Volcanoes
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Bizarro Earth

After 162 years of inactivity, Indonesia's Mount Guntur volcano being awakened by quakes: alert level raised

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Garut Disaster Mitigation Agency (BPBD) chief Zat Zat Munazat has instructed Garut residents, especially those living close to Mount Guntur, to stay calm after the volcano's alert level was raised to waspada (caution) or level 2 from normal or level 1.

"Mount Guntur is still at a level that poses no danger; so we ask people not to panic," Zat Zat told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Tuesday evening.

Mount Guntur spewed lava and pyroclastic materials such as hot gas, volcanic ash and rocks, between 1840 and 1847.

"Mount Guntur has not erupted for 162 years," said Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center (PVMBG) head Surono via text messages.

Health

Central Java, Indonesia:Dangerous gas emissions from Dieng volcano, alert level raised to orange

VSI raised the alert level to the third highest level Siaga (3 out of 4), because significant changes were observed at the crater lake. The most spectacular was the change of the lake water color to dark brown on 24 March.
In addition, a significant increase in CO2 concentration within 500 m from the Timbang crater was measured, from from 0.01% (by volume) in early March to 2.5% between 11 and 15 March. Also the emissions of the magmatic gas H2S increased. The now elevated gas concentrations are becoming a significant hazard (illustrated by a cat found suffocated by CO2).
Therefore, it is strongly advised not to approach the Timbang crater within one kilometer to avoid the risk of suffocation due to the high CO2 concentrations (note that CO2 is absolutely odorless and lethal when inhaled in larger quantities)

Bizarro Earth

Scientists discover huge reservoir of magma under Pacific and Cocos plates

Since the plate tectonics revolution of the 1960s, scientists have known that new seafloor is created throughout the major ocean basins at linear chains of volcanoes known as mid-ocean ridges. But where exactly does the erupted magma come from? Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego now have a better idea after capturing a unique image of a site deep in the Earth where magma is generated. Using electromagnetic technology developed and advanced at Scripps, the researchers mapped a large area beneath the seafloor off Central America at the northern East Pacific Rise, a seafloor volcano located on a section of the global mid-ocean ridges that together form the largest and most active chain of volcanoes in the solar system. By comparison, the researchers say the cross-section area of the melting region they mapped would rival the size of San Diego County.
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Details of the image and the methods used to capture it are published in the March 28 issue of the journal Nature. "Our data show that mantle upwelling beneath the mid-ocean ridge creates a deeper and broader melting region than previously thought," said Kerry Key, lead author of the study and an associate research geophysicist at Scripps. "This was the largest project of its kind, enabling us to image the mantle with a level of detail not possible with previous studies." The northern East Pacific Rise is an area where two of the planet's tectonic plates are spreading apart from each another. Mantle rising between the plates melts to generate the magma that forms fresh seafloor when it erupts or freezes in the crust. - Science Daily

Bizarro Earth

Warnings issued for volcanoes in Peru and Iceland

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Icelandic police say seismic activity near the Hekla volcano has prompted them to declare an "uncertainty phase" - the lowest level of civil warning. Monitoring of the area in southern Iceland has been increased. Police advise people not to hike in the area, though it is not forbidden. Vidir Reynisson, the department manager for civil protection, said Tuesday that a swarm of earthquakes prompted the warning but are not necessarily a sign of pending eruption. Scientists worry that Hekla is overdue for an eruption; in recent decades it has erupted roughly every 10 years, most recently in 2000. Concern about seismic activity in the north Atlantic nation has grown since April 2010, when ash from the Eyjafjallajokul volcano grounded flights across Europe for days, disrupting travel for 10 million people. - CTV News

Bizarro Earth

Indonesia's Mount Lokon volcano unleashes 2,000 meter ash cloud

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Mount Lokon in Tomohon City, North Sulawesi, erupted again at around 7:57 a.m., local time, on Wednesday, sending a plume of ash 2,000 meters into the sky from its Tompaluan crater. "There was an increase in volcanic tremors which culminated in an eruption," said Farid Ruskanda Bina, head of Mount Lokon and Mount Mahawu observation post at the Bandung Geology Agency's volcanology and geological disaster mitigation center (PVMBG), in Kakaskasen, Tomohon, on Wednesday, as quoted by Antara news agency.

Warno, an official at the observation post, added that the increases in Mount Lokon's volcanic tremors was actually not too significant. Currently, the agency's PVMBG is still maintaining Mount Lokon's volcanic activity status at "alert" (level 3) although the frequency of the volcano's eruptions has continued to decline. Previously, Mount Lokon erupted two to three times a week. The eruption on Wednesday morning shocked local residents living around Mount Lokon, as it was accompanied by loud bangs. People left their homes and crowded the Tomohon-Manado main road as well as roads in Kinilow sub-district in Kinilow Satu, Kakaskasen, to witness the eruption. Mount Lokon has been active since July 2011. Its volcanic activity status was once raised to "awas" or level 4, until it was lowered to its current level, said Farid. He said Mount Lokon's most recent eruption before it erupted again this morning was on March 10. - Jakarta Post

Bizarro Earth

Italy's Mount Etna volcano erupts again in dramatic fashion, lighting up the night sky

Mount Etna, Europe's highest active volcano sent plumes of ash and lava into the night sky on the island of Sicily. Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology has recently registered increased explosive activity by the volcano, Italy's Civil Protection agency said. There are several inhabited villages on the slopes of Mount Etna. Eruptions are not infrequent, and Italian airliners sometimes have to alter their routes to avoid flying through ash clouds. Tuesday's eruption did not cause any interruption to air traffic at the airport serving the nearby town of Catania, according to reports. -Telegraph


Ice Cube

New study says volcanic eruptions can dramatically cool the planet

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Sulfur dioxide emissions from moderate volcanoes around the world can mask some of the effects of global warming by 25 percent, a new study has found. A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder looking for clues about why Earth did not warm as much as scientists expected between 2000 and 2010 now thinks the culprits are hiding in plain sight. The study results essentially exonerate India and China, two countries that are estimated to have increased their industrial sulfur dioxide emissions by about 60 percent from 2000 to 2010 through coal burning, said lead study author Ryan Neely. Small amounts of sulfur dioxide emissions from Earth's surface eventually rise 12 to 20 miles into the stratospheric aerosol layer of the atmosphere, where chemical reactions create sulfuric acid and water particles that reflect sunlight back to space, cooling the planet, researchers said.

Neely said previous observations suggest that increases in stratospheric aerosols since 2000 have counter balanced as much as 25 per cent of the warming scientists blame on human greenhouse gas emissions. "This new study indicates it is emissions from small to moderate volcanoes that have been slowing the warming of the planet," said Neely in the study published in journal Geophysical Research Letters. The new project was undertaken in part to resolve conflicting results of two recent studies on the origins of the sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere, including a 2009 study led by the late David Hoffman of NOAA indicating aerosol increases in the stratosphere may have come from rising emissions of sulfur dioxide from India and China.

Bizarro Earth

Mount Etna's dramatic new eruption

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© Meteo real time/Facebook
Italy's Mount Etna sent lava and gas shooting toward the stars early this morning (Feb. 19), the first big eruption for the volcano in 2013.

The famous Sicilian volcano burst to life overnight, sending a fountain of fire into the air. The dramatic scene was captured in a video by Klaus Dorschfeldt, a videographer and webmaster at Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.


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Extinction-level super volcano growing in the Pacific, unfortunately

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Bad news, everyone - you have another near-certain world-ending catastrophe to look forward to.

Scientists have confirmed that two continent-sized chemical blobs of partially melted rock are converging in the Pacific, and look set to create a massive new volcano which could prove cataclysmic to life on Earth. (In 100 million years.)

Geologist Michael Thorne at the University of Utah reports in Earth and Planetary Science that the collision is slowly happening 1,800 miles beneath the ocean.

He says that the collision could lead in two possible directions - both of which are bad, and would wipe out millions of species.

One is just a massive single eruption, which would kill us all, the other is a thousand-year flood basalt eruption, which would also kill us.

Bizarro Earth

Is the Earth cooking up another supervolcano?

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Every few million years or so, the Earth burps up a gargantuan volcano. These aren't like volcanoes in our lifetimes; these "super volcanoes" can erupt continuously for thousands of years. While they might be rare, you'd best look out when one hits. The ash and volcanic gases from these volcanoes can wipe out most living things over large parts of the planet. Michael Thorne, a seismologist at the University of Utah, has some clues about what causes these big eruptions. Thorne uses seismic waves to get a picture of what's going on about 1,800 miles beneath the Earth's surface, where the planet's core meets the outer mantle.

Think of the Earth as an avocado, and the pit is the core. The stuff you make guacamole with is the outer mantle. Thorne has been watching two enormous piles of rock that sit on the boundary between the core and the mantle. One pile is underneath the Pacific Ocean; the other under Africa. Scientists have known about them for 20 years, but Thorne saw something different. "I think this is the first study that might point to evidence that these piles are moving around," Thorne says.