Volcano Research
eklemetti | October 16, 2009Mt. Hood seen from Portland, Oregon. Image courtesy of the USGS/CVO.
I will be returning to my old haunts in Oregon (got my Ph.D. from Oregon State University - and yes, that is me in the upper left hand corner) for the next 6 days for the the Cascades, CVO and the multitude of igneous-rock-studying folks at Oregon State, Portland State, Univ. of Oregon, Univ. of Washington and so on, there is an awful lot to see. Two sessions I'm especially excited about are on supervolcanic/ignimbrite flareups and the Cascades volcanism and tectonics. A couple of these talks/posters I had some hand in, so…
eklemetti | October 14, 2009Happy Earth Science Week!
Mt. Baker in Washington, USA.
The Mount Baker Volcano Research Center (MBVCC) run out of Western Washington University has posted a series of new pictures and movies of the summit region of Mt. Baker (taken from 2006 to 2009). They also sent out links to some great images of the recently-exposed edge of the old crater rim on Mt. Baker. The crater had been buried by the ice/snow cap on the volcano until this year, but John Scurlock was able to capture a photo of the rim of the crater from an airplane this summer. The grey layer is ash/tephra likely from activity at…
eklemetti | October 8, 2009I mentioned this at the end of the post on recent Nature paper by Castro and Dindwell on the speed of rhyolite magma ascent at Chaiten, but I'll break it out to get your attention:
>Do you have a burning question about the Chaiten magma you'd love to be able to ask Dr. Castro? He has kindly offered to answer some questions about Chaiten and his research for Eruptions readers. Send me your questions at
and I'll choose some of them for Dr. Castro to answer. I'll post the interview and the answers to your questions here on the blog.
So do it! Send me your questions for Dr. Castro!
eklemetti | October 8, 2009Chaiten has made it back into the news in the past couple days, both with new events at the caldera and with findings from the initial blast in May 2008. Here goes:
Chaiten erupting in 2008.
Third Dome Spotted
The latest USGS/SI Weekly Volcanic Activity Report mentions that over the last week, Chaiten experienced what was likely a significant dome collapse of one of the two domes growing in the caldera. People living close enough to the volcano to see the ash plume noticed it became larger and darker on September 29th. Afterwards, visual observations of the caldera by air confirmed that a…
eklemetti | October 2, 2009News to finish up your week:
Summit area of Hualalai in Hawai'i
Another day, another "threat" of volcanic eruption in Australia. I'm impressed with the abject fear Aussies seem to have for this perceived increased threat of an eruption - or at least what the press wants you to believe. This time, watch out near Bundaberg, Townsville and Cooktown in southeast Queensland!
In more press-related exaggeration, the Siberian Traps - a flood basalt eruption from, well, thousands of rift/vents in Siberia - is boiled down to being one Siberian volcano by the Telegraph. Dr. Mark Sephton of the Imperial…
eklemetti | September 29, 2009As fall descends on the northern hemisphere, spring starts in the southern. Luckily for us, it means that we get better views of the southern Andes in Chile ... which means the NASA EO could train one of the many "eyes in the sky" (specifically the EO-1) on Chaiten. The volcano is still erupting, going on 16 months, since it caught everyone off guard in May of 2008. As you can tell from the image (linked and below), Chaiten is slowly filling in the pre-2008 caldera with new rhyolite dome growth - you can see that the pre-2008 dome within the caldera (see the picture taken from the ISS in 2003…
eklemetti | September 28, 2009A bit of news for your last Monday in September:
Pumice deposits from the ~13,000 year old Laacher See eruption. Image by Erik Klemetti, taken in August 2007.
More press for Dr. Joyce and his campaign to make the people of Australia terrified that volcanoes will destroy them. He warns of "new volcanoes" springing up in the Ballarat region to the northwest of Melbourne (which, incidentally, is where I pointed out might be the most likely place for future volcanism). Yes, sure, we should expect that a new, unknown scoria cone may form in the Newer Volcanic Province - I mean, that is what…
eklemetti | September 23, 2009Some brief tidbits for your Wednesday:
The view of Mt. Saint Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory.
There is a decent article about research being done at a dissected caldera system in the Italian Alps' Sesia Valley. The caldera in question is the Permian in age (248-298 million years old) so don't expect to find it in the GVP database, but the outcrops of this ancient caldera are especially well exposed, allowing for a cross section of volcano and plutonic rocks across 25 km of crustal depth (all of which is now at the surface thanks to hundreds of millions years of tectonics). It does…
eklemetti | September 22, 2009The Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland, Australia.
Nothing makes me shudder like any article titled "Blankety-blank volcano is overdue". Typically the article that follows is full of nothing but vapid speculation and media fear-mongering. So, it wasn't too surprising that an article titled "Volcano eruption 'overdue'" in the Brisbane Times (amongst many other sites) didn't disappoint (or, in particular, it did). Dr. Bernie Joyce is quoted as saying "It is much more likely to be a matter of when, rather than if..." in regards to potential future volcanism on the Australian continent.…
eklemetti | September 4, 2009Lets get right to it!
"Manmade volcanoes": can they solve global warming?
It does indeed seem that something is happening beneath Kanlaon in the Philippines. PHIVOLCS reports that the volcano experienced 257 volcanic earthquakes from August 23 to September 1, well above the usually "background" level of ~20-30 a week. Most of this seismicity is centered on the northwest slope of the volcano, suggesting that if magma is moving, it is moving up under this side of the system. However, the seismicity doesn't necessarily have to be magma moving up to erupt. It could very easily be moving up in the…
eklemetti | September 2, 2009The move is complete (finally) ... so maybe I can settle down a bit, right? Right?
The world's deadliest volcano?
Anyway, a few things I stumbled across this week:
Forbes Traveler.com has a list boldly titled "World's Deadliest Volcanoes", which more or less is a slideshow of nice volcano pictures and some dubious ranking - mostly based on death toll (and cribbing a bit from IAVCEI's "Decade Volcanoes"). Of course, I find it amusing that they made a list of "deadliest volcanoes" and then proceed to tell people (read "tourists") what to do near the so-called "deadly" volcanoes. I suppose it is…
eklemetti | August 31, 2009First day of class! As you might imagine, I'm a little scattered (well, with classes and the fact that we bought a house over the weekend. You know, just that).
The Tavurvur Crater at Rabaul erupting in 1994.
News!
The Examiner.com (SF) has a slideshow and brief article on the current excavations of ruins buried by the Santorini/Minoan eruption that occurred ~3950 years ago. The eruption wiped out much of the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea, but whether there was anyone actually still living on the island when it happened is still a mystery. It seems that most of the Minoans left the…
eklemetti | August 28, 2009Not much in volcano news, however a lot of earthquake news this morning.
Did anyone else notice that two M6+ earthquakes occurred last night within one minute of each other last night (eastern daylight time)? The first was in the Banda Sea near Indonesia at 01:51:19 UTC (M6.8), the next was in northern Qinhai in China at 01:52:06 UTC (M6.2). I'm guessing that is just the sort of coincidences that occur when you have thousands of earthquakes globally a week, but still an interesting coincidence. There was also a series of earthquakes, all less than M3.7, last night in Oklahoma of all places.…
eklemetti | August 23, 2009Some brief notes before I dive headlong into the exciting world of faculty orientation!
A small steam plume coming from Turrialba in Costa Rica. Photo taken in August 2007.
There are some preliminary reports of the state of wildlife (and everything) around Kasatochi Island in the Aleutians from the US F&W and USGS team that headed to check out how the island has recovered since last year's eruption. The shoreline has been radically transformed by the ash and although some seabirds have made attempts to nest in the loose ash, it doesn't seem to have been very successful. However, not…
eklemetti | August 20, 2009I've gotten a number of questions about volcano books as of late, so I thought I'd write a little post detailing my favorite volcano-related tomes, mostly pitched towards people without a geology-background, but some technical books for those of you who want the gory details (and be sure, they can be very, very gory).
Pumice from the Newberry Flow of the Devil's Hills scattered on the soil near South Sister, Oregon. Image by Erik Klemetti, September 2008.
Anyway, here we go!
General volcanology:
- Teach Yourself Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunamis by David Rothery (Teach Yourself Series,…
eklemetti | August 17, 2009I knew that the minute I said I'd be back to a "regular" posting schedule that I would fail miserably, so maybe the less said, the better.
Cerro Galan caldera in Argentina (taken from space).
Thanks to all the readers who have been avidly discussing a number of fascinating topics over the weekend.
I have seen/read a little bit about the tectonic-forcing mechanism idea for some caldera-style eruptions. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that the caldera-forming event - that is to say the collapse of the roof into the chamber - isn't usually the "trigger" as much as a result of a large…
eklemetti | August 9, 2009Does anyone else feel like this has been a rather quiet summer, volcano-wise? Maybe I've been too preoccupied by my move to Ohio, but I feel like beyond a few relatively minor events (Shiveluch comes to mind), the volcano news has been pretty slow compared to the spring of this year. Go figure.
The sulfur dioxide plume from the 2008 eruption of Kasatochi spreading over the northern Pacific Ocean.
Anyway, a few tidbits to tide us over:
Over eighteen years after the eruption, Mt. Pinatubo is still causing fatalities from the copious amounts of tephra deposited during the 1991 event. Five people…
eklemetti | July 30, 2009The next up in my Volcano Profiles Series, is one of the most remote volcanoes on the planet, yet also one of the more closely studied and monitored (albeit from afar). Joining Vesuvius, Hood and Rabaul is Mt. Erebus, an active volcano on Ross Island in Antarctica and it definitely has some unique features.
VOLCANO PROFILE: MT. EREBUS
Mt. Erebus in Antarctica with a local resident in the foreground.
Location: Antarctica* (technically, it is on the part of Antarctica claimed by New Zealand, but the Antarctic Treaty System more or less makes the continent an international zone.)
Height: 3,794…
eklemetti | July 20, 2009Starting today and going until early August, you might see fewer posts on Eruptions than you're accustomed. This is because I'm in the process of moving to Ohio to get set up to start my new job as an assistant professor at Denison University. I'm excited about the move, but as you can imagine, trying to pull up stakes in California and trek two-thirds of the way across the continent will take up a lot of my time. I will miss the easy access to volcanoes here on the Left Coast, but I am excited to get (mostly) permanent employment, set up my own lab and to be able to teach geology again!…
eklemetti | July 8, 2009Two papers submitted, one to go. Keeps you quite busy, let me tell you.
Lava flow from a 2006 eruption on Mayon in the Philippines.
A few bits of news today:
A few more details about the ongoing watch of Mayon in the Philippines . There have been apparently no changes in the shape of the floor of the crater as you might expect if magma was rising underneath. However, there has been an overall inflation of Mayon since the unrest began a few weeks ago. PHIVOLCS will be checking the sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide output of the volcano soon as well.
Lots of articles this week about the "…