Send me your questions ... and spreading the Eruptions word

Back in the ol' Wordpress days, I did try to have a Mailbag column here on Eruptions. I'd like to restart that here on ScienceBlogs, so if you have any volcano-related questions (or heck, any questions), please email them to me at ewklemett (at symbol) gmail (dot) com. After I get enough questions, I'll answer them in a weekly (biweekly? monthly?) column.

Also, if you're into this sort of thing, why not follow Eruptions via Facebook. Click on the link for "Networked Blogs" in the bottom left cover of this page.

While you're at it, if you like what you see here, recommend these articles on your website of choice: Digg, Technorati, Reddit, Slashdot, Twitter, whatever. The more people we have reading about volcanoes, reporting from afar and talking about the hazards/joys of volcanoes, the better.

Thanks to all the readers of Eruptions so far ... !

More like this

If you believe the maxim "the more the merrier," then you would have LOVED the session which I am proud to say was my first as a moderator. I wasn't alone - nine other fantastic people worked with me. Our collective goal was to do the impossible: to give a complete 101 on how to explain science in…
You might have thought we'd have a new study for you to participate in this week. You're half right. If you've read CogDaily, Terra Sigillata, Uncertain Principles, or Chaotic Utopia in the past two weeks, you've actually been participating in today's non-scientific study. ScienceBloggers have a…
When I was designing my summer session class, I ran into a problem. If I really wanted my students to achieve the course goals, they would need to spend a lot of time on a computer. In a 3-times-a-week lecture course, I might expect them to do that work outside of class, but we were going to be…
As you can see, Scienceblogs.com has a new look. There is no more left sidebar and the right sidebar looks different, the cute banners different blogs had is replaced with a new standardized banner usually with a picture of the blogger. The 24 hour page and some other bits are (depending on when…

I already dig this blog... I thought about the mailbag thing, but, well, you'll see. maybe you'll have fewer nightmares.

Why would old shipwrecks appear to resurface when a volcano seems to be impending a eruption? Is the water retreating? Or is there gases from the volcano that are being emitted that might cause the displacement of the water and therefore the ships remerge?

Ok. You're at a movie with friends. In the movie some paleontologists are digging away. One of them digs up an Ammonite. Then a volcano starts erupting, practically underneath them. Turns out these people are somewhere on Iceland.

What do you do?

Hunter,

I know there isn't a hard and fast rule about ships resurfacing before a volcanic eruption.

However, I'll go out a bit of a limb and suppose that you watched a tv show on Yellowstone within the past few weeks. At Yellowstone lake a previously submerged boat is now partially above water. Over many years there has been some inflation of the lake - And also some tilting of it.
Yellowstone lake has also experienced hydrothermal eruptions of a massive scale in the past.Wet areas under the lake may get heated up and build up pressure and cause a steam explosion that can be very dangerous for anyone near or on the lake. Think of a hydrothermal explosion as old Faithful - but maybe up to ten thousand times larger.

Islands that are rising due to magma intrusion can grow from magma intrusions below and may push the Island higher out of the water and bring sunken ships to the surface.
Captain Cook landed on Iwo Jima hundreds of years ago and it has risen 40 meters since then. Iwo Jima is based in a submerged caldera. So, if there was any vessel sunk around Iwo Jima it could have been raised out of the water as the Island rose over the hundreds of years since Captain Cook set foot on it.

By Thomas Donlon (not verified) on 08 Apr 2009 #permalink

Thanks Thomas Donlon. Your answer makes lots of sense.