VOLCANO MADNESS: [Geology2] Mail removes scaremongering article about volcano--LMAO!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

[Geology2] Mail removes scaremongering article about volcano--LMAO!

Tuesday, 28 February 201

Mail removes scaremongering article about volcano

At the start of the year, the Mail turned its attention to the Laacher See volcano in Germany and asked, in a scaremongering headline:

IS A SUPER-VOLCANO JUST 390 MILES FROM LONDON READY TO BLOW?

As ever when a question is asked in a headline, the answer appears to be no.

Erik Klemetti, an assistant professor of Geosciences at Denison University, wrote a response for Wired in which he described the Mail's story as 'tremendously terrible'. He pointed out:

The article in the Daily Mail is about as substance free as you can produce – it starts off with the usual doom claptrap: "a sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up." Now, you have to look carefully for what their supposed signs are – all two of them.

1. "This monster erupts every 10 to 12,000 years and last went off 12,900 years ago, so it could blow at any time." No source for this recurrence interval and we all know that using poorly constrained recurrence intervals like we have at Laacher See is no way to say a volcano is (ugh) "due for an eruption".

2. "Volcanologists believe that the Laacher See volcano is still active as carbon dioxide is bubbling up to the lake's surface, which indicates that the magma chamber below is 'degassing'." Which, of course, Laacher See has been doing for centuries. There are stories of monks dying from asphyxiation due to carbon dioxide hundreds of years ago. I personally saw carbon dioxide bubbling when I was at the Laacher See 5 years ago.

He added:

This is the volcanic equivalent of the Daily Mail going out and saying "Massive hurricane to hit London?" because they looked out the window and saw a cloud. Irresponsible, lazy journalism at its finest.

Sarah Simpson, writing for Discovery News, said the Mail's:

sensational assertion is based on nothing more than a sparse smattering of old facts that sound tantalizingly apocalyptic when you string them together. Read the full story, and you'll find no mention of new science, no expert named...

The Daily Mail story, in stark contrast, is a catchy idea whipped out of thin air.

But Erik says we should be prepared for more such articles as it is 'clearly pandering to the 2012 Apocalypse crowd'.

A complaint was made to the PCC about the Mail's article: