are basically summit eruptions on the flank, they create cinder cones, if it happens I will call it Monti Chad 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *