Volcanoes in Japan, Colombia and Chile spew ash – Colombian airport closed

The Extinction Protocol

July 2015 – JAPAN – Ōwaku Valley, a part of Mount Hakone with high volcanic activity, has been showing more signs of an impending eruption recently. The smoke which regularly issues from its vents was mingled with ash, turning noticeably gray, for about ten seconds around noon on July 21. On June 30 and July 1, it had also erupted on a very small scale, ejecting material to a distance of over 100 meters (328 feet), which technically meets the qualifications for an “eruption.” (The distance material from the recent eruption was ejected has not yet been measured.) However, tremors associated with volcanic eruptions have not been recorded. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, “it has the characteristics of an eruption, but that would have an effect on disaster prevention by inciting residents’ anxieties, so the term ‘eruption’ is not appropriate.” – Rocket News 24

Colombian Airport closed: Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted in an ash cloud on Sunday, prompting authorities to temporarily close two airports in the area. The civil aeronautics agency said it closed airports at Manizales and Pereira as a precaution after the 8:30 am (1330 GMT) eruption. This resulted in the cancellation of at least 16 flights on Sunday. A major eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz in 1985 melted the volcano’s snowcap, unleashing mudslides that wiped out the town of Armero, killing an estimated 23,000 people. The volcano, which has been active for an estimated 150,000 years, is 220 kilometers (137 miles) west of Bogota. - Yahoo News

Chile: The Cabulco volcano in southern Chile has erupted twice in the last 24 hours after being dormant for decades. And there may be more action on the way. CBSN’s Anne-Marie Green and David Begnaud discuss what geologists are monitoring. –Yahoo News

The Extinction Protocol

 

Are we ready for the next volcanic catastrophe?

Watts Up With That?

Eric Worrall writes: The Guardian has published an unusually interesting article about the danger to our civilisation, of a new Tambora scale volcanic eruption.

According to Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL;

“In April 1815, the biggest known eruption of the historical period blew apart the Tambora volcano, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, 12,000km from the UK. What happened next testifies to the enormous reach of the biggest volcanic blasts.
The Tambora volcano had shown no signs of life for 1,000 years; a single eruption in the previous five millennia provided the only indication that magma was still churning far beneath. It is very likely that the residents of the island considered the volcano extinct, and possible even that they did not know the impressive 4,300m (14,107ft) mountain – at the time, probably the highest in the East Indies – was a volcano at all. This all changed, however, with the rumblings and earthquakes of 1812, a full three years before the climactic blast. Over time, the seismic shocks were superseded by steam blasts and small ash explosions, engendering increasing trepidation on the island and signalling that something bigger might be imminent. It was. On 5 April 1815, a titanic explosion hurled a cloud of ash to a height of more than 30km.”
…
The consequences for the developed societies of the northern hemisphere were dire. A dry, sulphurous, fog draped itself across the landscape of eastern North America, causing temperatures to plunge and bringing unprecedented summer cold. In New York State, snow fell in June, while the bitter cold and killing frosts wiped out crops and halved the length of the growing season across much of the region. On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe saw summer temperatures down by 2C compared to the average for the decade; the unseasonal cold accompanied by incessant rains and – into the following winter – by unusually powerful storms. Analysis of climate records reveals that 1816, the so-called “year without a summer”, was the second coldest in the northern hemisphere of the past six centuries.”
Read more http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/28/are-we-ready-for-the-next-big-volcanic-eruption-tambora-bill-mcguire

McGuire adds a minor obligatory genuflection towards climate change, this is after all The Guardian – but unusually for a Guardian story about the environment, the focus of the article is not on the alleged dangers of our industrial output of CO2. And what McGuire says is entirely pertinent – a Tambora style eruption could kill millions of people from starvation, as massive crop failures caused food prices to skyrocket. And Tambora is not the worst which could happen – The Toba eruption, which occurred 74,000 years ago, blackened the sky, causing massive die backs across the world – and may even have almost ended the human race. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#Genetic_bottleneck_theory

McGuire then goes on to list a few of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes – though interestingly the Indonesian volcano Merapi, an unstable giant slumbering adjacent to a city of 3 million people, doesn’t make his list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Merapi

These colossal global catastrophes of the past, and the certainty that similar catastrophes will occur again in the future, maybe even in our lifetime, really puts the feeble temperature wobbles which are ascribed to humans into perspective.

Icelandic Bárðarbunga volcanic eruption begins

Watts up With That?

From the Icelandic Met Office

It is believed that a small subglacial lava-eruption has begun under the Dyngjujökull glacier.

The aviation color code for the Bárðarbunga volcano has been changed from orange to red. Image follows.

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Yellowstone Volcano: Supervolcano Eruption Would Last for ‘Many Months,’ Possible Even ‘Years’

Epoch Times

An eruption of the Yellowstone National Park supervolcano could last for over a year.

The park sits on top of the world’s largest active volcano, which erupted around 640,000 years ago and sent ash across most of North America.

The two other recorded eruptions are 1.3 million and 2.1 million years ago.

While discussing the effects of an eruption, supervolcano scientist Bob Smith told NBC that an eruption could last for a long time.

“These giant eruptions in Yellowstone – the supervolcano, if you wish — probably last many, many months, maybe even years,” Smith said.

The story also discussed news that is actually six months old–that Smith and other scientists discovered that the magma pool underneath the volcano is about 2.5 times larger than previously thought.

They found that the cavern stretches for more than 55 miles. ”We’ve been working there for a long time, and we’ve always thought it would be bigger… but this finding is astounding,” Smith, who is a professor at the University of Utah, told BBC at the time.

The team used a network of seismometers to map the gigantic chamber.

“We record earthquakes in and around Yellowstone, and we measure the seismic waves as they travel through the ground,” said Dr. Jamie Farrell, also of the University of Utah.

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The Tungurahua volcano spews lava

Reuters (tumblr)
 
The Tungurahua volcano spews lava as pictured from the city of Huambalo, Ecuador, February 3, 2014. An orange alert was issued in response to the volcanic activity. REUTERS/Cris Toala Olivares

At least 14 killed as Mount Sinabung volcano erupts in Indonesia

The Independent

At least 14 people have been killed in a catastrophic volcanic eruption in Indonesia, just a day after authorities allowed thousands of villagers to return to their homes on its slopes. 

Residents in the “danger zone” around Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra, which had been rumbling for months, had been evacuated for their safety but were told that activity was decreasing before the eruption on Saturday.

The 8,530ft volcano spewed lava and searing gas, sending rocks and burning ash raining down its southern slopes.

Televison footage showed pyroclastic flows of hot gas and rock reaching up to three miles away and villages covered in thick grey ash.

A local television journalist and four high-school students with their teacher, who were visiting the mountain to see the eruptions up close, were among the dead, according to National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho. At least three other people were injured and authorities fear the death toll will rise.

Authorities in western Sumatra had evacuated more than 30,000 people, housing them in cramped tents, schools and public buildings but many had been desperate to return to check on homes and farms.

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Risk of 'cataclysmic' supervolcano eruption far greater than thought

 

 Pu'u O'o lava lake in 1998 by Brad Lewis

The Independent

The eruption of a “supervolcano” hundreds of times more powerful than conventional volcanoes – with the potential to wipe out civilisation as we know it – is more likely than previously thought, a study has found. 

An analysis of the molten rock within the dormant supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park in the United States has revealed that an eruption is possible without any external trigger, scientists said.

Scientists previously believed many supervolcanic eruptions needed earthquakes to break open the Earth’s crust so magma could escape. But new research suggests that this can happen as a result of the build-up of pressure.

Supervolcanoes represent the second most globally cataclysmic event – next to an asteroid strike – and they have been responsible in the past for mass extinctions, long-term changes to the climate and shorter-term “volcanic winters” caused  by volcanic ash cutting out the sunlight.

The last known supervolcanic eruption was believed to have occurred about 70,000 years ago at the site today of Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It caused a volcanic winter that blocked out the sun for between six to eight years, and resulted in a period of global cooling lasting a thousand years.

A supervolcano under Yellowstone Park in Wyoming last erupted about 600,000 years ago, sending more than 1,000 cubic kilometres of ash and lava into the atmosphere – about 100 times more than the Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1982, which caused a noticeable period of global cooling. 

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New island emerges off the coast of Tokyo after volcano eruption

Comment: To say that the Earth has serious indigestion at the moment would be an understatement...

See also: Seven Volcanoes In Six Different Countries All Start Erupting Within Hours Of Each Other 

Earth's massive extinction: The story gets worse

Physorg

Scientists have uncovered a lot about the Earth's greatest extinction event that took place 250 million years ago when rapid climate change wiped out nearly all marine species and a majority of those on land. Now, they have discovered a new culprit likely involved in the annihilation: an influx of mercury into the eco-system.

"No one had ever looked to see if mercury was a potential culprit. This was a time of the greatest volcanic activity in Earth's history and we know today that the largest source of mercury comes from volcanic eruptions," says Dr. Steve Grasby, co-author of a paper published this month in the journal Geology. "We estimate that the mercury released then could have been up to 30 times greater than today's volcanic activity, making the event truly catastrophic." Grasby is a research scientist at Natural Resources Canada and an adjunct professor at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Benoit Beauchamp, professor of geology at the University of Calgary, says this study is significant because it's the first time mercury has been linked to the cause of the massive extinction that took place during the end of the Permian.

"Geologists, including myself should be taking notes and taking another look at the other five big extinction events," says Beauchamp, also a co-author.

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Chile volcanoes spew ash

BBC News