Lava flow slows near Kalapana
| Last Update: 8/01 6:47 pm |
Kalapana Gardens residents are breathing a sigh of relief, at least for now.
According to Hawaii County Civil Defense, the lava from Kilauea Volcano that was heading east, toward the homes, got sluggish and has stalled.
Officials say the lava is still about 120 feet away from two houses.
There are approximately 35 homes in the Kalapana Gardens subdivision.
Civil defense re-opened the Kalapana lava viewing area on Sunday after being closed on Saturday.
The viewing area is open to the public from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., but all cars must be removed before 8 p.m.
Over the past week the viewing area has been packed with an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 visitors daily.
Meanwhile, lava continues to flow into the ocean at two locations southwest of Kalapana Gardens.
Big Island resident Demian Barrios was able to shoot the lava as it poured into a beach named "Fox's Landing."
This black sand beach was spared by the lava flow back in the 90's that covered the Kalapana Gardens subdivision.
However, the beach was completely covered over the past few days.
Phivolcs lowers Taal alert level to '1' but...
08/02/2010 | 04:12 PM
But the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) maintained that the main crater remains strictly off-limits as sudden steam explosions may still occur.
"This means that hazardous eruption is not imminent. The public, however, is reminded that the main crater should be strictly off-limits to the public because sudden steam explosions may occur and high concentrations of toxic gases may accumulate," it said on its website.
"The public is also reminded that the entire Volcano Island is a Permanent Danger Zone (PDZ), and permanent settlement in the island is strictly not recommended," it added.
Phivolcs raised the alert level at Taal to Level 2 last June 8 after noting increased activity there. (See: Alert level 2 raised on Taal Volcano — Phivolcs)
Source
Interesting read:
Blasts from the Past – The News that Time ForgotThe Monte Baldo 'Volcano'
How an innocent mountain was accused of spouting fire
August 2010 |
FT265Lake Garda is one of the most popular tourist hotspots in northern Italy – a large, deep blue lake surrounded by the high Alps, its shores lined with palm trees and luxurious villas as well as impressive Roman remains. The eastern flank is formed by the massif of Monte Baldo (from the German Wald = forest), rising steeply from the waterline to a height of 2,218m.
Monte Baldo is famous for its flora; as the summit was above the ice in the age of glaciation, several rare species have survived here. It's a tranquil place, if you ignore the tourists who flock there by cable car. But this hasn't always been the case. In the 19th century, Monte Baldo was regarded as a dangerous volcano.
Baldo's career as a fire-spouting mountain began with Athanasius Kircher (the origin of so much of what, today, we call forteana). This universal scientist received some rock samples for examination from the Lake Garda area and concluded, having witnessed eruptions of Mount Etna himself, that they must have come from a volcano. In a letter from Rome to his correspondent Franceso Carli in Verona, dated 27 July 1668, he suggested the volcanic mountain in question must have been Monte Baldo.[1]
Two hundred years later, on 13 June 1866, a severe earthquake shook the region. There was a loud, booming noise in the sky and the shoreline moved up and down in enormous undulations between Malcesine and Castelletto and between Saló and Riva. This was followed by further tremors, and when in August 1866 severe quakes again shook the lake and its surroundings, some newspapers depicted Monte Baldo "covered in flames" and described it as an erupting volcano. Whether anybody actually reported having seen Baldo erupt in 1866 is not recorded, and it appears this newspaper 'eruption' was more a representation of what many locals feared (there was no clear understanding at this time that earthquakes are not generally volcanic in nature – although eruptions are accompanied by earth movement, the reverse is not usually the case).[2]
Some modern websites ascribe this invented eruption to "French journalists". Be that as it may, the journal of the Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique reported that on 12 January 1867 "The Monte Baldo, in Italian Tyrol, showed signs of an imminent eruption", quoting le Galignani's Messenger of that date.[3]
On 15 March 1867, at 6pm, a tsunami caused by quakes at Lago Maggiore was widely reported in the international press, as it swallowed part of a fishing village:
"Falling of Four Houses into a Lake — Sixteen Lives Lost. — A letter from Pallanza, dated the 17th, in the Movimento of Genoa, says: — 'Yesterday evening, between six and seven o'clock, four or five houses situated on the national road at Feriolo, at the extremity of the Lake Maggiore, and a shipbuilding slip fell into the lake. Sixteen persons are missing, and no doubt exists that most of them, if not all, have perished in the catastrophe. Four houses were carried away with the ruins. The cause of the disaster has not yet been discovered. Some persons affirm that a subterranean current exists, for last year a terrace supported by a wall, the foundations of which were on the bank of the lake, gave way; others attribute it to geological causes, the borough of Feriolo being built on alluvial soil – resulting from the overflow of the river Joce [= Toce] and the torrent Strona, which have their confluence at the spot; the boatmen and fishermen attribute this to some volcanic action, because at the moment of the catastrophe the water in the neighbourhood was quite warm.'"[4]
Some newspapers saw a connection to volcanic Monte Baldo:
"The Italian papers continue to give very interesting accounts, in a geological sense, of the land convulsions on the borders of the Lago Maggiore. Some time ago, a small village on the shores of this water disappeared within the bosom of the lake, its immersion being caused by an extensive landslip. It now appears that, for several months, the region adjacent to the Tyrolean Alps, to the Lago Maggiore, and the Lago di Guarda [sic], has been subject to a series of convulsions, recurring at periodical intervals, by which the inhabitants have been kept in a state of great apprehension. The shores of the latter lake have been upheaved for a space of 16km by violent oscillations, and enormous masses of stone and earth continually fall from Monte Balbo [sic], occasioning the utmost consternation among the inhabitants of the valley."[5]
Thirty years later, in October 1899, a further 'eruption' made the headlines. The newspaper article even mentions an earlier episode for which I have no contemporary sources:
"STRANGER THAN FICTION […] Almost simultaneously with this telegram from Sebastopol, comes news from Berlin that a volcano at Monte Baldo, between Lake Garda and the valley of the Adige, has just broken out again after having been silent since 1810. The rising has dried up the harbour of Navena, and the hot, white steam ejected from the volcano is melting all the snow in the neighbourhood."[6]
Iceland has its Surtsey, but Lake Garda once boasted its very own island raised by volcanic forces, one which soon took a critical role in the hostilities between Austria (to which the northern part belonged), and Italy (which held the southern part). As Emily Diason explained in her article on Italy's Trentino province:
"In the summer of 1911, the inhabitants of the northern shores of Lake Garda spoke credulously or sceptically, according to their nationality, about a mysterious island in the lake, which had risen from the depths in a single night! The supposed volcanic eruption had not been felt on the mainland, though the width of the lake there is not great. This, however, only made the little island a more interesting phenomenon. Its locality was on the Italian side of the border-line which cuts across the lake and gives its northernmost few miles to Austrian rule. The Italians naturally seized the opportunity, and built a fort on this lucky excrescence of chance. To what depth beneath the waters the cement foundations were laid was not a question much discussed, but everybody knew that from the island the Austrian fortifications around the garrison town of Riva could be successfully annoyed, if necessary. Also, an additional watch could he kept upon one of the important routes through the Trentino, whence that triumph of engineering skill, the military road known as the Dolomitenstrasse, leads into Austria proper. For, in spite of the presence of Austrian soldiers and officials, and even Austrian hotels and climbing tourists, the Trentino remains utterly Italian in character and feeling."[7]
The irony of all this is that Monte Baldo never has been a volcano: it consists of sediments, mainly dolomite, formed between 50 and 210 million years ago, and more recent Tertiary limestone.[8] The island which rose in 1911 can no longer be seen, and not a single photograph of it survives.
The simple reason is: it never existed. The island was just as mythical as the Monte Baldo volcano. Yet, the 'fact' that Baldo spouts fire from time to time is deeply rooted in the collective psyche; despite several Italian language websites explaining that Baldo is not a volcano, this long-lived belief lingers on.
It's certainly true that Lake Garda, which follows the course of a submerged valley, is often shaken by tremors and earthquakes connected to the faulting of the Alps. Due to its seismicity, geothermal springs exist at the bottom of the lake, and there is even a hot thermal lake just to the west of Garda, near Lazise. Large seiching episodes due to tremors, as well as mini-tsunamis, are not unknown, and even today landslides make some of the villages inaccessible from time to time.
Such landslides, caused by heavy rain, and tremors concentrated around Monte Baldo may have been the real forces that gave rise to these persistent reports of volcanic activity; the occasional forest fire probably helped too.
So perhaps the only reason we can offer for the existence of eight, more or less detailed, accounts of volcanic eruptions of a non-volcanic sedimentary massif is that belief was stronger than reality. Everybody seemed to know that Baldo was a volcano, so it was easy to enliven stories about quakes with additional details about eruptions.
Yet even today, when news travels fast and can easily be checked, Monte Baldo still retains its aura of mystery. On 1 August 2008, when there was a landslip near Bocca Navene and several people reported a meteor above the mountain immediately beforehand, the press announced that a cosmic visitor had crashed on Baldo, leaving a large hole.[9]
Monte Baldo, rising so dramatically above Lake Garda, obviously deserves a crater. And, as we now know it is not a volcano, then a meteor will do!
CONVULSIONS, VAPOURS AND TIDES
"Not very long since, a little village on the borders of the Lago Maggiore was suddenly missed. It had disappeared within the bosom of the lake, its immersion being the result of an extensive landslip. Ever since the month of April 1866, the entire region… has been subject to a series of convulsions recurring at periodical intervals, and by which the inhabitants have been kept in a constant state of harrowing apprehension. The borders of the Lake of Guarda have… been upheaved by a succession of oscillations… Explosions have been heard from time to time, and the undulations of the earth imperil the stability of all buildings, even the most solid, several having been already greatly damaged. Enormous blocks of stone have detached themselves from Mount Balbo, and, together with avalanches of boulders, have rolled down upon the habitations below, causing the utmost consternation. These convulsions are now occurring towards the east, and the Lake Maggiore has come in for its share of these volcanic disturbances, to the terror of the surrounding inhabitants. For the most part, these shocks are followed by a rumbling sound beneath the surface, and a hissing noise, as if caused by the escape of compressed gases forcing their way through narrow clefts. Explosions are heard in the highest mountain regions, and the hot springs issue forth more abundantly, rising to a greater height, muddy, and of a higher temperature than usual. The volcanic action… spreads over a vast area, and is probably connected with the condition of Mount Vesuvius, just now in a state of rupture." (Every Saturday, 11 May 1867)
"Near Varese, a large fissure has opened in the mountain about 20 centimetres wide, but of unknown depth. From this fissure steam and bituminous vapours proceed. Strong oscillatory movements are felt at Monte Baldo, the whole mountain seeming to move." (Star, 7 June 1887)
"Considerable mystification has been aroused among natives and tourists frequenting this famous Italian resort by the observation that Lake Garda, the largest of Italy's inland bodies of water, has developed a tide. It has been ascertained that the water rises slightly more than one foot 30cm and then falls with fairly accurate regularity. It is believed the tide is caused by gaseous springs that have their source in the bottom of the lake, because it has been noticed that as the tide recedes great portions of the lake's surface are covered with fine bubbles. At first it was thought that submarine volcanic action was the cause; indeed, scientific observers have not as yet abandoned this theory as a possibility. But the effervescent spring explanation is considered more plausible." (Herald-Journal, 12 Sept 1925)
Notes
1 Franz Daxecker: Ein Brief des Athanasius Kircher über Vulkanismus. Ber. nat.-med. Verein Innsbruck. vol. 90, pp309–312, Nov 2003.
2 Tullio Ferro: Il lago si racconta. Geografie e storie del Garda, Editoriale Sometti, Mantova, 2005, pp31, 58, 59.
3 Mémoires couronnés et autres mémoires publiés par l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, vol. 21, 1870.
4 Wellington Independent, vol. XXII, issue 2526, p4, 1 June 1867.
5 Nelson Evening Mail, Vol. II, issue 189, p2, 14 Aug 1867; reprinted verbatim in the Otago Witness, issue 821, p5, 24 Aug 1867.
6 Star (New Zealand), issue 6616, p1, 14 Oct 1899.
7 Melbourne Argus, p6, 5 June 1915; reprinted in Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, p7, 6 July 1915.
8 Travel guides say it is mainly dolomite. One geology handbook identifies the sediment as "Upper Palæocene to Lower Eocene marly limestones". Daxecker (cf. note 1) records that Monte Baldo is made of basalt, but I haven't found any other source to confirm this. There seem to be several ancient basalt quarries along the northern slope of the massif. There may well be, sandwiched between the sediments, ancient lava flows, but Monte Baldo is definitely the result of faulting, not of a lava eruption.
9 L'Arena, Verona; La Provincia di Lecco, p6, both 8 Aug 2008.
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