Volcanoes
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Engine of climate change: Thousands, and possibly millions, of underwater volcanoes remain undiscovered

Joanne Nova
JoNova
Mon, 04 Dec 2017 18:20 UTC
The world is watching one volcano in Bali, but it's sobering to think there may be hundreds of others going off, and almost certainly ones we don't even know about. The article Is the Bali volcano making us warmer or cooler? by William F Jasper, reminded me of Ian Plimers words about there being squillions of undersea volcanoes so I found the 2007 paper, by Hillier, that tried to count them. Trying being the appropriate word. Volcanoes are biggish things, but when they are under one or two kilometers of water they are hard to hear, hard to see, and, by crikey, we know more about the moon than the bottom of the Marinara, and it's only 11km "away".

People are constantly discovering new volcanoes, like a 3,000m one off Indonesia that no one realized was there til 2010. It turns out the second largest volcano in the solar system is apparently not on Io, but 1,000 miles east of Japan. It's the size of the British Isles, but who knew? A few months ago a team found 91 new volcanoes under Antarctica. (This is getting serious, someone should talk to the Minister for Lava!)
Marianna Volcanoes
© JoNova
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Eye 1

Yellowstone supervolcano threat theory 'demonstrably false' - USGS expert to RT


RT
Sun, 03 Dec 2017 16:36 UTC
Yellowstone National Park
© Jim Urquhart / ReutersYellowstone National Park
If you spend any time on the internet, it seems every few months humanity is faced with a looming existential threat from the depths of space. Planet X/Nibiru, the rapture or a wayward comet are, according to conspiracy theorists, destined to destroy us.

However, there is one particular conspiracy, treasured by theorists, that our impending doom will come from within planet Earth - that lurking beneath America's Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano that will kill us all.

Yellowstone, in the midwestern US, is - they claim - about to erupt and send unfathomable amounts of matter into the sky, covering anyone in the vicinity in a pyroclastic flow of ash and rock, and blocking out the sun, wiping out almost all life on Earth in the process.

Conspiracy theories tend to draw on some grain of truth. The super volcano really has erupted before, three times in fact, over the last 2 billion years or so, but the theory goes that it's bound to do so again soon, right? RT.com caught up with Michael Poland, Scientist-in-Charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, to find out the full extent of this lurking supervolcanic 'threat.'

Comment: See this article for a different perspective: Disastrous super-eruption could happen sooner than first thought
The new study from Bristol scientists, published in the Earth and Planetary Science Letters, suggests large, catastrophic eruptions are most likely to happen every 17,000 years.

It's a significant revision from a 2004 estimate, said Jonathan Rougier, of the University of Bristol.

"The previous estimate, made in 2004, was that super-eruptions occurred every 45-714 thousands years, comfortably longer than our civilization. But in our paper just published, we re-estimate this range as 5.2-48 thousand years, with a best guess value of 17,000," he said.

And the two most recent ones came 30,000 to 20,000 years ago.

"On balance, we have been slightly lucky not to experience any super-eruptions since then. But it is important to appreciate that the absence of super-eruptions in the last 20,000 years does not imply that one is overdue. Nature is not that regular."

He added: "What we can say is that volcanoes are more threatening to our civilization than previously thought."

In 2014, the US Geological Survey warned that if the massive volcano at Yellowstone National Park were to boil over, cities nearly 300 miles away would be covered in up to three feet of ash.


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Bizarro Earth

Covered in a blanket of ash: The aftermath of Bali's Mount Agung eruption

Nicole Morley
Metro (UK)
Thu, 30 Nov 2017 10:23 UTC
Mount Agung eruption Bali
© ReutersScene after Mount Agung started erupting in Bali
A blanket of black ash covers all ground, trees and objects in sight after authorities ordered the evacuation of 100,000 people.

A plume of ash and smoke was sent about 2,000 meters above the crater, though the Distaster Mitigation Agency said ash particles have drifted up to 7,600 metres from the mountain.

Around 40,000 people were placed in temporary shelters after the volcano, which last erupted in 1963, swelled with molten lava.

The alert level on Mount Agung remains at maximum, but the airport has reopened after a change in wind direction blew towering columns of ash and smoke away from the airport.


Comment: See also:

Mysterious night flashes seen near erupting Mt. Agung in Indonesia
Mount Agung eruption: Indonesian authorities expand evacuation zone, close airport

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Blue Planet

Disastrous super-eruption could happen sooner than first thought


RT.com
Thu, 30 Nov 2017 15:52 UTC
Volcano erupting
Volcanoes pose a greater threat to humanity than first thought, with Earth scientists in the UK reporting that super-eruptions are historically more frequent than previous data revealed.

Analyzing volcanic activity within the last 100,000 years, researchers from the University of Bristol revised the timeline for super-eruptions, which can produce around 1,000 gigatons of erupted mass.

The Yellowstone Caldera in Wyoming is classed as one such supervolcano, which could emit sustained pyroclastic eruptions with climate- and life-changing results.
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Question

Mysterious night flashes seen near erupting Mt. Agung in Indonesia

Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Dr. Roy Spencer
Mon, 27 Nov 2017 16:13 UTC
Today I was watching the 10-minute imagery from the Japanese Himawari geostationary weather satellite for the next eruption of Mt. Agung in Bali, Indonesia, and in the last hour or so there have been some distinct flashes in the nighttime imagery, which you can access here. These only show up in the nighttime imagery.
mt agung
Nighttime flashes in Japanese weather satellite imagery around Mt. Agung as a new eruption began on 27 November 2017. The flashes occur at 19:50, 20:10, and 20:30 UTC. The city lights have been added separately from previous observations from a different satellite, to assist in nighttime geolocation; the village lights of Besakih, on the southwest slope of Mt. Agung, can be seen within the dashed circle.
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Attention

Mount Agung eruption: Indonesian authorities expand evacuation zone, close airport


Fox News
Tue, 28 Nov 2017 20:26 UTC
Bali volcano
© ReutersA villager walks as Mount Agung volcano erupts in the background in Kubu, Karangasem, Bali, Indonesia.
Indonesian authorities on Monday expanded the established danger zone around an erupting volcano that is hurling ash 9,800 feet into the atmosphere and whose explosions could be heard over seven miles away.

Experts said lava is welling up in the crater, sometimes reflected as a reddish-yellow glow in the ash plumes. The agency raised the volcano's alert to the highest level early Monday and expanded the danger zone to six miles. It said that a larger eruption is possible.

Spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho told a news conference in Jakarta that the extension of the danger zone affects 22 villages and about 90,000 to 100,000 people. He said about 40,000 people have evacuated but others have not left because they feel safe or don't want to abandon their livestock.

"Authorities will comb the area to persuade them," he said. "If needed we will forcibly evacuate them." About 25,000 people were already living in evacuation centers after an increase in tremors from the mountain in September sparked an evacuation.
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Attention

150,000 people to evacuate Bali's erupting Mount Agung, airport closes for another day

Adam Harvey
ABC Online
Mon, 27 Nov 2017 22:35 UTC
Bali's Mount Agung erupting
© APIndonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency raised the volcano's alert to the highest level Monday and expanded an exclusion zone to 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the crater in places from the previous 7 1/2 kilometers.
About 150,000 people will leave their homes on the slopes of Mount Agung, Bali's Governor says, as the volcano's eruptions grow more powerful, while the island's main airport will close for another 24 hours due to ashfall.

Governor Made Pastika said the evacuation period for people living within 10 kilometres of the crater could easily last as long as a month.

Indonesia's disaster management agency said the evacuation is so far orderly and without panic.

Mount Agung has been hurling clouds of white and dark grey ash about 3,000 meters into the atmosphere since the weekend and lava is welling up in the crater, sometimes reflected as a reddish-yellow glow in the ash plumes.

Its explosions can be heard about 12 kilometres away.


Comment: See also:

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Attention

Volcanic eruptions and atmospheric compression events increasing

Adapt 2030
You Tube
Mon, 27 Nov 2017 14:25 UTC
A view of the Mount Agung volcano erupting in Karangasem, Bali, on Monday
© APA view of the Mount Agung volcano erupting in Karangasem, Bali, on Monday
Volcano awakens after 290 years of silence in Iceland, Mexico and Bali eruptions continue sending ash to 30,000 ft. Atmospheric Compression events in Jamaica and Saudi Arabia and a balmy -55C in Siberia.


Sources
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Eye 1

Bali volcano has erupted for a second time in less than a week, forcing airlines to re-route flights


RT
Sat, 25 Nov 2017 02:28 UTC
Bali volcano
© Petra Simkova / ReutersIndonesia's Mount Agung volcano erupts for a second time in less than a week as seen from the coastal town of Amed, in Bali, Indonesia.
The Mount Agung volcano, on the Indonesian island of Bali, has erupted for a second time in less than a week, firing a column of ash 1,500 meters into the air.

The eruption emitted a bigger ash cloud than Tuesday's blast. It caused several airlines - including, KLM, Qantas, AirAsia, and Virgin - to cancel or rearrange flights in the region.

"Tourism in Bali is still safe, except in the danger (zone) around Mount Agung," Indonesia's Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said in a statement.

"There has not been an increase in seismic and volcanic activity after the (Tuesday) eruption until this afternoon," the statement read.
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Info

Popocatepetal erupts, 3200 Phaethon flyby, antimatter riddle solved

Oppenheimer Ranch Project
You Tube
Fri, 24 Nov 2017 13:29 UTC
A giant 3-mile (5 km) wide asteroid named 3200 Phaethon
Record-breaking B.C. weather the latest in a series of extreme events.


Sources
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