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.

Warnings About the Eurozone

The Republicans can blame President Obama or do-nothing Ben Bernanke for all the economic problems, but this mess in the Eurozone gets worse week after week, and while you can possibly put blame on the Bush Administration and Wall Street for starting the crisis in Europe, this is also a political problem that only those countries can solve. However, while we wait for that to happen, the angst and fear emanating from the Eurozone make the markets seem unstable even on a good day, and every weekend there is some dire warning just before the Monday opening. This week is no different.

A few weeks ago, Mario Draghi, European Central Bank President, made a speech promising to do "whatever it takes" to save the Euro. But his words didn't calm the markets, which instead reacted negatively. They just aren't buying what he is selling, so to speak. Then he spoke again last Thursday, to mixed reviews.

"It's pointless to bet against the Euro," he said.


Can Draghi Turn the EU Ship Around?

Draghi, when he spoke late last week in Frankfurt, did not step away from his sweeping “whatever it takes” reassurance of the week before. In fact, he reaffirmed that the ECB would enter the bond markets to keep sovereign borrowing rates down. And he put this every which way he could. The central bank would “undertake outright open-market operations of a size adequate to reach its objective.” Interest rates, he said later, “that are related to fears of the reversibility of the euro are unacceptable, and they need to be addressed in a fundamental manner.”

What changed? Nothing of consequence. Draghi spoke a little more technocratically, offering details and leaving behind the billboard headlines. He implicitly acknowledged a target yield on European sovereign debt. That amounts to another commitment to whatever it takes.

In the meantime, Germany’s central bank president, Jens Weidmann, repeated that Germany was against the ECB’s latest thinking about bond buying.

Meanwhile: Italy's President is in a panic, and sees the Euro collapsing:

Mario Monti Sees Euro Alliance Dissolving

Monti, in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine published yesterday, said that disagreements within the 17- nation euro area are detracting from the policy response to the debt crisis and undermining the future of the European Union.

“The tensions that have accompanied the euro zone in the past years are already showing signs of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” Monti told Der Spiegel. While he backed the ECB’s willingness to address “severe malfunctioning” in the government bond market, Monti said the problems “have to be solved quickly now so that there’s no further uncertainty about the euro zone’s ability to overcome the crisis.”

. . . Monti told Spiegel that he intends to stay in office until April 2013, when Italy is due to hold elections, and he hopes he “can save Italy from financial ruin until then, with the moral support of some European friends, and Germany foremost. But I say very clearly: moral support, not financial.”

An article reprinted on CNBC from Financial Times hints that Spain might actually be leaving the Eurozone:

Wall Street Warned of Possible Euro Exit

The eurozone continues to be the predominant concern of US bank executives, ahead of the faltering US recovery. Last summer the worsening of the eurozone crisis produced wild swings in US banks’ stock prices and led the Securities and Exchange Commission to demand they provide more disclosure of assets in Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland and Portugal.

. . . Last week the speculation on whether Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, would take more aggressive action to tackle the crisis produced further gyrations in US stock prices.

One senior Wall Street executive said his bank was approaching derivatives counterparties to say: “‘We’ve got this contract, it’s in euros, what I want to know is in the event that Spain were to be redenominated are we going to end up being adversaries on this or can we just agree that this is a euro contact? Let’s just move it to London law so we each agree that we know where we stand.’