Volcanoes
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Volcanic ash from ancient Far East Russia eruption found in Norway - over 3,000 miles away

Kelsey Kennedy
Atlas Obscura
Mon, 22 May 2017 23:44 UTC
Volcanoes on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula
© HUHNMI/CC BY 2.0Volcanoes on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula
It was summertime when the Ksudach volcano erupted on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East 7,000 years ago. The violent explosion propelled its ash high into the atmosphere, where it drifted over North America before landing 3,100 miles away on the surface of Lake Hajaren in Svalbard, Norway, and settling to the bottom. Just enough remains for scientists to find some of this ash in a sediment core from the lake. It's not much, but it is helping geologists reassess just how far volcanic ash can travel, as well as piece together climate conditions when Ksudach erupted, according to a recent report.

"In the end, we found and analyzed six particles with less than half the width of a human hair," said Willem van der Bilt, a coauthor of the report and a researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway, in a press release. Those six particles were found in a sediment core pulled from the middle of Lake Hajaren, separated out, and then chemically analyzed. Based on where they found the particles in the core, van der Bilt's team guessed they were roughly 7,000 years old, but did not know yet which volcano they had come from.

"Like human DNA, the composition of volcanic ash is unique. Geochemical analysis help us fingerprint this signature and match it with an eruption," said van der Bilt. The team had a few eruptions in mind, including Mount Mazama, the volcano that formed Crater Lake in Oregon, or the Kikai volcano in Japan. But the Svalbard ash was virtually identical to ash from Ksudach's eruption around that time. That makes it the farthest-traveled ash so far known.
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Bizarro Earth

Geologists: Large volcanic eruption may have caused first mass extinction of life on earth


PhysOrg
Wed, 17 May 2017 14:09 UTC
Hg enrichment graph
© Kunio KaihoThe researchers found Hg enrichments in sedimentary rocks deposited in North America and southern China 445-443 million years ago. Hg enrichments are products of multiple phases of a large igneous province volcanism. This, they say, could have led to the environmental changes that caused the disappearance of many marine animal species.
Researchers in the U.S. and Japan say they may have found the cause of the first mass extinction of life on Earth.

There have been five mass extinctions since the divergent evolution of early animals 600 to 450 million years ago (Figure 1). Volcanic activity was the cause of both the third and fourth, while an asteroid impact led to the fifth. But triggers of the first and second mass extinctions had, until now, been unknown. The new study strongly suggests volcanic activity caused the first mass extinction.

It occurred at the end of the Ordovician. This age is between the divergence of the Ordovician and land invasion of vascular land plants and animals. Animals in the Ordovician-Silurian comprised marine animals like corals, trilobites, sea scorpions, orthoceras, brachiopods, graptolite, crinoid and jawless fish. Approximately 80 percent of species disappeared at the end of the Ordovician.

A team led by Dr. David S. Jones of Amherst College and Professor Kunio Kaiho of Tohoku University looked into possible triggers of the first mass extinction. They took sedimentary rock samples from two places—North America and southern China—and analyzed their mercury (Hg) content. They found Hg enrichments coinciding with the mass extinction in both areas. This, they believe, is the product of large volcanic eruptions, because the Hg anomaly was also observed in other large igneous province volcanisms.
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Arrow Up

Eruption at Mexico's Popocatépetl volcano

Andrew V. Pestano
UPI.com
Fri, 19 May 2017 09:50 UTC
Popocatépetl volcano eruption
© YouTube/webcamsdemexico (screen capture)
Mexico's National Center for Disaster Prevention said the Popocatépetl volcano launched incandescent lava fragments more than half a mile away from its crater.

The disaster prevention center, or CENAPRED, on Thursday said Popocatépetl erupted 19 times in the prior 24 hours, had 82 volcanic plumes and had five volcano tectonic earthquakes -- measuring in magnitudes 1.5, 1.6, 1.5, 1.4 and 1.3 , respectively.

CENAPRED also said it recorded 20 minutes of a low-amplitude harmonic tremor, as well as a plume mostly of water vapor and gas with low ash content that lasted nearly three hours and rose up to 1.2 miles.

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Attention

Mount St. Helens is recharging

Blair Shiff
ABC News
Thu, 18 May 2017 21:15 UTC
Mt. Saint Helens
© Nicholas George/The Chronicle/AP PhotoMount St. Helens
Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, after two months of increasing volcanic activity.

Since its most recent eruption in 2008, there has been a swarm of earthquakes, which are thought to be a result of the magmatic system's "recharging," according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

Similar seismic swarms were detected during recharging periods before a small eruption in 2004 and through a period of volcanic activity that ended in 2008.

In March through May of this year, swarms of deep earthquakes, not even felt on the surface, have been detected.

Seismic swarms do not directly indicate that an eruption is imminent, because volcanic forecasting is difficult, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The 1980 eruption is widely considered the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history. It killed 57 people and destroyed hundreds of homes, 57 bridges and some 200 miles of roads, in addition to leveling tens of thousands of acres of forest.

Comment: Signs of activity surface at Mount St. Helens as 10th anniversary of last eruption nears

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Arrow Up

2 volcanoes erupt just hours apart in Aleutian Islands, Alaska

Chris Klint
Alaska Dispatch News
Wed, 17 May 2017 23:29 UTC
Bogoslof Island eruption
© U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak and Coast Guard Cutter MellonSmall side vent on the northwest shore of Bogoslof Island formed during one of the later eruptions. Waves can now spill over a section of beach into this small pool.
An eruption at Bogoslof volcano - one of two to erupt in the Aleutian Islands Tuesday - is its first after more than two months of inactivity, causing ash to fall in a nearby community before drifting south over the Pacific Ocean.

The Alaska Volcano Observatory said Tuesday night's eruption at the volcano about 60 miles west of Unalaska, which began just after 10:30 p.m. and lasted for 73 minutes, sent a plume to an altitude of 34,000 feet.

By midday Wednesday, a lack of further activity caused AVO to lower Bogoslof's aviation color code to "orange" and its alert level to "watch" — down from the more severe "red" and "warning" levels. Staff cautioned in an update that "(a)dditional ash-producing eruptions could occur at any time, however, with no detectable precursors."

Hans Schwaiger, a geophysicist at the observatory, said a pilot spotted ash from the eruption Tuesday night. Although Bogoslof's last previous eruption was March 8, Tuesday's blast is still part of the same eruption cycle that began at the volcano in mid-December.

"Each of these eruptive cycles can be months to many months," Schwaiger said. "It wasn't the strongest of the eruptions in this sequence."
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Bizarro Earth

Campi Flegrei: One of world's most dangerous supervolcanoes could erupt sooner than expected

Hannah Osborne
Newsweek
Mon, 15 May 2017 17:21 UTC
Volcanic activity on Campi Flegrei
© Daniel Enchev/FlicrkVolcanic activity on Campi Flegrei. The supervolcano has shown signs of unrest since the 1950s.
One of the world's most dangerous supervolcanoes appears to be closer to erupting than we once thought, scientists have warned. Campi Flegrei in southern Italy has been showing signs of reawakening over the past 67 years, and new research indicates the volcano has been building energy throughout this period, increasing the risk that it will erupt.

Campi Flegrei is a huge volcanic field that sits about 9 miles to the west of Naples, a city home to over a million people. It is made up of 24 craters and edifices, and appears as a large depression on the surface of the land.

The volcano last erupted in 1538 after almost a century of pressure building up. But though it lasted over a week, this was a comparably small one—40,000 years ago, it produced a "super-colossal" eruption. This is the second highest measure on the volcanic explosivity index, the first being "mega-colossal," like those seen at the Yellowstone supervolcano in the U.S. thousands of years ago.

Comment: Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection

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Attention

Shiveluch volcano in Russia given "red warning" to passing planes following massive 13km ash and steam eruption


The Big Wobble
Sat, 13 May 2017 10:32 UTC
Shiveluch volcano
© sputniknews.comShiveluch volcano
The Shiveluch volcano in Russia's Far Eastern Kamchatka region has erupted, spewing ash some 13km above sea level.

Experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences measured the plumes using seismic data as the ash column mixed with low-lying clouds.

Officials from the region's Emergency Situations Ministry have confirmed that the ash is not expected to land on nearby settlements, Russia's Interfax news agency reported Friday.

Meanwhile a "red warning" has been issued to passing planes, urging them to avoid the site.
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Magnet

Japan's Mt. Fuji had possible simultaneous eruptions in past says researchers


The Mainichi
Sun, 14 May 2017 22:52 UTC
Instrument measuring geomagnetism at Mt. Fuju
© Akira BabaAn instrument that measures geomagnetism is seen embedded in lava near Mount Fuji.
Mount Fuji may have erupted twice in close succession roughly a thousand years ago, according to a team of researchers at the Yamanashi Prefectural Government Mount Fuji Research Institute who used a geomagnetic dating technique.

Previous research using various methods has revealed that Mount Fuji has erupted 42 times over the last 2,200 years. It appears that there are stretches of time where the volcano erupted every few decades. However, even with estimates using data from sources such as ancient documents and geological surveys, there are still many eruptions that have yet to be dated.

Akira Baba from the Yamanashi research institute and his colleagues collected samples from lava flows at 380 locations around the foot of Mount Fuji, and analyzed the magnetic iron ore in the rock for the first time. When the ore is heated to high temperatures and then cooled, it records the geomagnetic strength and direction of the Earth's magnetic field at that particular time. Lava is heated to roughly 1,000 degrees Celsius during an eruption before cooling, so the scientists can examine the geomagnetic data documented in the ore to estimate when a given eruption occurred.
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Bizarro Earth

Grand solar minimum volcanoes simultaneously collapsed Mayan, Roman & Chinese societies

Adapt 2030
YouTube
Tue, 09 May 2017 13:05 UTC
Maya Dark Ages volcano activity
© YouTube/Adapt 2030 (screen capture)
Grand Solar Minimum Volcanoes Simultaneously Collapsed, Mayan, Roman & Chinese Societies in the Late Antique Little ice 535-545 AD. It was a combination of volcanoes erupting in Mexico and New Guinea that are firmly documented. The combination of GSM cosmic ray increases that increased cloud cover, particulates and SO2 in the atmosphere change temperatures and rainfall patterns the world over. We should be preparing for the same volcanism as our Earth enters the new Grand Solar Minimum.


Comment: For more information on these cyclical catastrophes read:

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Cloud Lightning

SOTT Focus: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - April 2017: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs


Sott.net
Tue, 09 May 2017 11:37 UTC
lightning hits Texas tornado
Planetary environmental chaos continued unabated this April.

After Peru was inundated in March, Columbia was next in line for massive rainfall and flooding which provoked deadly landslides in the city of Mocoa. Major flooding and landslides also hit India, Indonesia, the USA and China, while

Wildfires once again struck the US state of Florida while very late snow saw many European nations blanketed, with many crops destroyed.

Meteor/fireballs were also spotted from one end of the planet to the other and a comet made a special appearance.


Or watch on Sott.net's Vimeo Channel

SOTT Earth Changes Summary - April 2017: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs from Sott.net on Vimeo.



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