Category: Earth Science


Madame Pele Breezes Back In

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Allow me to set the scene: bugger-all was going on at Kilauea Volcano. Madame Pele had shut up shop in May and taken a luana iki (little rest). Perhaps she paid a visit to Iceland’s bouncing baby shield volcano. She may have stopped by La Palma to give her cousin some encouragement.

Back at Kilauea, there were a few rumbles in late August, with an intrusion of magma to the summit. But after that delivery, nothing much happened for most of September. It seemed to many that Pele’s luana iki might turn in to a long winter’s nap.

Madame had no such plans.

Timelapse showing the onset of the eruption. Watch the lower right tip of the island at the beginning – that frame is looped so you can see the uplift right before the vent opens. Click here for a full-size image. Credit: USGS

 

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The Lowdown on LAZE: La Palma Eruption’s Most Recent Hazard

The lava flow from La Palma’s ongoing eruption has reached the Atlantic Ocean. The news is full of people talking about how hazardous this is: you can get all kinds of explosive interactions between water and molten rock. There’s also the little matter of LAZE. Now seems like the perfect time to bring you this article, first published at Scientific American Blogs, telling you what to expect from those dense white plumes.

And I’d also like to take this opportunity to remind you why it’s a terribad idea to sail too close to an ocean entry. Keep your distance!

Kilauea’s most recent lava flows reached the sea over the weekend, and they’ve been beach bumming ever since. Few things are as dramatic as molten rock contending with seawater. We’ll be talking about all the neato things that are happening and that we may see if the eruption continues. We’re starting with LAZE, which in this case isn’t something you do on a hot summer afternoon. It’s this:

Aerial image shows gray ocean and an enormous plume of brilliant white steam. A bit of blue sky and regular clouds can be seen above and behind it, but it dominates the photo. It seems to originate from a point to the middle right and gets taller and more diffuse as it spreads out to the left side of the photo.

A dense LAZE plume rises from the Pacific Ocean during Kilauea’s 2018 eruption. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

When blazing hot lava meets seawater, the interaction between them boils the water and produces enormous plume of mist, called LAZE (lava haze). These plumes are, of course, mostly water vapor, but they are so much more than that. They’re acidic beasts carrying appreciable amounts of hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulfate anion, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide, plus traces of volcanic glass and other particles. Even if you could find a safe place near where the lava is pouring into the ocean, you wouldn’t want to be hanging out there without industrial-grade protection.

Sounds super scary, right? Well, it’s concerning. But don’t panic. It, like so many of Kilauea’s other dangers, is something you can protect yourself against with a little common sense and caution. And it’s really pretty neat. (more…)

La Palma Eruption: Video Updates

I’m cooking up a great series of posts for you on the geologic context of La Palma, the seismic signs of this eruption, and the eruption itself, plus human efforts to control lava flows. But I had to pause to show you this wonderful trio of videos from Geology Hub, which not only include information on the ongoing eruption, but have some incredible clips. Plus, a Canary Islands bonus volcano!

Here’s an update from a couple of days ago, while new fissures were opening and the volcano was still in a largely Hawaiian-type eruptive style.

Many people seem to love to jump on the slightest easing of eruptive activity to declare that the eruption is obviously not going to last for a long time and it’s just about to end. Those people get heartily laughed at by eruptions, which frequently wax and wane and wax again many times through the course of an eruption that will last weeks, months, or years. The new La Palma volcano is certainly having a good snicker as it shifts to Stombolian activity and increases in vigor. Personally, I think it’s going to be with us for months, if not years.

Watch closely, and you’ll see an urban kipuka in one of the shots. I’m so glad these flows are slow enough for people to get to safety before their homes and towns are destroyed. And so far, it seems that Canary Islands officials have been doing a good job listening to what the volcano is telling them and ensuring folks can get out of harm’s way. (more…)

La Palma Erupts: A Video Chronology

One thing is true about living on an active volcanic island: your gamble with lava is probably a losing bet. The people of La Palma just got a rather spectacular reminder on Sunday that the volcano always wins.

That’s the bad news. The good news: volcanoes, unlike earthquakes, usually give us adequate notice as to what’s coming.

La Palma got just over a week’s notice that something was up, and increasing seismicity warned authorities to begin evacuations before the eruption began. Livestock and people with disabilities were removed from the danger zone early; thousands of other residents were hurried to safety after the fissure first opened and the eruption began. (more…)

Loowit (Mount St. Helens): Going Through Changes

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Four years. FOUR. YEARS. The pandemic and other circumstances kept me from Loowit (Mount St. Helens) for nearly half a dang decade! But thanks to vaccinations and a visit from one of my best friends and my honorary nephew, I finally got a chance to see her again.

Ye gods, things have changed! I’m kinda glad now that I slacked off on turning my guide into a book. It’s going to need some revision.

Come join me for some sneak peeks at what’s new around our favorite volcano, plus some pretty shots of old favorites.

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A Very Volcanic Fourth of July

Look, human-made fireworks are pretty. And I enjoy them! Sometimes. When the forest isn’t crispy from an overly hot, dry summer and ready to catch on fire from so much as a heated word. And when I don’t have to battle crowds to see them. And when I don’t have to hear all the noise, which is becoming less and less entertaining as I get older.

Okay, so I like them on television, at my home, with the sound off, okay? Then I love them a lot. They’re very pretty!

But as impressive as some human pyrotechnic displays are, they just can’t quite measure up to the show an erupting volcano can put on. So for this July 4th, I’m going to take you on a world tour of volcanic light shows, courtesy of some very talented photographers.

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Do You Want to Die by Volcano? Because This Is How You Die by Volcano

Image shows a slope of fresh lava, with two streams of red lava flowing down. A tiny, indistinct person stands between them.

There is no such thing as a safe eruption. I just want to stress this up front. If a volcano is actively erupting, no matter how gently, it could easily kill you. The minimum safe distance is far away. Add another far to that away if you’re dealing with an explosive volcano, just to be sure. And stay out of valleys that are part of its drainage system!

The majority of the fatalities at Mount Loowit (St. Helens) during the May 18th, 1980 eruption took place outside of the Red Zone, in areas that would have been safe if she hadn’t blown out laterally.

Kilauea’s eruptions may seem more like photo ops than death dealers, but it’s actually the deadliest volcano in the United States.

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Mary Horner Lyell: “A Monument of Patience”

You never hear of the other Lyell. Sir Charles, you know quite well: he set the infant science of geology firmly on its feet and inspired Charles Darwin. But there’s another Lyell who was a geologist, and without her, Charles Lyell would have found his work far more difficult, if not impossible. When he married Mary Horner, he pledged himself to a lifelong scientific partner.

Why don’t we know her?

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Zonia Baber: “The Public May Be Brought to Understand the Importance of Geography”

Zonia Baber(1862-1955) is one of those people you aspire to be and fear you will never manage to become even half as good as. She was a legend.

I had no idea. I chose her as our first Pioneering Woman in Geology because of her name. I had this list of women I knew next to nothing about, and I hovered a finger over it, and said, “There. That’s an interesting name. Let’s start with her.” Then I found out she was a geographer, and thought, “Oh, dear.” A teacher, when I wanted women who worked in the field. Oh, no. An American when I’d hoped to start with a different country. Oh, bugger. But Mary Arizona “Zonia” Baber? Still couldn’t resist the name. So I read past the first sentence in the Wikipedia article, and promptly fell in love. Co-founded the Geographic Society of Chicago, which was modeled after the National Geographic society? Awesome! Involved in social issues? Brilliant! Feminist, even so! And then I found out that, in addition to the whole geography teacher thing, she’d got her start in geology. Perfect.

I don’t think Zonia understood the concept of “Women can’t do x.”

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Dana’s Pandemic Holiday Shopping Guide

Ah, yes, it’s that time of year again, where the holidays bunch up like they’ve put off celebrating til the last minute and suddenly it’s time to give All The Gifts. Of course, this being 2020, and many of us being in America where the ostensible leader can’t see reality past his artificially inflated ego, this is a complicated holiday season. Many of us will be socially distancing still. Viruses don’t take holidays, even when we wish they would.

Thanks to eCommerce, though, we can still give our loved ones some nice little gifts if we don’t want to skip that part, many of which will help while away a long pandemic winter. Let’s explore!

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