Volcano Research

News! Toba caldera in Indonesia. We're all still talking about the Chilean earthquake and the coverage of the event. If you happen to live in the Columbus area, you might have heard me on WTVN talking about the earthquake as well. The Toba (Indonesia) eruption 74,000 years ago has been used by some researchers to be the cause of a "genetic bottleneck" for humans - however, that is still much debated. Currently, excavations are under away near Toba to look for evidence of human habitation that was buried by the eruption. The evidence of stone tools that appear to be made by the same human…
Catching up with some news: Anatahan erupting in the northern Mariana Islands in 2003. I ran across this article right before I got sick, but its been popping up around the interwebs (and is pretty interesting). It details a study in Molecular Ecology that suggests that populations of caribou in Canada's Yukon Territory were strongly effected by the White River Tephra. The White River Tephra is supposedly the largest Holocene plinian tephra (from a ash cloud fallout), with two components dating from ~1900 years ago and ~1250 years ago. The vent for the WRT is likely from a vent beneath the…
Long week, quick news: Tiatia in Russia erupting in an undated photo. The latest USGS/Smithsonian Institution _blank">Weekly Volcano Activity Report is up. One interesting bit in the report is a thermal anomaly at _blank">Tiatia in Russia (just north of Japan in the Kuril Islands) - a volcano for which I am unfamiliar. However, it sounds great according to the _blank">GVP: "Tiatia volcano, one of the most impressive of the Kuril Islands, consists of a beautifully symmetrical cone that rises above the broad rim of an erosionally furrowed, 2.1 x 2.4 km wide caldera. The volcano last…
Some news for the last Friday in January: Volcanic lightning captured over Redoubt in March 2009. Tungurahua in Ecuador continues to erupt. Yesterday, the volcano spread ash over much of central Ecuador. Apparently people in Ecuador aren't taking the hazard of ash too seriously, with many ignoring recommendations to wear masks when the ash is falling. Over 50 explosions have been recorded over the last 24 hours at the volcano according to the Ecuadorian Instituto GeofÃsico, most of them small to moderate. We also have a new USGS/Smithsonian Institute Volcano Activity Report. Much of the "new…
Quick news updates for a Wednesday... The island (and volcano) of Gran Canaria in the Atlantic Ocean. It last erupted in ~20 B.C. The earthquakes keep coming at Yellowstone - up to a M3.5 in the last 24 hours. Time has already put up an article wondering about whether people need worry about the swarm (there might be other things to worry about before this swarm). YVO's statement on the earthquake swarm seems pretty standard (as it should be): "At this time the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory does not consider the swarm to be unusual and the earthquakes are likely related to tectonic fault…
The weekend! No updates until next Tuesday - I'll be off to give a talk at Western Michigan University. Coal-erupting volcanoes defeat the Permian dinosaurs ... according to FOX News. Anyway... You know that mainstream media (FOXNews) must have done something appalling when even I can't write about it thanks to my seething rage. I'll let Chris Rowan at Highly Allochthonous and Ralph at the Volcanism Blog sum up how FOX News tried to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs (hint 1: it happened before dinosaurs even existed. hint 2: volcanoes erupt coal now). After you've read about that…
Here it is, my attempt to recap a year's worth of volcanic events. By no means is this supposed to capture every event, but rather the highlight/lowlights and what most captivated me during 2009. I'll be announcing the winner of the 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year tomorrow. Waimangu Geothermal Valley in New Zealand, taken in January 2009 by Erik Klemetti. January The year started out with a trip to New Zealand (well, for me at least) and vistas of the Waimangu Valley, formed in the 1886 eruption of Tarawera on the North Island. We were also still thinking about the late 2008…
Finals day for me, so I'll be grading grading grading ... but first, a little news: The May 2009 eruption of West Mata. Image courtesy of NSF and NOAA. I covered it in May, but the popular press is now all over the West Mata undersea eruption - mostly thanks to the media boost that AGU can give you. It is worth checking out the new articles on the eruption in the Lau Basin near the Marianas, mostly because of the nifty video of the eruption. In the video, you can clearly see both an explosive component of the eruption as gas "burps" out through a cooled carapace and a more effusive pillow…
Some news for today: Yellowstone National Park, USA. Another fine example of media headline versus actual research, an article in the Jackson Hole Daily about a new study by Dr. Robert Smith and others on the Yellowstone plume was titled "Park's giant magma plume eating up mountains". Yikes! Well, the actual study published recently in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research is more about the geophysical parameters of the Yellowstone plume - a plume that might reach as far as 500 km below the caldera itself. As for the mountain eating part, I think they were trying to get at the…
Back to work after Thanksgiving Break ... lets clean up a few news items I missed trying to figure out the non-eruption of Karkar. Undated photo of the summit area of Gaua, Vanuatu. There was an actual eruption - or, more correctly, a continued eruption - of Gaua in Vanuatu. The current activity has prompted the evacuation of 300 villagers from the island and they will not be able to return until activity wanes. Tourists were also told to stay away from the volcano, but the airport on the island has not been affected by the eruption, which might suggest the activity is relatively localized.…
Here is Part 2 of the Q&A with Dr. Boris Behncke. You can also check out Part 1. Undated image of Stromboli in eruption. (Shirakawa Akira) 1. Would a large scale eruption (VEI 5 or greater) of Mt. Etna like the ones occurred in 122 BC and 1500 BC (disputed) be possible again in the foreseeable future? Or is the volcano slowly "dying" although the last eruption ended in July 2009 has been one of the longest ever recorded? 2. Not really related to volcanism, but close: does INGV plan to distribute seismic data from seismic stations of its Rete Sismica Nazionale, including stations from…
First off, I want to thank Dr. Behncke for taking the time to answer your questions - and also, thank you to all who sent him some thought-provoking questions. In fact, the questions and answers take up about 12 pages of text, so the Q&A will be divided into two parts. If you want to see one of the previous in the Q&A series, check out:Dr. Jonathan Castro. Question and Answer with Dr. Boris Behncke of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Catania. Dr. Boris Behncke. Questions for Dr. Boris Behncke (Bernard Duyck) Qu'en est-il de l'évolution du mécanisme é…
Back from Iowa, time for some volcano news. Look for the answers to your questions for Dr. Boris Behncke to get posted later this week. (And thanks for all the comments and kind words in the Open Thread. I'll start thinking about how to implement a lot of these in the next few weeks). Undated photo of Volcan Galeras in Colombia. Galeras stopped traffic near Pasto, Colombia and prompted the evacuation of 1,000 people over the weekend when it erupted. The volcano apparently produced ash that covered towns near the volcano, including Pashto, and the highway connected that town with Pasto was…
Geologic and structural map showing the extent of the Campi Flegrei caldera on the north of the Bay of Naples, Italy. Image courtesy of INGV. One of the writing assignments I always enjoyed in high school was the "compare and contrast". You could sit back and look for stylistic differences between writers and texts - potentially offering signs about the nature of the writers motivations. I still find it fun - case in point, two article I read about the research drilling that is about to start at the Campei Flegrei in Italy. The Campei Flegrei is a large caldera system that most recently…
Lava flows from the 2005 Mando Hararo eruption in Ethiopia. Alright, I had been attempting to ignore this story because it was, well, a little uninteresting at first, but it apparently has legs so I will tackle it. Slashdot has a post proclaiming:'Volcanic activity may split the African continent in two, creating a new ocean, say experts. This is due to a recent geological crack which has appeared in northeastern Ethiopia.' OK. Where do I start? This is based on a recent study published in Geophysical Research Lettersthat found that the recent volcanism in Ethiopia is related to the active…
There have been a number of articles floating around the popular press for the last week that I thought I would touch on briefly ... always fun to decipher the real news from the hype. Active fumaroles on Datun Mountain in Taipei. An article out of the Taipei Times suggests that the city of Taipei in Taiwan is in great peril from Datun Mountain/volcano. The volcano, which was previously thought to have erupted ~200,000 years ago is now thought to have erupted only 5,000 years ago. That 195,000 years really does make a difference in terms of worrying about potential future eruptions, but there…
A few weeks ago I asked you to submit questions on the 2008-present Chaiten eruption in Chile to pose to Dr. Jonathan Castro. Dr. Castro recently had a paper on the ascent rates of Chaiten rhyolite published in Nature and he kindly volunteered to answer your questions. Here are the answers to selected questions ... enjoy! Chaiten in Chile erupting in 2009. Image by Dr. Jonathan Castro. Dr. Jonathan CastroBiography: B.S. from Humboldt State University Ph.D. from University of Oregon* Currently a Research Geologist at CNRS-Institut for Sciences de la Terre, Oreans, France Soon moving on to…
The southern Washington (and northern Oregon) Cascades, with Hood (foreground), St. Helens and Adams (middle) and Rainier (background). Remember a few months ago when an abstract from a meeting got people are ruffled because the study said there was a "giant magma chamber" feeding all three of St. Helens, Adams and Rainier in the Cascades? Well, Nature Geosciences has been kind enough to publish the work (the article) and yes, yet again, we can say it is still most likely not true at all. Graham Hill and others claim that their magnetotelluric work in the Cascades show that a vast magma…
I finally remembered to bring my GSA notes with me to the office, so I can finally post a wrap up of what I saw/heard at the big 2009 meeting in Portland. I'll have a specific post on Kasatochi - too much to say here. However, a great time was had by all! The crater of Collier Cone in Oregon. The scoria cone likely experienced years of explosive strombolian eruptions when it formed. Some interesting volcano-related notes: Clive Oppenheimer pointed out that the Toba eruption 74,000 years ago covered >1% of the Earth's surface with >10 cm (~4 in) ash. To put that in perspective, the Earth…
I did a really terrible job of updating during the Geological Society of America meeting - mostly because (a) I was way too busy, (b) an iffy internet connection at my home and (c) a lack of concentration. However, there was quite a bit of interesting info I heard which I'll likely post tomorrow including: The northern Cascades of the US are filled with calderas. The eruption of Kasatochi was quite impressive (if you didn't think so already). Bubbles at Erebus come from deep down. Holocene volcanism in Colorado. Thanks to all the people I met this week as well, including Callan Bentley, Tuff…