Here we are at the knockout stage and where the competition starts to hot up. Vote for whichever country in each game you want to see progress to the quarter finals.
Russia vs Portugal
RUSSIA
Gorely Volcano. SOURCE: www.into-russia.co.uk
For this match up I pick the Kamchatka volcano Gorely to represent Russia to go up against a Portuguese volcano. This caldera contains some overlapping small stratovolcanoes and numerous craters at the summit or flanks, some containing a crater lake whether it’s freshwater or acidic. Eruptions are usually of vulcanian or phreatic style. Last eruption came in 2010.
PORTUGAL
Agua de Pau caldera. SOURCE: www.cruisebe.com
For Portugal I choose Agua de Pau on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores to go up against Gorely. This stratovolcano contains an outer caldera and an inner caldera, the latter which contains a lake called Lagoa do Fogo. A VEI 5 eruption from the caldera occurred in 1563 which was followed by a lava flow originating from the northwest flank. Numerous cinder cones are present on the flanks plus some hot springs on the northwest flank.
Peru vs Argentina
PERU
El Misti Volcano. SOURCE: www.andeantravelweb.com
I choose El Misti to represent Peru for this match up. This majestic symmetrical stratovolcano rises above the city of Arequipa at the altitude of 5822m asl, and the summit crater displays fumarolic activity. Pyroclastic eruptions have occurred in the past especially at around 2000 years ago when a pyroclastic flow travelled 12km to the south. Some reports of historical eruptions may have been mistaken for increased fumarolic activty.
ARGENTINA
Peinado Volcano. SOURCE: www.viajeros4x4.com
Representing Argentina will be the Peinado Volcano, a symmetrical stratovolcano in northwest Argentina. No historical eruptions have been known but well preserved lava flows which appeared to have originated from the summit and flank vents are well preserved.
Costa Rica vs Germany
COSTA RICA
The summit craters of Poas Volcano. SOURCE: www.vantourscostarica.com
For this match up I choose Poas to represent Costa Rica against Germany. Poas is the most visited active volcano in Costa Rica and has for long contained an acidic crater lake in the active crater until the last major eruption in 2017. Eruptions on Poas are predominately of phreatic style especially as they break through the surface of the lake and many historical eruptions have occurred since 1747. The extinct Botos crater contains a freshwater lake. In 2017, strong phreatic explosions blew apart the small lava dome at the south end of the crater lake, eventually leading to the lake to dry up.
GERMANY
Laacher See volcanic caldera lake. SOURCE: www.vulkanregion-laacher-see.de
Laacher See will go up against Poas of Costa Rica for this one. This volcanic caldera lake is part of the East Eifel Volcanic Field but is no longer active and was formed about 12,900 years ago as a result of a VEI 6 plinian eruption.
England vs Colombia
ENGLAND
Tristan Da Cunha in the Atlanic Ocean. SOURCE: ww2.rspb.org.uk
I choose Tristan Da Cunha to go up against a Colombian volcano. This South Atlantic island consists of a central shield volcano (Queen Mary’s Peak) with numerous parasitic cones and vents dotted around the flanks. During the only historical eruption of 1961-62 a vent opened up near the north shore of the island causing the evacuation of the island’s only settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas.
COLOMBIA
Cumbal Volcano. SOURCE: elturismoencolombia.com
Cumbal Volcano near the border with Ecuador will go up against England’s volcano representative. This glacier capped volcano contains two summit craters both of which have active fumaroles. Two historical eruptions occurred in 1877 and 1926.
Spain vs Saudi Arabia
SPAIN
Montañas del Fuego, Lanzarote. SOURCE: www.lanzaroteguide.com
I thought I’d be fair on Saudi Arabia and give them an equal opponent and choose Montañas del Fuego on the island of Lanzarote to represent Spain, a cinder cone field which saw historical activity in 1730-36 and 1824. The eruptions of 1730-36 originated from fissures and produced voluminous lava flows covering 200 square km and also reached the western coast of the island.
SAUDI ARABIA
A cone in the Harrat Rahat volcanic region. SOURCE: mshafei.kau.edu.sa
The Harrat Rahat volcanic field will represent Saudi Arabia. This is the site of Saudi Arabia’s largest lava field which covers 20,000 square km and extends 300 km south of the Islamic holy city of Madinah. Evidence for volcanic activity can be seen for miles around in the form of basaltic lava flows, scoria cones, cinder cones, and even Pelean-type lava domes. The most recent eruption occurred in the year 1256 when a lava flow threatened the city of Madinah.
Iceland vs France
ICELAND
A flank of Hengill. SOURCE: iceland.for91days.com
Iceland has no shortage of volcanoes to choose from but just to be fair on France I’ll choose Hengill. A volcanic system which contains fissure vents, crater rows, and small shield volcanoes, as well as the Hengill central volcano itself. No historical eruptions have occurred but hot springs occupy the flanks of Hengill as well as the Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant located down valley between the central volcano and the Thingvallavatn lake.
FRANCE
Flooded caldera of St. Paul Island. SOURCE: www.britlink.org
For France I’ll choose the island of St. Paul in the Indian Ocean to go up against Hengill of Iceland. The caldera of St. Paul is breached to the northeast and is filled in by the sea as a result of the collapse of the northeastern half of the island. The only historical eruption of St. Paul took place in 1793 from the lower southwest flank. Geothermal areas are present near the caldera rim.
Mexico vs Brazil
MEXICO
Barcena Volcano of San Benedicto Island. SOURCE: mission-blue.org
For Mexico I choose Barcena which is located on San Benedicto Island off coast of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean. Barcena was formed during the only historical eruption in 1952-53 when a tuff cone formed at the southern end of San Benedicto Island. Two small lava domes then formed in the crater and a lava flow occurred from a fissure at the southeast base of the cone.
BRAZIL
Trindade Island in the Atlantic Ocean. SOURCE: es.hdhod.com
The island of Trindade in the Atlantic Ocean will represent Brazil. Very much dissected, phonolitic lava domes and volcanic plugs are present on the island along with remnants of a cinder cone. No historical eruptions are known on this island.
Japan vs Panama
JAPAN
The majestic Fuji of Japan. SOURCE: www.nationalgeographic.org
For Japan, I’ll choose their famous volcano to be their representative in the match up against Panama, Mount Fuji. This stratovolcano is the most well known in Japan and is very picturesque within the surrounding landscapes especially when there’s snow. The last historically known eruption of Fuji came in 1707-08 but was quite strong. Explosive eruptions along with small pyroclastic flows have occurred in the past as well as some basaltic lava flows. Flank vents are also present especially the Hoei Crater, site of the 1707-08 eruption.
PANAMA
Baru Volcano. SOURCE: www.panamericanworld.com
Up for representing Panama is the Baru Volcano located in the west of the country. Lava domes occupy the summit caldera which is breached to the west, and a possible strong eruption may have been observed in the mid 16th century.
Polls will close on the 2nd July.
RENÉ GOAD
OK so I had a ridiculous stupid idea – that might make it in some future disaster movie, you’re on a building site (still early stages of construction so nothing on site to build a bridge easily) and get trapped by kilauea’s lava flows, no room for a helicopter to land, and too risky for winching, so (assuming you are very good in the heat/toxic gas and don’t dehydrate as this is a movie after all) how do you get out?
question 1) can a bulldozer throw enough earth to divert and cover (for long enough to insulate a path) some section to let you out? I think the current flows are too fast – but I wondered if bending them slows them live rivers enough that they cool – and can that be done.
question 2) the moving lava rivers are made of dense material (rock) – so if your vehicle didn’t burn up in the time it took to drive across would the motorbike+rider (or jeep) sink – I think that basically boils down to a question of how fat would your tyres have to be to get across, would bulldozer tank tracks do better ? Anyone good enough at the physics (surface area vs weight vs density) ?
question3) Could you build (pour) a concrete boat – and pole across ? concrete is not a good insulator but would it last long enough to protect some insulating foam?
ok I think that’s emptied out the silly questions from my head.
slows them live rivers – that’s two sentences merged in my head typed too fast and I didn’t notice before hitting post.
in the manner that normal rivers slow at bends – will a bend slow the lava rivers enough to cool to have a hard enough surface to cross
I just saw a video of a Lava boat – and I wondered about riding one across in the scenario above – and how hot/solid the top would be – and then I saw the lavaboat fragment – I’m not seeing that as plausible even in the movies – in a computer game I can see players hopscotching their way across lava using moving lava boats but if they had real world physics engines I think they would deform/capsize/fragment – sending you back tot he last save point.
Germany were knocked out in the Group Stages !
Loving these posts, long time lurker seldom poster.
Any chance of an article about volcanism in Ireland or the lack there off? A Mag 2.0 quake is news here.
Perhaps an article about the French Massif Central or the NZ Volcanoes.
Many thanks for the the factual discussion and science. Refreshing in a world of fake news.
Currently enjoying an Irish heatwave, 5 days over 25c. There is a chance that the nations highest temp record could be broken today.
Its been a crazy year, Hurricane Ophelia in October, 4 days blizzard in march and now a heatwave!
Regards to all
Richie
You are welcome! First-time comments (since your most recent registration) always require approval, which gives some delay (quite a lot of delay if the admins are asleep). Future comments should appear instantly on submission – admin
germany were knocked out in the group stages of the football, but not out in the volcano world cup – looks like they are going in the first round of knockouts in the volcano world cup though
real surprises if iceland doesn’t win
video of (part of) yesterday’s Agung eruption. (Do turn your sound off, for the sake of your sanity.) Bali airport seems to have closed because of the ash.
https://youtu.be/psFIfxMY4Rs
Continuous tremor went on for quite some time but the drumplot seems to be back to normal now since early morning. There are plenty of beautiful pics from this eruption. Here’s one:
https://twitter.com/SherineFrance/status/1012310722703962112
Somebody went up to the top and took a video:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkmab2YnQjU/?hl=en&taken-by=beritabalicom
(hope this link works!)
Looks like there will be more to come?
One of those people are gonna pull that stunt at the wrong time and not live to tell about it.
In a Bernoulli trial you are looking for the presence or the absence of a test condition. In this case, death by volcanic explosion → [yes/no]. Under the Law of Large numbers, the more times you test for a condition, the closer you will come to actually finding it.
(This is related to that infinite probability thing that Carl claimed he was going to revisit in more detail in a later article. The negative probability article was close, but not quite what I was looking for.)
Side note… now I think I know why Gosset picked the pseudonym “Student” for his paper. He considered himself as studying the topic.
{snicker} “However, after pleading with the brewery and explaining that his mathematical and philosophical conclusions were of no possible practical use to competing brewers” Yeah, empirical methods to increase quality control is of no use to competitors… Dr. Demming proved that wrong.
For sure! Certainly as an outside observer the likelyhood of any deaths occuring becomes greater with each ‘test’. For the individual who actually climbs up there it becomes more likely the more times they do the climb. If its your first time? I guess you do your personal risk assessment and take your chances. Statistics is a strange beast.
although if the climb is normally difficult then familiarity might speed up the ascent/descent and thus reduce therisk per test (just not the cumulative probability).
If I remember correctly, one of our readers/commentors did a. Ad-hoc test of decending Hekla since it is quite capable of going “full-on” in less than 15 minutes of seismic activity being felt by unaided human senses. His results? Not very likely of getting clear. Now someone peering down the barrel of a high powered volcano? Not the brightest thing to do.
CRIM is collapsing. Somewhere between June 23 and 26 the part of the caldera near keanakao’i crater subsided and this isn’t connected to the shallow system that was beneath halemaumau so something is happening there. If this magma body collapses then that could be the major point where the east rift gets cut off from the magma chamber and goes dormant.
Something I did notice looking at the placement of historical vents at kilaueas summit is that this area seems to be connected to the seismic southwest rift, and said rift might actually also connect to the aila’au eruption site and kilauea iki. There hasn’t been a lot of eruptive activity in most of this area in historical time but this probably because it is believed to be a recent feature (probably less than 1000 years old) and this section of rift could be capable of some really big eruptions in the future, possibly even much bigger than eruptions on the east rift are.
As an example, I did some research and the December 1974 eruption volume was 15 million m3. That is equivalent to about 2 days of the current output of fissure 8, but the catch is that it erupted all of that in only 6 hours… The eruption rate would have been about 800 m3/s assuming it was constant over that 6 hours, but it was actually higher than that at its peak as the eruption rate was on a sort of asymmetrical bell curve shape.
That fissure also lines up pretty well with the caldera vents from a few months earlier, and those vents were also very voluminous despite being only slightly longer lived, so there could be more than a superficial connection there.
Edit Add: From;
Approved for online publication 31 Oct 2005
Notice the orientation of the 1971 (green), 1974 (blue) and 1982 (light blue) vents are all on the same line. This is somewhere that should be watched in the future too, the southwest rift-halemaumau-kilauea iki line might be more active but this other stretch seems to be capable of significantly higher eruption rates with short warning times.
What paper is that graphic from?
https://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/2005/144/images_plots/bimp.pdf
I dont know if there is a paper that this picture belongs to specifically, I just found it here.
Yeah thanks for adding the reference.
Edit Add: No Prob. It’s important for us to at least acknowledge our sources. Should some enterprising geosciences student stumble through here, it allows them to track down the original data that we are yammering about. If they write a paper exploring some of our comments in detail, this will at least help them find and cite the source material and make their job easier.
https://www.facebook.com/USGSVolcanoes/photos/p.2087347591293791/2087347591293791/?type=3&theater
This shows a more simplified look at what I am talking about for anyone who isn’t as familiar as I am 😉
I would say that the Seismic SWRZ and the ERZ are connected to the south caldera source 3 km deep while the Volcanic SWRZ and Kilauea Iki would have a shallow connection through Halema’ uma’u, in 1868 the Kilauea simultaneously erupted at Kilauea Iki and far down the Volcanic SWRZ, I think there was also a report of an eruption at the ERZ then, but as far as I know there is not much evidence nor located vent for that event. If both the Halema uma u shallow system and the south caldera reservoir collapse or partly collapse that would be a major change and similar to what happened in 1790.
That is what I think too, the seismic southwest rift is definitely a more substantial structure compared to the rest of the rift next to it. I think it has yet to show its full potential as the only vents along it seem to be less than 600 years old. I think this area will start to show itself more in the near future, particularly as there have been quite a lot of intrusions in that area but only one eruption in recorded history, meaning there is a lot of potential magma there (leading to a scenario quite similar to the one that caused pu’u o’o and the leilani eruption…)
It is probably worth noting that there is a visible subsidence scarp that extends most of the way towards kilauea iki in one of the most recent full caldera surveys… Its not exactly an entire new crater as the fault is only a few meters high and probably isn’t going to get a lot bigger but it does show that I was correct in predicting the collapse going mostly on that line.
Caldera overflight:
https://www.facebook.com/USGSVolcanoes/videos/2083897078305509/
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/multimedia_uploads/multimediaFile-2318.mp4
That image of Baru! Wow
@turtlebirdman and Albert further to a conversation on a previous article i have just seen a presentation from yesterday by the USGS where Kyle Anderson has said they believe that the 6.9 earthquake may have created new magma storage areas.
Actually one of the best reports about the summit so far to date –> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBUDBRfRkH8
That is actually a very good video, shows exactly what it looks like now.
I do want to point out that on the last article when you said there was wider deflation, what was meant by that is some of the caldera further out than halemaumau is responding to this event, not that the deeper feeding system is being affected in any way. As I said in a reply to that comment, in 1924 there was a very large and deep set deflation that lasted for a long time and was detectable at stations as far away as north puna. What they meant for this current activity is more that some of the outer caldera faults near and sometimes inside residential areas north of kilauea are moving a bit due to there being less pressure, but they are not going to fall into the caldera or become part of the current collapse apart from moving a few cm.
As for the quake creating storage in the rift zone, that will have created some space, but not very much compared to 1975, and all of that potential storage space is only going to be relevant if the magma can actually get into the rift zone at all after this event finishes and that is far from guaranteed. If the main chamber starts collapsing then it is going to cut off the feeder into the rift zone and the eruption will either die rapidly or it will drain out the feeder and cause collapses and new pit craters to form, but either way the magma chamber is not actually feeding into the east rift afterwards.
The sheer size of the current east rift eruption compared to previous events is a pretty good indication that this isn’t just going to be a typical event with more to follow for a long time into the future. Take the previous period of east rift dominated activity for example. That was in the 18th century, and of particular interest to me is the striking parallels between that period and the current one now
From about 1750 up to as late as 1790 (hard to find exact dates for this though so I’m speculating here) there was the eruption of heiheiahulu, which was fed the same way as pu’u o’o was by a stable conduit in the rift zone and probably has a volume of about half that of pu’u o’o based on side by side comparison but it could be more. The next eruption we are aware of on the lower east rift was the 1790 fissure eruptions which happened in basically the same spot as the current one and this is where things get really interesting.
The 1790 eruption followed a long lived rift eruption, terminated a long series of east rift dominated activity, was of a large volume (probably over 200 milion m3 ) and lead to a significant collapse of the summit caldera. If you replace a few words you get an exact description of the current situation, and I find that really hard to be coincidental.
They reconfirmed the lower reservoir is starting to drain (although is the upper chamber draining that is driving the bus.) –> https://www.facebook.com/notes/usgs-volcanoes/frequently-asked-questions-about-k%C4%ABlauea-volcanos-summit-earthquakes/2086819798013237/?comment_id=2087210544640829&reply_comment_id=2087219551306595&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D
Apart of Heiheiahulu there was also Puu Huluhulu during that period or if not Puu Huluhulu then extensive flows that originated from vents around it, things get confusing there because it is not exactly known what is Aila’au and what is not but some large flows do appear to be more recent than Aila’au and should have happened close in time to Heiheiahulu, 1790 and maybe Kokoolau too.
In that case the pu’u huluhulu eruption would be sort of like that periods equivalent of mauna ulu, and the fact they both formed near the start of where the east rift has a surface expression is probably not accidental.
I don’t know what this supposed large eruption at kokoolau crater is. I found the location on google earth and on a geological map like the one I showed there is nothing less than 500 years old there. The only map I found that shows something there is a map from about 40 years ago that seems to leave out some other eruptions, like the northern flow from 1790 for example. Modern maps show no post-caldera eruptions between keanakako’i and hi’iaka craters.
Something I thought about after looking at my theory is that the seismic southwest rift seems to start at the same spot as the east rift, so maybe it would be possible for it to hijack an intrusion and act as a sort of barrier to anything going that way. There doesn’t seem to be any vents on it that are older than the caldera so this idea might be something new that has no actual precedent in the geological record but could be a major part of the near future. The fact the August 1971 and July and December 1974 vents were actually aligned with each other pretty well and both also erupted a high volume of lava in a very short time could suggest that the area usually considered to be the very upper east rift (where CRIM and keanakako’i are) could be a continuation of the seismic southwest rift instead, and the fact that both the volcanic and seismic sections of the southwest rift seem to orient towards the aila’au vent and kilauea iki is maybe a significant indication the current thinking is too simple or just wrong. Maybe kilauea iki actually formed in a southwest rift eruption rather than an east rift event, the main vents in the kamakaia hills were big eruptions and seem to loosely group around the same time kilauea iki should have formed, and there isn’t really any set reason why kilauea iki has to be as old as the main caldera and it could have formed later in an event a bit like the current situation.
Note that magma chambers can move over time. When Halemaumau formed, the steep sides suggest the magma was directly underneath that location, when it drained. But now it is further south, and perhaps a different size and depth.
I think in 1924 there was probably a more localized and spherical shallow system than there is now so the collapse was also a more localized. On the other hand there is probably a bigger main chamber than there was in 1924 as a lot more of the recent eruptions have been flank eruptions. The vent in 1924 had probably been there since the early 1800s to as early as just after 1790 making it at least 100 years old, the overlook crater was only just over 10 years old so the system was far from mature.
The main magma chamber is sort of only in the southern part of the caldera, basically under the 1982 vents.
A geologic map from 2003 was were I saw Kokoolau to be between 200 and 400 years old, there it isnt shown to much of a thing but I am assuming it started as a fissure vent and then centered at one point were it built a cone, so it was not a short eruption.
I think HVO also considers Kilauea Iki as part of the volcanic SWRZ.
This one?
This one: https://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i2759/i2759map.pdf
Im not sure whether I would call that a large eruption.
You might find this interesting –> “USGS Volcanoes The magma at the rift zones is “summit like” but is not 100% summit composition. The chemical signature and composition of crystals in the magma tell us that it originated from a primitive source and probably from within the rift zone. There is a lot of space for magma to be stored in the East Rift Zone – not to mention, the large space that was opened as a result of the 6.9 earthquake sequence. The pressure regime within the magma storage and transport regions has changed, and magma is probably filling in less pressurized void space. We do know that when Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō drained, the magma moved into the lower East Rift Zone – that would have been ahead of summit magma.”
The magma is primitive because it was in the mantle not that long ago. The reason for this is not because the eruption is being fed from a separate area or a deep intrusion, it is primitive because for the previous 30 years there was a continuous flow of magma to the rift to feed pu’u o’o. The volume of pu’u o’o is probably about the same as the amount of magma in the summit chamber so there shouldn’t be really any old magma there, it is all fresh new stuff. The former lava lake basically proves this as it differed only a bit in composition. If the magma at fissure 8 now was also slightly contaminated with stored magma from within the rift it would end up different but not significantly so to call it something else. As I said before too, the space created by the quake was not that large and I think lurking did a calculation on how big it could be. That also won’t matter at all if the subsides enough to close access to the east rift like it did in 1790.
Well, the 6.9 was oblique reverse faulting. The displacement should have been on the order of around 1.45 meters max, 0.65 meters average across the fault face. Though normal mode faulting is the two crust segments moving towards each other, I imagine that it could provide access to otherwise blocked paths for the subsequent dike. No mater what the actual geometry of the situation, it would have lessened any confining stresses that were in place and made it easier for the magma to push into the now weakened strata. Overburden pressure and prevailing stress act to reinforce the tensile strength of the rock. Lessen any of those and the dike has less opposition to propagation. Since the rift already contains previous magma emplacements and is still quite hot, the only seismic manifestation directly associated is the 6.9 located 2.62 km off shore and not in the actual rift itself. (*similar to the “Dead Zone” in Iceland being eerily quiet. The rift is too warm to have brittle failure.)
Does the Poas “acidic crater lake” mean that there can be one of those “wave of carbon dioxide kills everything” disasters, or am i thinking of something else?
CO2 laden acidic water that suddenly forms a lethal cloud is typically associated with stratified lakes where the CO2 dense layer has accumulated at the bottom of the lake, when something triggers the lake to overturn and bring the gas rich water to the surface, you get the lethal cloud. If “Laguna Caliente” is as it seems, then the water is kept well mixed due to thermal activity.
In my opinion, the threat from the lake is if the underlying volcano erupts and goes into a phreatic eruption mode. Water eruptions are always a bit more energetic just from the extra kick of the vaporizing water.
Well it is fair to say that one advantage of phreatic or phreatomagmatic eruptions in the internet age is that the can be live-steamed.
About as much fun as water on a grease fire…
Water on a grease fire is tame compared to pouring it into anhydrous sulfuric acid 🙂
In case that is still not fun enough you could always pour molten lithium into liquid fluorine…
Lithium is baby powder, and fluorine is way too gentle.
Pour something REALLY reactive like NaK or cesium, to a vat of liquid chlorine trifluoride (that stuff is a better oxidative fluorinator than fluorine itself). And run away. Fast.
That would be pretty bad, but in terms of total energy both ClF3 and NaK are both inferior to lithium and fluorine. They might be more reactive but they are not more energetic.
ClF3 is actually not the strongest oxidiser either and nowhere near as strong as F2. ClF5 also exists and so does ClF5O, ClO2F, ClO3F… There are also a number of other things, most of which are compounds of transition metals in high oxidation states bound to fluorine atoms (KAgF4, K2NiF6, BiF5, PtF6) or compounds of fluorine and nitrogen, oxygen or a noble gas (NF3, NF4+, OF2, O2F2, O3F2, KrF2, XeF6, XeF6O). Some oxygen compounds of xenon can also do it (XeO6 4- is actually thermodynamically capable of oxidising F- to elemental fluorine, no you didnt read that wrong).
Probably all of these will take an electron from ClF3, definitely at least OF2 and KrF2 will.
I am more than a volcano nerd… 😉
Not to mention that the surroundings will get a fine soaking in concentrated sulfuric acid
When I wrote that I intended to say boiling anhydrous sulfuric acid. Pure H2SO4 has a boiling point of 337 C, which is hot enough to cause a steam explosion on its own, in addition to the heat of the reaction. Lead melts at 324 C…
The lithium fluorine reaction would still be way worse though, it was tested as a rocket propellant along with using hydrogen as an additive to the lithium, the performance was something like 50% more powerful than liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen rockets and the most powerful chemical rocket ever tested. The catch is that it would have evaporated the engine…
Another reaction from hell that was considered as a rocket propellant is fluorine and diborane, and a mix of ozone and liquid fluorine with powdered beryllium and aluminium borohydride. Let’s also not forget oxygen difluoride and dimethylmercury or mercury fluoride and uranium metal powder…
Rocketry was a lot more ‘exiting’ 60 years ago…
I see your oxygen difluoride and raise you this awful stuff:
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_time
Oxygen difluoride is the fluorine analogue of water (H replaced by F). Dioxygen difluoride is the fluorine analogue of hydrogen peroxide…
Lets just say anything that is strong enough to set elemental chlorine on fire at – 200 C is a pretty scary chemical. You didnt read that wrong either, O2F2 was reacted with chlorine at -200 C and it started a hypergolic reaction…
Also look at the perxenate anion, it is way less immediately reactive but it is a noble gas in the +8 oxidation state that is (somehow) water stable… It reacts with silver to create the Ag 3+ ion, something even fluorine cant do.
To really emphasize this chemical, the reaction XeO6 4- + 4 H+ + 2F- = XeO3 + 2H2O + F2 is thermodynamically favorable. Something actually exists that can take an electron from a fluoride ion…
Ewww… Dimethylmercury… That’s nightmare stuff… That sh*t went straight through Mrs Wetterhahn’s latex gloves and gave her brain cancer…
*shudders retrospectively*
I love this kind of chemistry that goes wrong by design :p
I knew Xe could be oxidized, but not THAT fricking high. +VIII oxidization state is un-bleeping-believable for a noble gas compound. That’s yanking all its peripheral s and p electrons (d and f orbitals don’t count, they’re buried in pretty deep).
XeO6 4- should have a very symmetrical octahedric structure which may somewhat explain it’s relative stability (lots of resonance going on between doubly-bound oxygens and ionic ones), although cramming that much electronegative atoms around an inherently unstable noble gas derivative may be a bit detrimental to its shelf-life…
By the way, nice extreme chemistry.
It is stable in aqueous alkali but if you put it in acid it either oxidizes that acids anion or decomposes to XeO3 and oxygen.
I have seen something that says putting perxenate in anhydrous HF will liberate elemental fluorine…
I just realized I already said that last part…
The dawn spacecraft uses a xenon drive
“I love this kind of chemistry that goes wrong by design :p”
…only in theory, not in the lab.
IGITT! (engl.: Yuk!)
@Albert: Really?? ^^ Ceres is not far enough…at least it’s cold in space…
@turtlebirdman: there’s a reason most of this stuff isn’t used as propellants any longer…
For those who are not very familiarized with Kilauea volcano and because of the situation of major and fast changes taking place with the devastating and large eruption at Lower Puna and with the collapse at the summit already surpassing the size of any other collapse since 1790 I hope this map I have created can help to understand Kilauea.
Prehistoric and historic eruption vents known are in red, almost all of them are fissures. I wasnt able to locate a couple of vents in the Pu’u’o’o area so that is why there is an interrogation there. Major cracks and faults are dark gray. The outline of the pit craters of Kilauea Iki and the ERZ are in brown, they can be used to infer where magma reservoirs have existed in the past. The green circle is were the south caldera magma revervoir is thought to be located, it probably extends to the east from there to Keanakakoi (the closest pit crater). And in orange those are approximate paths for magma intrusions for the period 1960-1983 and with arrows that indicate how they propagated, this last information is from “The seismicity of Kilauea’s magma system, by Fred W Klein, Robert Y. Koyanagi, Jennifer S. Nakata, and Wilfred R. Tarugawa”:
https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1987/1350/pdf/chapters/pp1350_ch43.pdf.
Can an admin make the image to directly show up?
Done 🙂
Thanks!
Beginning of the end?
USGS said yesterday that outflow from fissure 8 was as high as it has ever been as of now based on gas emissions – Tina Neal. Don Swanson added “We have no idea whether we are at the beginning, middle or near the end but there is definitely some more to come”
Oh he also said 1924 events were probably not water table interaction eruptions and they are completely rewriting the books – “(May events) not by steam from ground water but instead from gas that was coming off the magma and we think that could be what happened in 1924 as well which if true would upset the apple cart because 1924 has been considered to be a classic example of a ground water driven explosion…Bottom line is this eruption has not proceeded the way we though it would.”
He didn’t rule out a large phreatic event in the future though.
https://www.facebook.com/hawaiivolcanoesnps/videos/2075516535809005/
Meant to add, if not logged in Facebook seems to want to keep the bottom create account bar on this post but full screen mode works for me at least. Also clicking the timestamp on the post takes gives me full window mode (“theater”) without create account without having to actually go full screen- just full window.
I think the part where they dont rule out a big eruption in the future is a good move. If this current eruption is an equivalent to the 1790 eruptions then the chance of the summit responding in an analogous manner is also quite likely and that could include some very big eruptions. They dont need to be phreatic to be explosive either.
That would mean that CRIM and UWEV are closing more slowly but it doesn’t mean that deflation slows down, one can imagine the deformation above of the draining reservoir like concentric areas, right on top displacement is mainly vertical while if you get further away from the center it turns into more horizontal until you get enough far away to not get any deformation at all. But the deepness of the reservoir has also to be considered if it is very shallow the deformation area will be very punctual and strong and the GPS wouldn’t sense it because they would be too far away (this happened in Kilauea before 1924 when the reservoir was just 1 km deep), as the summit deflation progresses it would be expected for it to move to greater dephts and then the deformation area is wider and the GPS will fall in the mainly vertical deformation area, they go up or down but the distance between the two wont change that much, that is why that graph showing the changes in distance between two GPS in opposite sides of the Caldera doesn’t work as a way to measure deflation when the deflating reservoir is too shallow or too deep.
Here you can follow different GPS and not the changes in distance between them and I think they all show ongoing deflation and no signs of stop for now, the volcanoes.usgs page is quite a labyrinth: https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/monitoring_kilauea.html
Terminology note. I am pretty sure that Thedustdevil is using the term “closing” in it’s spatial sense. As in reducing the distance between the two points.
Yes that was my intention. English is not my first language so I may come up with the wrong word sometimes.
The only reason I felt the need to elaborate is that I’ve only seen it in common use is in a nautical setting with regards to a surface contacts relative motion. “Contact so and so has closed and is opening” etc… (i.e., passed CPA)… or the ultimate pucker factor, “contact so and so is CBDR”… constant bearing decreasing range. (Collision course). Given our recent history, I have to wonder if USN JOs are paying any attention at all during nav training. I’ve been out almost 2 decades and we always ran two separate surface plots. How anyone can miss a nav issue like they did is beyond me.
(And yes, I was a fully qualified CIC Watch Officer, responsible for the team doing this activity in combat. Periodically or as needed, the Bridge team and the CIC team compare notes to verify questionable navigational issues and clarify the surface picture. In my experience, the oncoming Officer of the Deck stops by CIC to review what our Nav picture looks like before relieving the watch out on the bridge.)
Referring to the standard verbiage printed on the borders of almost every modern nautical chart; “The Prudent Mariner will not rely solely on any single aid to navigation.” Why? Because stuff will ALWAYS go wrong. You have to be alert to see and recognize inconsistencies as soon as they happen. For example; Anomalous radar propagation can give you very strange readings on your displays. Surface based ducting can severely attenuate or extend your detection ranges. Rain and clutter can obliterate your detection ability. I know of one funny argument that the Bridge and CIC had on one of our cruises… the Bridge told CIC that their contact was an island based on visual inspection of the contact via binoculars, yet CIC showed the contact doing 12 knots. In the end, CIC was correct and the bridges visual ID was the stack smoke from a small freighter wafting down to the water between it and us. As we passed CPA and were opening, we got a different angle to the contact and the bridge acknowledged that we were in fact correct.
Hmm… could be. trending towards a flattening curve indicates the rate of subsidence is decreasing.
I still wonder if the measuring the length of on rim to another is right for interpreting subsidence. In my ignorance, I thought that one rim(!) was just subsiding faster than the other. In the shown graph one could say that stopped subsiding but also that the rate of subsiding is going at the same rate at both sides now. Isn’t it better to look at the GPS movement of the seperate stations?
The north and east movements are slowing down (perhaps explaining the change in local length is decreasing), but subsidense isn’t.
Credits graph USGS.
Yes, looking at them separately should be better.
I have not been looking at the cameras during the day. Looking at the PG cam it looks like there was a lot of recent overflows over the river, nice silver color?
The lava river is getting shorter again. It is retreating towards four corners. It is not actually stopping, but going underground. It is spreading out underneath the crust of solid lava. You can see the edges where it reappears. A possible cause is a slower flow. It might now form a lava tube but it doesn’t look that has happened yet
The UK is drying up. It suffers from a lack of cloud these days
The exception being Manchester, although somewhat self-induced
From earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=92362
It’s very rare for large wildfires to happen in the UK. It’s even rarer for one to be a serious threat to housing as this one was at least at one point. It really is noticeable how brown the grass is getting, and we’re only partway into summer. If conditions like this persist for much longer we are going to begin to have serious problems. However this being the UK the chances of conditions like this actually persisting for long are pretty low.
Medium range weather models suggest the heat is going to build
Here’s the Euro (ECMWF) at the end of its run (10 days out)
GFS also keen on the hot and dry solutions.
By then comparisons with 1976 would begin to make more sense. After all back then it was over 30 Celcius on consecutive days, indeed over 32 Celcius on consecutive days for over 2 weeks. Assuming we’ve had a temperature over 30 Celcius today that would be the 6th consecutive day that’s been true. Pretty unusual, but far from unprecedented.
The lack of rain is quickly going to become a major issue. It hasn’t rained here for a couple of months – I can’t remember ever going so long without rain. The south downs are completely brown, instead of their usual rolling green. And we’re only at the end of June. More fire to come I think 🙁
It hasn’t rained here (Warwickshire) for a couple of weeks. However the rain we had then was only a small bit of drizzle, and so hardly enough to make any significant difference. Overall it has been very dry recently.
Not so here. We are having our typical summer afternoon storms. This one made the pekinese try to crawl up my arse. He is quite averse to thunder. I think the reason I get chosen as the ‘protector’ is because I’m the perceived “alpha.” Dogs are geared to think loud low frequency noise is something much much bigger than they are and seek comfort in the pack. Getting close to the ‘alpha’ affords some sort of protection I guess.
This is also why the marketing twits can refer to the area as the Emerald coast. Foliage grows like mad. It’s also why Kudzu is known as “The Vine that ate the South.” Introduced as an erosion control method and hyped as an excellent forage for cattle, it generally is not held in check by the winter die back from freezing temperatures like it does in it’s native Japan. “Kudzu can grow up to 60 feet per season, or about one foot per day.”
Same here, worst drought in history here with no end in sight. Its already turning pretty brown outside and there is a ban on using surface water in effect by the water authorities.
Just to show the magnitude of this eruption. The glow of fissure 8 from HVO…
They have some new stuff on the multimedia page of the website
GIF of Caldera subsiding
Not sure if this is a new video.
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/multimedia_uploads/multimediaFile-2337.mp4
That is the area near CRIM, looks like I was right about that area being likely to end up in the crater too…
In the foreground that is the larger caldera boundary wall sagging with cracks forming.
Foreground bush will be taking a dive in a day or two.
i’m sorry…”WOAH!!! FREAKY!!!! enlarge and watch even the distant wall be affected. No wonder HVO moved. Thanks, Mac! Best!motsfo
I think its neat that we all appreciate what is happening here. Best to you motsfo.
Mac
There is quite a massive cliff in the caldera now. I might be mistaken because of the light angle but it must be 10s of meters tall now. It looks like the entire area from halemaumau to kilauea iki as well as the CRIM area are subsiding together now and the upper system is giving way as the pressure drops off. Again the rest of the caldera seems to be completely unaffected but a much wider area is subsiding now than just halemaumau. This is still not as big as the 1840, 1823 or 1790 collapses though, so we aren’t really in uncharted territory yet.
Talk about lava boats! 😳 Not sure if anyone has seen this monster. The video is amazing. Check out @MilekaLincoln’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/MilekaLincoln/status/1012249798798266369?s=09
“Underway, Shift Colors…”
Explanation of my seemingly OT statement. “Shift Colors” is the word passed over the Ship’s general announcing circuit to tell the colors detail (which I was assigned to during Sea and Anchor detail for my first 6 months on board) when to lower the fantail ensign at the same time the signalmen unfurled the underway ensign. This happens when the last mooring line is cast off.
Essentially what I am saying is that’s not a “boat,” it’s a ship.
So it won’t go underlava as a normal part of operations?
Ummm… not intentionally.
we have lost the uwe tilt meter. A minor fault, I expect, as uwd is still working. The next boom is getting close.
Looks like its still working but updates are really slow and take hours.
This company is called interstellar technologies. Getting off the ground should have been quite important.
https://youtu.be/qDEBxaDbIFg
Seems similar to NASA’s famous launch of what became known as the ‘kaputnik’
Ahh Nasa, never one to disappoint when it comes to sheer entertainment…
At least the stuff they used in that rocket wasn’t an environmental hazard, they could have been using some much more scary stuff…
Here is a list of really scary rocket propellant formulas that were actually tested at some point… There were way more that were thought up but never actually used, but all of these actually had a real test with real rockets…
-liquid oxygen and beryllium powder
-liquid oxygen and atomized aluminium powder in kerosene
-liquid oxygen and atomized beryllium powder in kerosene
-liquid oxygen and atomized beryllium powder in hydrazine…
-liquid ozone and aluminium powder in hydrazine…
-liquid ozone and lithium aluminium hydride in hydrazine/…
-liquid fluorine with ozone and beryllium hydride in pentaborane…
-chlorine trifluoride and diborane in hydrazine
-dioxygen difluoride and dimethylmercury…………..
-fluorine and uranium powder……………………………
-fluorine and lithium borohydride in liquid hydrogen….
And my personal favorite…
Liquid fluorine with hydrogen and molten lithium, the most powerful chemical rocket ever tested…
Probably a really good thing that none of those are used now…
Ye gods! Beryllium powder?, beryllium hydrazide? chloring trifluoride and diborane? makes fluorine and lithium positively benign!
actually tested?
The only ones in that list that weren’t actually put in a real rocket and flown were the mercury and uranium ones, but that was only because no-one wanted to make the starting materials and not because anyone thought the rocket itself was a bad idea…
Makes Project Orion seem like the safe option
Well considering that eventually nuclear material will become harmless but beryllium and mercury will exist indefinitely I think Project Orion actually might have been a better alternative…
The only reason they gave up on beryllium was the cost and also because the refractory nature of BeO caused combustion to be poor, this was back in the day when health and safety was put aside if it disrupted the most efficient way to a profit…
When did that stop?
I believe it was considered in the 1960’s (the patent is from1969 or so). Be has high combustion energy but it was not as good in practice because it needed too much hydrogen which diluted the effect. And if course, it is very toxic, and this was reported in newspapers from 1968. It may have been considered for missiles.
Be + O is the most exothermic binary reaction on the periodic table, it manages to even nudge out Li + F for the top spot. That is why it was considered. The problem is that in order to have the exhaust be a gas you need to have the reaction temperature be above the melting point of BeO which is very high, otherwise the peryllium will lasso ate and become inert. This happens with aluminium powder in the same situation when they added it to liquid fuels, the metal didn’t burn. A potential bonus of using oxygen as the oxidiser is that you can significantly increase the energy by using ozone, although creating that is hard enough let alone storing it as a liquid. Ozone is just as reactive and willing to set things on fire as fluorine is though and also has the bonus of being a major explosion hazard so I don’t think it is that good in practice…
In the end I think the only one that could be doable is the liquid hydrogen liquid fluorine rocket but it would only be slightly better than the liquid oxygen liquid hydrogen rockets we use now and the byproducts are much more dangerous.
One the chemicals I used to use, used diborane as a base for production, use in rocket fuel made the material I was using much cheaper until the old rocket fuel stores ran out. Needed to have small batches made after than, so cost went way up and delivery times lengthened. Stopped using it a few years back, but some still sitting in the cupboards, my chemical which is very stable not the diborane.
This was held for approval by the system, as happens for first comments. Future comments should appear without delay. Welcome! -Admin
For those who like their rocket crashes and explosions (with appropriate background music) see this video from Space X.
If you go back to 10:12 Hawaiian time on the live view you can see some quickly moving dust/gas moving from left to right (not much wind right now). Then right before 10:16 you can see the dust from a slide caused by the 10:15 quake.
Mac
For those who have been pondering white birds in the caldera images please see this bit of a video to explain what they are:
https://youtu.be/tqbCvAR1KPc?t=1896
Just WOW! this is the best place for new info… Best!motsfo
Looks like the 3.4 at .4 miles was the last event before the slide event at 00:51 utc.
2018-07-01 00:51:12 5.3 -0.7
2018-07-01 00:48:05 3.4 0.4
The Lower East Rift Zone Camera has 2 bright spots one is fissure 8 but the other is on the lava river and it is just as bright as fissure 8 at the moment. 2018-06-30 23:50:06 (HST) looks like either another fissure or the lava river has found water or something. It is roughly at a level point where the river passes the power plant.
The time interval between summit collapses is getting longer. For a while it was around 24 hours but now it is around 30 hours.
And the tilt at UWE is also changing. Earlier it was approximately constant (on average over several days) but since mid-June it has change by around 100 microrad. That is a tiny change: over a distance of 100 meter, it means that one end has gone down by 1cm. But it means that the deflation has reached this area, outside of the caldera wall. It may explain the increasing surface cracks around HVO.
Mind you the area collapsing is also getting larger.
It is getting wider but not subsiding as fast. The collapse now might be more ring fault dominated as opposed to superficial slumping of the edges before, and this will have the effect of just allowing the caldera to sink until the bottom of the plug ends up at the same level as the east rift conduit. That probably wont be in that long of a time. This isnt going to create a new 600 meter deep 4 km wide caldera, the conduit isnt deep enough to cause that. Areas to the south that are not currently inside the caldera might be in a few weeks though.
IGN seem to take off over the weekend this happened shown on MACI Tenerife between 0900 – 1000 this morning.
http://www.ign.es/web/ign/portal/vlc-senales-sismicas/-/senales-sismicas/getInfoHora?fecha=2018-07-01&tipo=2&estacion=CCAN&hora=09-10
And this.
Wide angle view early morning at the Kilauea caldera.
Despite of the reflection a serene outlook.
Credits USGS.
At night you can see the glow from the lower rift zone on the left side of the webcam, even from this far away.
I can actually start to believe the stories of being able to read a book in Hilo from the glow of the 1840 eruption.
I was looking in on the regular live webcam just now, and it strikes me the whole left plain beyond the actual new caldera appears to have dropped. Raw cliffs are exposed, and now we have steam issuing from all over the plain. I have read of some droppage, but this seems to be a whole new slump happening on a wider scale?
That is the southwest rift, and a lot of that is (was?) connected to halemaumau at a shallow depth. The same system also extended towards and into kilauea iki and that has already partly collapsed near halemaumau, so it wouldnt be unusual for the rift to do the same. The area generally south of halemaumau is also where the deeper main magma chamber is and as that subsides due to draining from the east rift eruption it will cause this effect. The outer edges of the subsidence might be the southernmost outer caldera fault.
Hour long teaching video from IRIS talks about Kilauea and the monitoring system with respect to episodes 59, 60, and 61. Also talks about the deep mantle source, and the plumbing of the system. One thing that I learned is that they look at repeating quakes and how they show prior to and during these eruptions. Also how they use a tilt function of the broadband instruments with the tilt-meters to help calibrate the systems.
I am watching it and multitasking world cup soccer. Just went 1-1 CRO/DEN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbIIHRyZJZg
Mac
New time sequence from HVO shows how in the past days a large area of the caldera is being to subside. It appears that a new inner caldera is forming, at least if the subsidence continues. HVO is uncomfortably close to the action.
New image
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/status.html
The eruption in the lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) continues with no significant change during the past 24 hours.
Fountains from Fissure 8 spatter cone continue to supply lava to the open channel with intermittent small, short-lived overflows. These overflows rarely extend beyond the existing flow field. No active overflows were observed during this morning’s helicopter overflight.The spatter cone is now about 55 m (180 ft) tall at its highest point, and fountains rarely rise above that point. At the coast, the northern margin of the flow field is still oozing pasty lava at several points in the area of Kapoho Beach Lots. Lava was entering the sea over a broad area this morning primarily on the northern side of the entry area. As shown by the June 29 thermal map of the flow field, the lava channel has crusted over about 0.8 km (0.5 mi) inland of the ocean entry; lava oozing from the flow’s molten interior into the ocean along most of its broad front.
Fissure 22 is spattering about 50-80 m above conical spatter cone and feeding a short lava flow that is moving slowly to the northeast along the edge of earlier flows.
Now that there is an official picture, it appears that the new pit is about 2 km wide and probably about 300 meters deep on average. It isnt really perfect because the walls arent vertical but a cylinder of that dimension is just under 1 km3, so this hole is about 3 times bigger than the volume of the east rift eruption. I guess if you add the large area of shallow subsidence to the east it would probably get to 1 km3.
Assuming the magma supply rate is unchanged in all this (most likely option), then it would take about 2 years to fully re-inflate to the level it was at before, and about 5 years after that to fill the new pit. This however does assume that the magma doesnt seep up into the crater quietly and erupt directly instead of inflating, and it also doesnt include the possibility of a surge in supply either (the very deep quakes under Pahala earlier this year could very well be a magma surge…). I would also assume that the filling isnt going to be continuous and eruptions might happen elsewhere in that time too, particularly to the southwest or possibly at pu’u o’o. The bottom of halemaumau is at a lower elevation than pu’u o’o though so that would be the most likely first eruption spot.
I think the crater would be more like 1.5 km wide and 1.6 km long, is the max depth known?
It this ends up being a large ERZ draining event like 1790 then I see no activity there after this eruption ends for some time, when magma returns to the rift it might be a deep intrusion like 1840 that could endanger Leilani again. Pu’u’o’o is probably dead, Mauna Ulu and Kane Nui o Hamo dont seem to have reactivated after their eruptions…
The maximum depth is 400 meters but that is at the bottom of what used to be the initial overlook crater pit, and most of that has filled in so I took it out of the average.
HVO have said in an interview that the volume increase is only 0.3 km3 but that just doesn’t seem right unless the pit is actually way less vertical than it looks.
I would tend to agree that pu’u o’o is likely to be dead and that this eruption in leilani might be the last east rift eruption in a while.
Another 1840 would be devastating, that eruption was a similar size to the current one but erupted in half the time… Hopefully if this actually happens then people are smart and have not built in the area again because 1840 just went big right from the start and there would be little chance of escape. It was more like a mauna loa eruption than a typical kilauea eruption.
This probably explains the earthquake pattern, of two groups with a void in between. The void is the new caldera, the groups are the sides to the north and south which carry the stress from the caldera formation.
The foundations on the buildings at both places has been damaged. This was brought up today in an interview with a Park Ranger and geologist. It will delay the park reopening in the future because they will have to rebuild. The interview was a live stream on facebook done at the evacuation hub. There is plenty of information about the eruption but is hard to hear in places because it is done in a tent. They also talk about the Halema’uma’u crater collapse.
https://www.facebook.com/phil.hawaii/videos/10215557562594198/
Evidently Fifa is a lot like Nascar…
“Overall it’s probably the saddest day of my career. I leave with a bad taste in my mouth. It’s tough for everybody, the 34-year-old midfielder said, acknowledging his disappointment about losing to underdogs Russia on penalty kicks.”
https://www.thestatesman.com/sports/2018-fifa-world-cup-spain-legend-andres-iniesta-retires-saddest-day-1502656147.html
8 has a baby…
USGS Volcanoes
🌋
Verified account @USGSVolcanoes
17m17 minutes ago
Replying to @mt_vesuvius @Cheaptarts
That’s a plume of volcanic gas rising from one of the smaller vents just to the west of fissure 8 – it’s being illuminated by the #fissure8 fountain.
I have found some more information on the 1790 summit eruption. The earliest ash indicates a mainly phreatic eruption sequence, and studies have shown that groundwater alone wouldnt have the pressure needed to intrude into the magma so there was an actual lake at the bottom of the caldera before the eruption, meaning the caldera collapsed to at least 600 meters deep at some point earlier (probably in the rift eruption of that year), and is much larger than the current collapse.
There were also lava eruptions from the upper southwest rift during the last part of the eruption, so it was an actual eruption that was caused by magma rapidly moving up into kilauea rather than a ‘passive’ event where stagnant magma is put in contact with groundwater. The fact it was able to do this in the same year as a very big and draining east rift eruption is evident to the huge supply rate in this period (0.2-0.3 km3 per year, or only slightly higher than now).
There were also large pyroclastic flows and base surges in several of the eruptions, one of them is what killed the group of people near the summit, and the fact they chose to actually risk walking past the volcano probably means the eruptions were not all at once but might have been over a longer period with gaps of a few days or more. Some of these flows extend to the edges of Volcano and a lot further to the southwest, so something today would be a very dangerous scenario (even if the northern caldera wall would probably block any north directed flows). A significant amount of this was fresh magma.
The last part of the main eruption was similar to the current collapse, with eruptions mainly being more vulcanian and due to the caldera wall sliding into the vent and apparently interacting with groundwater (this is probably not likely now with new observations, the more likely option is the vent being blocked and violently degassing).
Finally within the next few years after these explosions, there was another massive lava fountain that deposited the golden pumice. Recent (last year) work has found that the golden pumice layer is actually the oldest of about 4 similar layers, and as none of them date later than 1823 it is evident that kilauea was very prolific in this period. In addition there were also two sizable eruptions at the end of the seismic southwest rift that created large flow fields and both are close in time to 1790 and at least one might post-date it.
The similarities between the current eruption and the 1790 east rift eruption are very noticeable, so if the current eruption causes a similar increase in eruptive activity in the near future, then the summit of kilauea could become a much more lively place. Given how high the magma supply now already is, even with no significant surge in supply, high lava fountains could still erupt in halemaumau, near CRIM or nearby on the southwest rift, and if it holds off long enough for a lake to form at the bottom of halemaumau then the general area of kilauea’s summit should be evacuated…
If the supply rate does surge (meaning get at least 50% higher) then I really dont think there is anything to go of of in the historical record because the supply rate would be something like 0.5 km3 per year and in the event something like that happens I think the entire crater could fill with lava in a few years…
The only thing I regret is that this idea actually gives the alarmist media something to work with, but it really might be necessary now with that being a serious possibility.
Source: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/97JB01426
Also go to 1:22:00 on this video.
http://www.bigislandvideonews.com/2018/06/29/video-national-park-usgs-meet-with-volcano-village/
Don Swanson is an absolute legend if you want information about exactly what I am talking about in relation to kilaueas summit area. Most of the info I have was partly or entirely researched by him (although I dont have access to a lot of it due to paid access etc) I found it very interesting that he mentioned a huge eruption immediately after the caldera formed in around 1500, I dont know what that would have looked like but it is something beyond anything we have seen in historical time. It also seems to conform to the same idea as 1790, the caldera collapsed (in this case it formed) and then afterwards there was a magma surge and huge eruption probably within a year or two after that, followed by a lot of smaller eruptions over a long time and then some larger eruptions some 100 years afterwards. The fact he didn’t say it went dormant is interesting, a lot of more simple sources have said that the supply was low in these periods but I am lead to believe otherwise by what I have read recently…
I also noticed that when this event was starting back in May that he seemed to be very careful about what he said to the press about the explosive activity. I think he was aware of the more alarmist media and their tendency to take things out of context. I have a feeling that HVO is seriously considering the possibility of a big summit eruption in the near future but they are waiting for better data before saying it.
“this is probably not likely now with new observations, the more likely option is the vent being blocked and violently degassing”
The cracks in the ground radiating the deep collapse area are and have been emitting gases since this all started. Even right near the collapse edge in a somewhat stubborn fashion.
Just what one would expect if it is a pressure build up, as you say.
I think you have it there.
No what he was talking about is way bigger than a gas explosion. He is talking about a lava fountain big enough to rain incandescent scoria outside the caldera in Volcano village….
The caldera would have probably been about 600 meters deep when it formed and Volcano is about 5 km from the caldera. The furthest distance that 1959 tephra fell was about 5 km,
but the Volcano tephra is very thick even at that distance, so the Volcano tephra was deposited by a fountain that rose well over 1000 meters high above the caldera rim, a 1600 meter high lava fountain…
This is what something like that would look like:
Thar she blows – again. Reported as M5.3 – again. Wonder what went down this time. The plume was visible in the thermal camera.
And overflow time at fissure 8, perhaps aided by the secondary fountain
Is there really a second vent? The spot is near where there was a long term skylight on a short tube leading to the river, I think this is what is overflowing.
Actually nevermind that is definitely a fountain and that is also a major overflow…
Lots of things going on. Perhaps the M5 quake broke a levee? But the river should recover. For some reason the overflows are making their way back up the river
Some overflows of the lava river now on PG cam. One is pretty big.
kupd, has stopped reporting, North east of Puʻu ʻŌʻō .
I saw some YouTube overnight of F22, looks a little Strombolianish…
Is this from now?
I believe it was from Sunday evening, I saw it on either the Puna Lava Update or the Hawaii Kava Update FB Page. Looked a lot like F17 from earlier this eruption, also Fogo’s last one.
This last Collapse event was a little different than the last ones since around 6/16. Since 6/16 the point that the tilt starts moving away from the vertical component (of the event) has been lowering each time. On this last event, the point where the tilt starts moving away from the vertical component has moved up (less down tilt). Not sure if this means anything. Not sure if I explained this well?
I am not sure of what you mean but this last event has also been unusual because the earthquake has been the first magnitude 5 to be located outside the rim of the caldera and farther south than any of the other ones but with a similar depth.
Big blast at Gunung Agung. Check out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTGWtW5Sj44
Action starts at 21:08
WOW!
That looks bad. The lava was flowing down up to the point where cloud intervened. If anyone was on the slopes, it could be nasty. Where is the camera? It looks like most of the lava came down on the other side.
The camera is almost straight south from Agung.
After checking the map I realize it is more to the southeast.
Now that the cloud cover is gone again, there is a strong glow from lava quite far down the mountain. It doesn’t look good at all.
Wow, the lava fragments must have gone over 1 km high above the summit, I think agung is really heating up again and a big eruption might be in the cards after all.
Agung has exploded , lava is brighting on the banks of volcano.
Also, lots of volcanic lightning and what looks like a lava flow down the eastern flank.
Love to see that in HD
Just imagining it now.
Seeing the flow on the eastern flank go for so long I wonder if part of the summit was destroyed and allowing a flow out that side.
A view from the northeast I think. Lava is still there:
Sorry, the stream ended just the second before I posted…
Now it’s back on. Not enough detail to really tell what is happening, but there seems to be lava flows in two different directions.
The one in the foreground looks like a flank vent?
Actually, there is no connected glow from the summit, so it doesn’t really look like a lava flow. If it’s not a side vent, then it is probably a forest fire started by the hot debris from the blast.
It seems to have been a single explosion.
The eastern – north eastern side of the mountain is the least populated, very dry and lacking water resources. I can imagine that they might not have headed evacuation instructions.
This cam is imaging from the east.
That must be north to northeast I guess.
I took some screenshots from the blast:
Initial blast:
Hot debris draping the mountain, volcanic lightning in the eruption cloud:
Long reaching flow, side vent, or forest fire?
From the facebook group “Mount Agung Daily Report”, which I think is one of the most reliable sources when it comes to Gunung Agung:
“02 July 23:00 update.
There was an eruption of Gunung Agung tonight at 21:04, 24 mm amplitude, 7 minutes 31 seconds duration. This is larger than anything we’ve seen to date, and it was strong enough to blow some incandescent (glowing hot) lava over the edges of the crater. This subsequently lit the surrounding brush on fire. The true images seen on social media are a combination of the incandescent lava and the burning brush. The crater IS NOT overflowing. There are also some photos out there that have been enhanced — be aware (and skeptical) of what you are looking at.
Some communities are evacuating the upper slopes of the mountain. Listening to the Pasebaya walkie-talkie network, there does not appear to be panic, but people are understandably very nervous. There is traffic on the evacuation routes, as some of the mining trucks are also being brought down.
Apologies for the late delivery of this notice, but it has taken a while to figure out exactly what has been happening. The video attached appears to be the initial eruption with incandescent lava being thrown out.”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/415222448896889/
In other words, not a lava flow, not a flank eruption, but brush fires set off by the lava bombs.
Surely no lava flow or flank eruption…saw something that looked like a short pyroclastic flow but I don’t think there was one.
I still hope noone was hurt….that explosion was very violent and you can see glowing bombs flying out of the cam’s screen. Some of those must have hit close to the bottom of the mountain or even further.
Juni 29th Agung showed also some activity, not a blast like today though.
Pusat Vulkanologi Dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi Badan Geologi, Kementerian ESDM published at their website that there was an ash column of 1500 – 2500 m above summit then.
Giggle translates:
“Analysis
Comprehensive monitoring data indicate that the phenomenon of gas emissions and ash that occur continuously from yesterday to the present is part of the eruption of Mount Agung that occurs efusif, ie the flow of fresh lava into the crater (growth dome / lava pond). This is also indicated by the high thermal energy recorded in the crater of Mount Agung where the lava material that has a very high temperature (~ 1200 degrees Celsius) flow fills the crater. The volume of lava in the crater of Mount Agung is still unpredictable.
Effusive eruption (flow) can transition to explosive eruption (throw). This depends on the dynamics of magma in the body of Mount Agung. In the phase of effusive eruptions, some accompanying phenomena can be thunderous sounds, booming sounds until a lava incision around the crater can occur.
Until now Mount Agung is still in a phase of long eruption and from recorded activity still indicates that the magmatic system of Mount Agung is still very dynamic and not yet stable.”
And from the provided data that lead to the analysis:
“The deformation equipment (GPS and Tiltmeter) records the inflation pattern from 13 May 2018 to the present with an uplift of about 5 millimeters. Uplift is happening is still lower than the period September-October 2017 which reached 6 centimeters.
Geochemically, the SO2 magmatic gas last time before the eruption of June 2018 was measured by the flux in the range of 200 tons per day.
Thermal satellite images record the existence of Hotspots in the crater of Mount Agung on this day with thermal energy reaching 819 Megawatts and this is the largest thermal energy ever recorded during the Gunung Agung 2017-2018 crisis. In the late eruption period of November 2017, the maximum thermal energy recorded reached 97 Megawatts.”
That all was from the 29th juni.
http://www.vsi.esdm.go.id/index.php/gunungapi/aktivitas-gunungapi/2294-press-release-aktivitas-terkini-gunung-agung-tanggal-29-juni-hingga-pukul-1500-wita
New pancake lava dome extruded on the old during 29 june.
A wonder what happened with this lava after last strombolian ejection.
I gotta say, but I think that St. Paul vs Hengill was a mismatch. should’ve stuck with my first intention: Reykjane vs Chaine des Puys.
I am not sure whether you should be allowed to substitute your entire team!
I think this Youtube USGS video is very good, mesmerizing.
Its the latest out takes from Hawaii. youtube.com/watch?v=au9yLUv8o04
The gentleman with the camera near fissure 8 must be a bit warm.
The right flank does not look like a brush fire: I think there was some flowing there, whether gas or lava is not clear. I think what happened is similar to 1963: when the mountain was quiet, the lava cooled down and formed a stagnant lid. When new lava arrived, the lid contained the volatiles and caused pressure to build up. In 1963, this happened two months after the main eruption, Those events were much larger than the current one. What happens next is hard to predict. The chance of more explosions will be higher the next few days, especially if the lid has been breached in places but not destroyed. Evacuations would be wise. But nothing is guaranteed, and Agung could even go back to sleep if it wants to.
check out pgcam right now.
They are having 2+ inches of rain per hour as estimated by radar. Rain and hot rocks make steam.
We also had a very shallow quake over near Pahala 2km east. Only automated check, does show quite well on the PPLD sesi.
2018-07-02 17:30:17 3.7 -0.4 miles
The usgs changed this quake
2018-07-02 17:30:18 4 3.8 So Mag 4 at 3.8 miles.
Spinning some volcanic glass.
Who would have imagined that lava tornadoes actually existed!!! Is the wind itself strong enough to send the lava flying or does the lower atmospheric pressure at the vortex trigger sudden degassing of the flow launching chunks of lava into the air?
Dust devils can lift some water but throwing this amount of lava is in a whole other level.