Solar panels stolen from Vanuatu volcano monitors
Updated 5 hours 16 minutes ago
Officials say monitoring of an active Vanuatu volcano has been hampered by the theft of solar panels powering their measuring equipment.
Mount Yasur, on the island of Tanna, shows signs of rumbling back to life, with the alert raised to level two.
Sylvain Todman from Vanuatu's Department of Meteorology and Geohazards says the volcano, which is popular with tourists, is being constantly monitored remotely from Port Vila.
He has told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat the theft of two of the three solar panels powering the equipment last month has left it operating at half-capacity.
"It's not as good as we could have if we had all the sensors, but which with [less] power we are able to have at least camera pictures and some images...to try to figure out the activity," he said.
"We are discussing with all the villages around and all the communities, and because we've started to have this activity right now, all the communities around the volcano are ready to help us to find back the solar panel."
The level 2 alert means access to the crater at the popular tourist site is closed, while if it's raised to level 3 the summit will also be blocked.
Mr Todman says authorities are preparing to deal with tourists drawn to the site by the eruption.
"The tourism industry in Vanuatu is a newer industry, and we didn't know...that when you have big activity, more people will come," he said.
"So now, more and more when we are on level 3, we are very well organised, we can block the access road so nobody can be hurt.
"It's a very big explosion with a lot of (lava) bombs when you're going to level 3, and when you're facing this explosion, it's a little bit scary."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-12/an-solar-panels-stolen-from-yasur-volcano-monitor/4624686
San Rafael teen survives fall into steam vent at Hawai'i volcano park
A 15-year-old San Rafael boy fell into this steam vent near Volcano House in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. / NPS photo
Park officials are describing a 15-year-old San Rafael boy as "extraordinarily lucky" to be alive after he fell 25 feet into a steam vent at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park Wednesday night — reportedly after attempting to leap over a protective railing.
The park's Search and Rescue (SAR) team and county fire crews based in the park rescued the teen after receiving a 911 call from his mother at approximately 6:43 p.m., according to the park's press statement, which did not name the teen. The youth had reportedly tried to jump over the railing around the steam vent, found between Kīlauea Visitor Center and the recently reopened Volcano House, the park statement noted.
With the help of Hawai'i County fire personnel, park SAR coordinator John Broward rappelled into the "deep, narrow, chimney-like crack" to retrieve the boy, who "suffered a bump on his head and minor abrasions." After his family declined additional medical care and assessment by the county responders, he was released at the scene, according to the park press release.
"This young visitor and his family are extraordinarily lucky that he survived this mishap," Park Superintendent Cindy Orlando said in the release. "This incident serves as a reminder that park visitors are urged to stay on trails and not engage in reckless behavior while visiting their national parks."
A sign next to the steam vent warns of high temperatures: "Rain water encounters hot rock as it seeps into the ground, and rises as vapor through a system of cracks to condense in the chilled air. Vapor temperature four feet down is 160 degrees F, cooling to 120 degree F at the surface."
Rescues like this also put park staff and other first responders at risk, Orlando added. According to the press statement, the boy's fall led to the park's seventh search-and-rescue mission so far this year; park SAR crews responded to a total of 26 incidents in 2012.
— Jeanne Cooper
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barren Island volcano is 1.8 million years old: Study
NEW DELHI: India's only active volcano in the Barren Island in the Andaman Sea is at least 1.8 million years old, a new study has said.
Scientists at the IIT-Bombay and Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad used the Argon dating technique to find out the age of the two ash layers older than 42,000 years and generated by this volcano.
The Barren Island volcano, towering some 300 metres above the sea level, has erupted sporadically over the last 70,000 years but it was not known when it had formed and breached the sea surface.
The scientists found that the age of the minerals they studied was older than the age of deposition of the ash layer, which indicates that the minerals were derived from older rocks present in the plumbing system of the volcano.
They studied ash layers in a 400-centimetre-long sediment core raised from the Andaman Sea collected from 32 km southeast of the island.
Reliable Argon age of 1.8 million years plagioclase grains separated from the ash layer at a depth of 310 centimetres is surprisingly very much older than its conceivable depositional age of 61,000 years, Jyotiranjan S Ray of PRL reported in Current Science.
The volcano, located about 140 km from Port Blair, became active in 1991 after lying dormant for 159 years.
In the past two decades, it has remained active emitting spurts of ash and produced at least four major lava eruptions.
Being a stratovolcano, it may have massive eruptions in the future that could seriously affect life in the Andaman Sea, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and neighbouring Southeast Asian countries, the scientists said.http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-11/news/38463527_1_eruptions-volcano-barren-island
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Secret chamber under Old Faithful drives eruptions
- 11:18 12 April 2013 by Nicola Jones
Subterranean side chamber at work once again (Image: Jordi Elias Grassot/Alamy)
The Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone national park is famed for its clockwork eruptions – every 90 minutes, on average. Now a secret chamber has been found in the rocks beneath the geyser, radically changing our understanding of how it erupts.
In the early 1990s, researchers lowered a camera into Old Faithful's throat and, 7 metres down, saw a "choke-point" less than 10 centimetres wide. Below that was a cavern about the size of a small car. But the camera couldn't go deeper than 14 metres because of the violent churn of boiling fluids.
Now Jean Vandemeulebrouck of the University of Savoie in Le Bourget du Lac, France, and colleagues have analysed seismic data collected in the 1990s. Using a modern acoustic technique more commonly used to locate whales or submarines, they analysed the noise of the popping bubbles inside the geyser – captured in the seismic record – to reveal a 60-cubic-metre cavern 15 metres down, and off to the geyser's side.
This side cavity acts as a compressible reservoir, making the water in the smaller main vent bob up and down like a spring. The oscillations affect the water pressure and help the geyser to boil in the early stages of eruption.
The side cavern "totally changes our perspective of the physics of how geysers work", says Shaul Hurwitz, a hydrologist with the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, who hopes the innovative acoustic technique can be applied to visualising the insides of volcanoes as well as geysers.
Journal reference: Geophysical Research Letters, doi.org/k63
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23377-secret-chamber-under-old-faithful-drives-eruptions.html
__._,_.___
No comments:
Post a Comment