Volcanoes in the News: From Bardarbunga to Ontakesan

Ontakesan Volcano

There are so many active volcanoes around the world right now it is hard to keep track of them.

Yesterday, Mt. Ontakesan in Japan blew up without warning, and it has been a tragedy for hikers and climbers who were on the mountain. Searchers have rushed to the area to try and rescue people in the area, now covered in volcanic ash. But the volcano remains dangerous and is still erupting. I hope they find some survivors, but it's a grim situation.

Ontakesan Live Webcam

Webcam footage of pyroclastic flows from Mt #Ontake eruption. (In Japanese). http://t.co/I2BwwpiW2V pic.twitter.com/csCVrrqUhY
— Epic Cosmos (@EpicCosmos) September 27, 2014

Grim news from Reuters about Mt #Ontake. "Over 30 feared dead after Japan volcano spews ash and rock". http://t.co/g5y2bE1lQM
— Dave McGarvie (@subglacial) September 28, 2014

Rescue efforts resume on Japan's Mount #Ontake http://t.co/Q93fujq7jh pic.twitter.com/AqMkXMCGh5
— BBC News Asia (@BBCNewsAsia) September 28, 2014

Nagano Pref: 10 with serious injuries, 17 with lighter injuries, and 32 missing after the eruption of Mt. #Ontake. http://t.co/BApRfXJFm6
— Yuri Hiranuma (@YuriHiranuma) September 27, 2014

#Eruption Mt #Ontakesan #volcano (Japan) claims at least 31 lives! - http://t.co/fNgMXvww2Z pic.twitter.com/azVYAYzTcF
— Earthquake Report (@Quake_Tracker) September 28, 2014

The past few months, I've become addicted to the Iceland livecam for Bardarbunga, a significant volcano that is close enough to Europe to really cause trouble if it were to blow up suddenly. Bardarbunga is still significant for it's immense cloud of deadly sulfur dioxide that is already causing health concerns there in Iceland. And the Holuhraun lava field is growing by leaps and bounds. At night you can see the hot lava glowing as it streams away towards the sea. The main caldera of Bardarbunga seems to be sinking with every earthquake, and at night glows like the Eye of Sauron from Tolkien's tales - inspired by the old Icelandic sagas.

Bardarbunga Cam 1
Bardarbunga Cam 2





This video shows a volcano called Mt. Tavurvur that recently exploded in Papua New Guinea. Brace yourself for the boom! You can almost see the sound wave, and certainly can see the large boulders hitting the water. The people who caught this on camera were lucky not to be closer.



A report came out this weekend that Mt. Saint Helens in Washington State is possibly coming back to life. In fact, scientists don't really know why it ever stopped erupting.

From King5 News

Geologists were surprised that the mountain stopped erupting in 1986. "Many of us were expecting it to continue a while," said USGS seismologist Seth Moran.

The second lava dome, which started appearing in 2004, appeared at a different spot in the crater. Lava that appeared from 2004-08 was much more solid than during the earlier phase.

Even though the lava dome hasn't erupted since 2008, its shape still is changing.

"As it cools, it fractures and settles and falls apart," said Dan Dzurisin, a USGS geologist. Rockfall has also been changing the shape of the crater rim.

And 5 miles below the volcano, there are signs that the magma chamber that fueled both eruptions is recharging. Dzurisin said the USGS is focusing on the rate of recharging and whether the magma can compress in the chamber, rather than flowing toward an outlet to the earth's surface.

Mt. Saint Helens in Washington

Then there was an earthquake swarm this weekend under Mammoth Lakes, an ancient dormant volcano near the California/Nevada border. The USGS put out a warning that the movement had volcanic traits, while other experts believe it is merely shaking due to pressure from hot springs. (Of course hot springs go along with volcanoes, so....)

From UPI

The quakes struck the region between 9 a.m. Thursday and 1:49 a.m. Friday.
The USGS said it's because Mammoth Mountain, a lava-dome complex, lies along the rim of the Long Valley Caldera.
"Recent volcanic unrest, including seismicity, gas emission, and tree kill, is thought to be related to a dike intrusion beneath Mammoth Mountain in 1989," the USGS website said. "Both Long Valley Caldera and Mammoth Mountain have experienced episodes of heightened unrest over the last few decades (earthquakes, ground uplift, and/or volcanic gas emissions). As a result, the USGS manages a dense array of field sensors providing the real-time data needed to track unrest and assess hazards."

LA Times

The earthquakes may have been triggered by water pressure from area hot springs shifting through the ground surface, stressing tectonic plates. Scientists, Shelly said, are closely watching the earthquake swarm, but don’t believe it's connected to any magmatic activity.
Shelly said seismic analysts plan to review the swarm and update locations and magnitudes of the quakes, but the activity is not nearly on the size and scale of what was measured in the 1980s and 1990s.
. . . The Long Valley caldera is one of the most seismically active regions in the state, and is part of a quiet network of 17 volcanoes throughout California. Many of the older volcanoes haven't been active for thousands of years.
The last time the Long Valley caldera erupted was 50,000 years ago.

California Earthquake Swarm

There was a swarm of over 100 earthquakes in the past 24 hours in Southern California, some of them as high as magnitude 5.4, which is pretty strong. Tonight there was also a strong earthquake off the coast of El Salvador with a tsunami warning, but it's probably unrelated.

This is one of the largest swarms in the state since the 1970s. And overnight they are still rocking in the town of Brawley, California east of San Diego.

USGS Real Time Earthquake Map
USGS Recent Earthquake List for the World



Story from KTLA.com

The earthquakes began about 10 a.m. with a 3.8 magnitude temblor three miles northwest of Brawley, according to the USGS.

In the next 40 minutes, 11 additional quakes struck with a magnitude from 2.0 to 2.9.

The quakes picked up in intensity after noon, when a series of earthquakes were registered ranging from a magnitude of 2.0 to 5.4.

Residents in the desert communities near the California border to Mexico and Arizona reported feeling the quake, as well as residents as far as Monterey Park, Fullerton, Costa Mesa and San Diego.

A handful of buildings in downtown Brawley had minor damage after an earthquake swarm rattled the area Sunday, officials said. No injuries were reported.

Brawley is located about 16 miles from El Centro and 92 miles from Tijuana. In the last 10 days, there have been six earthquakes magnitude 3.0 and greater centered nearby.

These folks sure are strangely calm - I would have been out the door and down the road after the first one! *eep*



From the San Jose Mercury News

The city of Brawley activated an Emergency Operations Center and many of its 25,000 residents were on edge into early evening, City Councilman Sam Couchman said.

"Residents were a little jumpy all day,"Couchman said."It's over 100 degrees, but many left their residences and stayed outside seeking any shade they could."

. . . Sunday's series of more than 200 earthquakes, which scientists refer to as a swarm, all emanated from a small stretch of fault line about three to four kilometers long near Brawley, about 16 miles north of El Centro, according to Lucy Jones a United States Geological Survey seismologist.

"It's characteristic of the seismology of the Imperial Valley," she said.

Earthquakes and Fracking

Rachel Maddow did an excellent spot about the connections between natural gas "fracking"  - forcing wastewater from drilling into deep underground wells - and earthquakes in Texas where historically few have occurred.

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Science Nerd ~ Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

I'm an nerdish earthquake watcher and I probably check the USGS List several times a day. I think it helps in these days of  "Apocalypse Doomsday" prophecies to learn what is normal geological activity for the earth and what is not.
 USGS Earthquakes in the World ~ Past Seven Days
 USGS Nifty New Real-Time Shake Map
USGS General Information and Lists State by State

This week there have been at least four big earthquakes in two days, as well as myriad large aftershocks, which caused  LiveScience to wonder if these are somehow connected:

It's possible, geophysicists say, that quakes off the coast of Oregon, Michoacan, Mexico, and in the Gulf of California ranging from magnitudes 5.9 to 6.9 on the Richter Scale had something to do with the large earthquake that struck near Indonesia. But the west coast quakes were fairly standard for their location. "The Earth is in constant motion," said Aaron Velasco, a geophysicist at the University of Texas, El Paso. "I wouldn't necessarily say it's unusual, but we will definitely be looking at these earthquakes to see if there's any link between them."

But why didn't the big 8.6 quake in Indonesia this week cause a huge Tsunami like the one back in 2004 that killed so many people and destroyed villages all around the Indian Ocean? Here we go, via The Conversation:

It was a “strike-slip earthquake”, which results in the ground moving with a more side-to-side motion, rather than an up-and-down motion. The side-to-side motion means there isn’t much up-and-down movement of the sea floor, so the water isn’t disturbed much. As a result, large tsunamis usually don’t form from slip-strike earthquakes.

Most people don't realize how many strong earthquakes there are in the world on any given day. The Pacific "Ring of Fire" is the main area, and nearly every day you'll see new quakes 5.0 and above : Honshu, Japan, where three major geological plates are still sliding under the ocean after the Tsunami disaster last year; Vanuatu and the Mollucca Sea north of Australia; Offshore Chile, which has been rumbling since 2010; Mexico, which has live volcanoes and where there's a "swarm" happening around Oaxaca as well as the Gulf of California right now; and Alaska, which shakes all the time but has limited effect on humans due to the small population of the state. California is the opposite with people packed into cities large and small, but  residents laugh off the danger and try to ignore fears about "The Big One." Then there are occasional bursts of activity around the Greek Isles, Italy, Africa, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and even the Virgin Islands due to Volcanoes.

And this is the fun part of watching the earthquake list ~ once you are familiar with the "normal" quake areas, you can easily spot the oddities. The Virginia quake last year that shifted the Washington Monument was fascinating and historical, being felt as far away as New Jersey. The strange quakes in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Ohio that are possibly caused by gas-pipe "fracking" are unprecedented, and now those areas are hot-spots where there didn't used to be any quakes. But really earthquakes can happen in any state, so keep an eye on your shake map and be sure to report one if you feel it via the USGS interactive website!
Earthquake Map For the U.S. Heartland