Life returning to Kasatochi 31 August 2009
Posted by admin in Alaska, Kasatochi.Tags: Alaska, Kasatochi, United States, volcanic eruptions, volcano research
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Life is already returning to the island of Kasatochi in the Aleutians, blanketed with ash and left bleak and barren by the surprise eruption of its eponymous volcano in August 2008. A scientific team is revisiting the island to look at how it is responding to the eruption, the Anchorage Daily News is running a series of reports on their work, written by University of Alaska Geophysical Institute Science Writer Ned Rozell.
The latest report describes the way in which life is ‘inching its way back to Kasatochi’. The birds are gone and ash outwash from the island is disrupting kelp growth in the surrounding ocean, but nineteen species of plant have been found springing back to life on the island, along with an insect or two and some tough invertebrates: ‘The smallest and luckiest of life forms clung to natural bunkers within the island, and mats of plant roots were buried quickly enough to withstand the heat of the eruption flows’.
News
After eruption life inching its way back to Kasatochi – Anchorage Daily News, 29 August 2009
Alaska: steam plume from Augustine 30 August 2009
Posted by admin in activity reports, Alaska, Augustine, United States.Tags: Alaska, Augustine, United States, volcanic activity reports
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Augustine Volcano, Alaska, has been releasing a prominent steam plume from its summit over recent days. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has released a brief news announcement which says that this plume represents normal behaviour for Augustine and is nothing to worry about: it has just been more visible over recent days because of ‘humidity levels and atmospheric conditions’.
Augustine’s largest historic eruption was a VEI=4 event in 1883-4 (see ‘Mount Augustine split in two’), and its most recent eruption (VEI=3) was in 2005-6. The AVO keeps a close watch on Augustine and will respond appropriately should the volcano show signs of renewed activity – that’s what volcano monitoring is all about.
In the meantime we have an excuse for reproducing this very nice picture, taken from Diamond Ridge near Homer, Alaska, on 25 August 2009, showing the steam plume very clearly, along with Augustine’s beautiful symmetrical profile. The image, which is available from the AVO website, is courtesy Dennis Anderson, Night Trax Photography.
Recent volcanism and deep time, at Geotripper 30 August 2009
Posted by admin in blogs, geoblogosphere.Tags: Colorado Plateau, geoblogosphere, Geotripper, Valles Caldera
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Geotripper, written by California geology teacher Garry Hayes, is a first-class geology blog that brims over with information, enthusiasm and great imagery.
‘Time almost not beyond imagining: recent volcanism on the Colorado Plateau and deep time’ is the latest in a series of Geotripper posts devoted to the geological history of the Colorado Plateau. The article looks at the eruption 1.15 million years ago that produced the Valles Caldera in New Mexico, and, taking as a starting point the thousand-year-old ruined settlement in the caldera that is now the Bandelier National Monument, reflects on geological and human scales of time:
But 1.15 million years? Even though we have actually covered 2 billion years in this series on the Colorado Plateau, I sometimes find even a million years difficult to comprehend. One million. One thousand thousand. The entire history of Bandelier’s village, from construction to abandonment to tourist destination could be repeated 1,000 times to reach the time when the volcano exploded.
An excellent piece of writing. As ever, thinking about these things leaves one somewhat giddy: but that’s geology for you.
Time almost not beyond imagining: recent volcanism on the Colorado Plateau and deep time – Geotripper, 29 August 2009
Averting climate doom with artificial volcanoes 30 August 2009
Posted by admin in climate, current research.Tags: artificial volcanoes, climate change, geoengineering
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Man-made volcanoes may cool Earth reports The Times today: yes, it’s artificial volcanoes again. The idea is to reproduce the sulphur-propagating aspects of volcanic eruptions in order to cool the planet:
The Royal Society is backing research into simulated volcanic eruptions, spraying millions of tons of dust into the air, in an attempt to stave off climate change.
The society will this week call for a global programme of studies into geo-engineering — the manipulation of the Earth’s climate to counteract global warming — as the world struggles to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
It will suggest in a report that pouring sulphur-based particles into the upper atmosphere could be one of the few options available to humanity to keep the world cool.
See also: mechanical trees, slimy buildings, white paint on roofs, cloud-generating ships, artificial plankton blooms, giant space sunshield, wrapping Greenland in a blanket.
[Image of the artificial volcano at the Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas, by temptingmama at Flickr, reproduced here under a Creative Commons license.]
Saturday Volcano Art: Hiroshige II, ‘Mount Asama’ (1859) 29 August 2009
Posted by admin in Asama, Japan, Saturday volcano art, volcano art, volcano culture.Tags: Asama, Hiroshige II, Japan, Saturday volcano art
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The artist known as Hiroshige II (1826-69) was a student of the great ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), who has already featured in this series. He became his master’s adopted son and married his daughter, Tatsu, and, after Hiroshige’s death in 1858, used his name; he had previously signed himself as Shigenobu. To avoid confusion, he is generally known as Hiroshige II. There is also a Hiroshige III, who was also the first Hiroshige’s adopted son and also married to Tatsu, but let’s not get into that here.
Mount Asama, the most active volcano on Honshu, is pictured in this image from Hiroshige II’s series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in the Provinces, published 1859-61. At the time this print was made the most recent significant eruption of Asama had occurred around 30 years earlier, in 1815, while in 1783 the volcano had produced one of the largest and most destructive eruptions (VEI=4) in modern Japanese history.
The print shows the volcano viewed from the south-east: on the left is the ridge of the Korufu-yama arc, remnant of an older volcano. The summit of Asama is producing brownish-grey emissions and is covered with recent ashfall and crowned with large boulders. The reddish-purple cloud, edged with yellow, that reaches across the distant ridge to encircle the volcano gives the scene a threatening air, emphasized by the towering flanks of the mountain (their steepness exaggerated by the artist) and the tiny, fragile details of the landscape in the foreground – trees, bushes, hurrying figures. There is a pervasive sense of unease that is absent from the first Hiroshige’s landscapes: a brooding atmosphere of latent threat. In this image the volcano is a grey monster, overshadowing the landscape and stirring in its sleep.
That sense of latent threat is by no means misleading. When this print was published Asama’s half-century of quiescence was coming to an end. In 1869 a VEI=2 event marked the beginning of a pattern of frequent eruptions (over fifty between 1875 and 2008) that has continued to the present day. Asama’s most recent eruption was in February 2009.
For all ‘Saturday volcano art’ articles: Saturday volcano art « The Volcanism Blog.
Drift River Oil Terminal: what next? 28 August 2009
Posted by admin in Alaska, natural hazards, Redoubt, United States.Tags: Alaska, Drift River Oil Terminal, natural hazards, Redoubt
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The future of the Drift River Oil Terminal remains unclear, after a public meeting on Monday night that brought together the agencies responsible for the terminal and members of local communities revealed that no-one, including the people running the place, knows quite what happens next.
The oil terminal, which stands at the mouth of the Drift River in the path of lahars from Redoubt volcano (which continues to exhibit ‘significant activity’), was shut down after Redoubt erupted in March, and was finally drained of most of the stored oil that remained on-site at the end of April and beginning of May. There was talk in mid-July of the terminal coming back on line this month, but that seems to have been quietly forgotten. The word that came from the Cook Inlet Pipeline Company (CIPL) at the meeting, reports the Peninsula Clarion, is that the terminal ‘won’t be used to store more oil anytime in the near future’, but beyond that things are very vague. ‘We will work on long term plans’, says CIPL’s Rod Ficken, ‘there are a lot of different scenarios on the table’. In the immediate future a ‘tightline’ system will be used with oil stored in company tanks and piped direct to tankers without being stored at Drift River; longer term, tankage may be expanded at other regional facilities.
Meanwhile the ‘Unified Command’ established in March to oversee the terminal during the eruption is to disband and the facility is to be run and regulated as normal, a process which will involve using ‘transition’ as a verb:
Gary Folley, the state on-scene coordinator for DEC [Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation], complimented the UC [Unified Command] Monday night, on the responses and actions taken though the situation.
‘The formation of Unified Command was a big improvement from the response organization in 1989 and ’90. The main thing is that all the key decision makers were in one place and this allowed for quick decisions … It is now time for Unified Command to stand down. Regulatory oversight of the terminal will transition back to normal agency functions’, he said.
Environmental pressure group Cook Inletkeeper have long been worried about oil being stored at the Drift River terminal. Now that it seems oil will not be stored there but piped direct to tankers they are worried about that instead: ‘now, with the implementation of tightline operations, tanker traffic in the inlet will increase, posing the potential for new and increased risks’.
News
Public to hear plans for Drift River terminal – Anchorage Daily News, 14 August 2009
Kenai town hall discusses crude oil stored near Mount Redoubt – KTUU.com, 24 August 2009
No new oil to be stored near Mount Redoubt – KTUU.com, 25 August 2009
Sleepy but not gone to bed: Mount Redoubt continues to exhibit ‘significant activity’ – Peninsula Clarion, 26 August 2009
Oil terminal to stay unused: Cook Inlet production not anticipated to fully recover – Peninsula Clarion, 26 August 2009
Krakatau, 27 August 1883 27 August 2009
Posted by admin in anniversaries, eruptions, Indonesia, Krakatau, volcanological works.Tags: Krakatau, volcanic eruptions
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It was 126 years ago today, on 27 August 1883, that the most recent large-scale eruption of Krakatau (or Krakatoa, if you prefer) reached its final cataclysmic stage. An appropriate day, then, to draw the attention of interested readers to the fact that possibly the most detailed contemporary scientific study of the eruption, the Royal Society’s 500-page report on The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena (1888), is freely available to download from the Internet Archive.
The book has been fully digitized by Google, but it is a curious fact that Google chooses not to make the full text of this out-of-copyright publication available via Google Books. It is, however, freely available to read and download (along with many other texts that Google has digitized but has seemingly decided to keep to itself) through its inclusion in the Internet Archive.
The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena can be accessed via this page at the Internet Archive. The PDF of the entire book (27.2 MB) cannot be found via the ‘Google.com’ link given on that page, but can be downloaded through this direct link.
Koryaksky at the NASA Earth Observatory 27 August 2009
Posted by admin in Kamchatka, Koryaksky, NASA Earth Observatory, Russia, volcanoes.Tags: Kamchatka, Koryaksky, NASA Earth Observatory, Russia
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Russian volcano Koryaksky on the Kamchatka peninsula has been active recently, along with quite a few of its fellow Kamchatkan volcanoes. Earlier today NASA’s Aqua satellite passed overhead and its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) captured Koryaksky volcano producing a diffuse white plume which blows away to the east. The resulting image can be found at the NASA Earth Observatory.
The city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (population 200,000) is overlooked by Koryaksky and Avachinsky volcanoes, both highly active – the image above shows clearly just how close Koryaksky is to the city. Koryaksky has been designated a Decade Volcano jointly with Avachinsky because of its history of explosive eruptions and its proximity to populated areas.
Activity at Koryaksky volcano – NASA Earth Observatory (27 August 2009)
[Thanks to the Earth Observatory team for crediting this blog as a source of information in their post.]
Information
Global Volcanism Program: Koryaksky – information about Koryaksky (1000-09=)
KVERT: current volcanic activity – current activity for the Kamchatkan volcanoes (English)
Current activity of Koryaksky volcano – current status of Koryaksky and many images (Russian and English)
SI/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, 19-25 August 2009 26 August 2009
Posted by admin in activity reports, Batu Tara, Chaitén, Chile, Ecuador, eruptions, Fuego, Guatemala, Hawaii, Indonesia, Japan, Kamchatka, Kilauea, Koryaksky, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Popocatépetl, Russia, Sakura-jima, Tungurahua, Ubinas, United States.Tags: Global Volcanism Program, volcanic activity reports, volcanic eruptions
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The Smithsonian Institution/United States Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report for 19-25 August 2009 is available on the Global Volcanism Program website. The following is a summary and not a substitute for the full report.
- The current report: Weekly Volcanic Activity Report.
- Previous reports: Weekly Reports Archive.
- The SI/USGS map of volcanoes discussed this week.
New activity: Koryaksky (Russia).
Ongoing Activity: Bagana (Papua New Guinea), Batu Tara (Indonesia), Chaitén (Chile), Fuego (Guatemala), Kilauea (Hawaii, USA), Popocatépetl (Mexico), Sakura-jima (Japan), Shiveluch (Russia), Suwanose-jima (Japan), Tungurahua (Ecuador), Ubinas (Peru).
25 August 79AD 25 August 2009
Posted by admin in volcanoes.Tags: Pliny the Younger, Pompeii, Vesuvius, volcanic eruptions, volcanoes in art
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My dear Tacitus: You say that the letter I wrote for you about my uncle’s death made you want to know about my fearful ordeal at Misenum (this was where I broke off). ‘The mind shudders to remember … but here is the tale’.
After my uncle’s departure I finished up my studies, as I had planned. Then I had a bath, then dinner and a short and unsatisfactory night. There had been tremors for many days previously, a common occurrence in Campania and no cause for panic. But that night the shaking grew much stronger; people thought it was an upheaval, not just a tremor. My mother burst into my room and I got up. I said she should rest, and I would rouse her if need be. We sat out on a small terrace between the house and the sea. I sent for a volume of Livy; I read and even took notes from where I had left off, as if it were a moment of free time; I hardly know whether to call it bravery, or foolhardiness (I was seventeen at the time). Up comes a friend of my uncle’s, recently arrived from Spain. When he sees my mother and me sitting there, and me even reading a book, he scolds her for her calm and me for my lack of concern. But I kept on with my book.
Now the day begins, with a still hesitant and almost lazy dawn. All around us buildings are shaken. We are in the open, but it is only a small area and we are afraid, nay certain, that there will be a collapse. We decided to leave the town finally; a dazed crowd follows us, preferring our plan to their own (this is what passes for wisdom in a panic). Their numbers are so large that they slow our departure, and then sweep us along. We stopped once we had left the buildings behind us. Many strange things happened to us there, and we had much to fear.
