Tag: lava
Standing of the Stones: Island Volcanoes Abounding Edition
Hello and welcome to a new, semi-weekly feature in which I’ll share snippets of earth science news, cool things I’ve stumbled across, pretty pictures, status reports on upcoming articles, and whatever else seems interesting.
La Palma: Still on Fire
This has been one of the longest eruptions in La Palma’s recorded history, and is posed to be the longest, if it keeps going. Some of the recent lava fountains have exceeded 1,600 feet (500m) in height. The person who runs the GeologyHub channel has discovered a pattern in the data that suggests something interesting (and ominous to the locals) about the relationship between deep earthquakes and eruption activity on the island.
Can you believe where some of that ash ended up?!
It looks like the eruption may break some records. Interesting times indeed.
Why Is La Palma Like This?
A Kilauea Thanksgiving
Hello, my lovely people! It’s American Thanksgiving, and hopefully most of us subject to it have survived without too many kitchen mishaps and family feuds. If you’ve spent it alone, I hope you’ve had a lovely bit of solitude. And for those of you who, like me, worked the day, I hope everything went as smoothly as a holiday can.
Let us give thanks to Tūtū Pele, who has provided us with this lovely and relatively safe ongoing eruption in her home on Kilauea volcano:
The last 24 hours of activity at Kilauea, as seen by the thermal webcam. Credit: USGS
A few days ago, I noticed a fairly large although fleeting increase in the output of lava from the summit vent. According to the USGS, it lasted just a few hours, and then all went back to the current normal. But it sure did look neat in the summit webcams! I grabbed the relevant bits and slowed them down for you.
Here ’tis in the thermal cam: (more…)
Ghostly Geology
Halloween is here! This is my favorite part of fall: costumes, spooky stuff, decorating in black not only allowed but encouraged…. This is the holiday I was born for.
And I have some geology made for the holiday! This year, the theme is ghosts, and we’re going to visit some very ghostly geology and paleontology indeed.
1. Ghost Shrimp Haunts Ichnologist
This is a different kind of ghost shrimp than the ones under discussion, but it is metal enough for Halloween, so we’re rolling with it. Credit:
Freddie Alequin (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Paleontology isn’t just about bones and preserved bodies: a branch of it, ichnology*, also looks at the things those bodies left behind, like fossilized trails, tracks, nests, burrows, borings, excavations, and even the divots left by pee. In this post, my favorite ichnologist, Tony Martin, talks about a very unusual trace he found that would be even more exciting to find in the fossil record.
Life Traces of the Georgia Coast: Ghost Shrimp Whisperer
Geologists love ghost shrimp, too, because of how their burrows are so numerous, fossilize easily, and are sensitive shoreline indicators. I wrote about this before with regard to how geologists in the 1960s were able to map ancient barrier islands of the Georgia coastal plain by looking for trace fossils of these burrows. Since then, geologists and paleontologists have identified and applied these sorts of trace fossils worldwide, and in rocks from the Permian Period to the Pleistocene Epoch.
I could prattle on about ghost shrimp and their ichnological incredibleness for the rest of the year, but will spare you of that, gentle reader, and instead will get to the point of this post. Just when I thought I’d learned nearly everything I needed to know about ghost-shrimp ichnology, one shrimp decided I needed to have my eyes opened to some traces I had never seen them make before just a few months ago.
*Not to be confused with ichthyology, which has to do with fishies. It’ll help to remember that ikhnos means “track” or “trace” in Greek, while ikhthus means “fish.”
2. Ghosts of Minerals Past (more…)
Why the Canary Islands are Like This
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The current eruption on La Palma in the Canary Islands is now over a month old. Already the island’s largest in a hundred years, it’s giving no signs of stopping just yet. Volcano lovers have thrilled to its spectacular Strombolian explosions. Residents have endured disruption, displacement, and loss of homes and livelihoods. Dogs trapped by lava flows had to be fed by drone before they were taken to safety in a daring and mysterious rescue. Living with a live volcano is far from easy and seldom safe.
Plenty of news agencies, vloggers, and blogs are keeping us up to date on the progress of the current eruption. I’m going to take us deep into the past, on a journey into the island’s origins and evolution. We’re going to see the slow, steady pas de deux between a mantle plume and the plate above it. We’ll watch underwater volcanoes go subaerial, building new land, and see catastrophic collapses tear their confections down. We’ll learn the life stages of a Canary Island, and by the end, we’ll know the broad outlines of La Palma’s destiny.
In the end, we’ll see that this current eruption is as much an act of creation as it is destruction.
Mirador de La Tarta, Tenerife. Yes, it’s literally called a cake! The white layer is pumice, the black layers are basaltic scoria, and the reddish-brown layers are oxidized basaltic tephra. Credit: H. Zell (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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
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:
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…)
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.
Do You Want to Die by Volcano? Because This Is How You Die by Volcano
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.