Thursday, April 28, 2011

[Volcano_Vista_HS] Hawks Softball vs. Cibola TODAY at 4 PM

Your #2 ranked Volcano Vista Hawks Softball team plays the #5 ranked Cibola Cougars at Volcano Vista TODAY at 4 PM. The Cougars are always challenging and our girls can use some fan support today (and it isn't even that windy for once). Hope to see you there!

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[californiadisasters] Anniversary Reminder

Reminder from:		californiadisasters Yahoo! Group

Title:		1996 Grand Fire

Date:		Thursday April 28, 2011
Time:		12:00 pm - 12:00 pm
Repeats:		This event repeats every year.
Location:		Ventura County
Notes:		On this date in 1996 the Grand Fire began in eastern Ventura County near Fillmore. Driven by strong Santa Ana Winds it pushed across the southern face of the Topatopa Mountains above Fillmore and scorched 10,925 acres and damaged some orchards to the north of Highway 126. Southern California Edison was found liable for damages as the fire was deemed to be caused by one of their powerlines interacting with inadquately trimmed branches. Later in 1996 they would get in trouble again for the same thing relating to the problem as it related to the Calabasas (Malibu) Fire.

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Re: [Geology2] Be Safe OT

Thanks

The impact on the SE is unbelievable.

There are people who are missing, you have no idea.

Hundreds of houses are just gone here in GA. AL has been hit even harder than us. We only have 13 confirmed dead but that figure is certain to increase if and when the missing are located.

It is remarkable that so many people survived.

Hundreds have been injured in sixteen counties in GA.

On Apr 28, 2011, at 10:06 AM, "deb t" <debtidwell@yahoo.com> wrote:

seeing the news here in California- Hope all our members (and others) are safe after the storms last night! Be safe! This is going to be a dangerous, crazy summer!-deb

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[Geology2] Why would you ever bomb a volcano?

There has been some discussion over the years here on Eruptions about what might happen if you were to bomb an eruption volcano. Now, this might be to divert a lava flow, to stop an eruption to prevent an eruption from occurring, but overall, people seem to love the idea that shear human force could prevent a volcanic disaster. Maybe we have Hollywood to blame for this - there are quite a few examples of people putting bombs in volcanoes to start/stop an eruption and hey, it sounds daring. It is the sort of last ditch, hail Mary attempt at averting disaster that makes good (and by that I mean bad) cinema.

So, why am I going to talk about bombing volcanoes? Well, because it is exciting.

First off, I have never heard or could find any evidence of any attempt to bomb a volcano to stop it from erupting - you know, the idea that if you were to bomb it, the volcano would go from looking like it was going to erupt to going back to silence. Not one. Ever. Why? Well, mostly because it would never work. First off, most magmatic systems are kilometers below the surface of the Earth, so to cause any real disruption (and thus prevention of eruption) as to stop an impending eruption, you would need some sort of nuclear device - and even that might be insufficient … and nuking a volcano is kind of like chopping one's finger off to stop a hangnail. If you get it wrong, you're spreading radiation that could be doubly dispersed in volcano ash. No sane geologist would ever advocate such action. Even the so-called "bunker buster" conventional bombs would like not disrupt a magmatic system and, in fact, most likely cause the volcano to erupt, rather than stop it. Remember, once the signs appear that suggest a volcano might erupt, a rapid release of pressure is what is needed to get an explosive eruption to occur, just the sort of thing that bombing a volcano might induce (like a supposed plan to bomb volcanoes in Japan into erupting during World War II).

No, we didn't nuke Redoubt - but volcanic ash plumes can resemble the classic "mushroom cloud" of a nuclear blast.

So, that is off the table. Sorry folks, bombing a volcano isn't going to stop an eruption. Then why bomb a volcano in the first place?

I poked around have found only a very few examples of bombing a volcanic eruption and the United States was involved in every one - at least three times in Hawai`i and once in Italy at Etna. The former was bombing with live ordnance - bombs - while the Etna example was "bombing" with concrete blocks. All of these attempts were to divert flowing lava rather than to stop an eruption.

Earthen barriers (on left) attempt to divert lava flows from Etna in 1992.

In the case of Mt. Etna, the bombing occurred during the 1992 activity at the volcano. The lava from the eruption was threatening some important structures on Etna including an astronomical observatory, so a plan was developed to try to divert the lava from the town. Barriers were constructed to keep the lava from flowing into the town - mostly by constructing earthen barriers to keep the lava from heading in the directions that it shouldn't. This had worked before during the 1983 eruptions that Etna and might have saved Italy between $2-22 million dollars - and it was one of the first time that humans were able to actively intervene during a volcanic eruption (along with the successful 1973 diversion at Heimaey in Iceland). In 1992, lava flows threatened Zafferana Etnea, a small town on the flanks of Etna. This time attempts to divert the lava (see above) included dropping concrete blocks on the lava flows so as to block it from flowing towards the town. The plan was to blow a hole in a lava tube at higher elevations and then fill the lava tube with concrete blocks (see below)to stop the flow of lava in the tube. Once lava can move down a lava tube, it is very well insulated - so much so that the lava inside the tube can stay hot and move quickly downslope, to the point where it can actually thermally eroded (melt) the bottom and sides of the lava tube, thus making it bigger. By punching a hole in the tube and filling it with debris, the hope was to stop this from occurring. The "bombing" of the flow was a mixed success - it was unclear how much the diversion actually worked, but the towns were spared - but the question of whether diverting lava flows at Etna is a good idea is still up in the air.

Concrete blocks dropped near a skylight in a lava tube at Etna during the 1992 eruption. Image courtesy of Claude Grandpey.

The other example was from Mauna Loa in Hawai`i. Many people forget that the Big Island in Hawai`i is home to not just one active volcano (Kilauea), but three - Hualalai and Mauna Loa (and even Mauna Kea, although it likely hasn't erupted in a few thousand years). In fact, Mauna Loa was very active during the middle of the 20th century and erupted as recently as 1984. Mauna Loa is a much larger threat to the people of the Big Island as well - the northeast Rift Zone of the volcano is close to the city of Hilo (see map below), there have been times when lava flows from Mauna Loa threatened the city, its water supply or ecologically-fragile rain forests on the slopes of the volcano.

Map of the historic lava flows and hazard zones for Mauna Loa. Image courtesy of HVO/USGS.

Lockwood and Torgerson (1980) is an excellent look at what happens when you try to bomb a volcano with active ordnance to attempt to divert lava flows. In fact, as early as 1881 has the idea of using man-made explosions to stop lava flows been suggested at Mauna Loa. The U.S. has tried to bomb Mauna Loa while it was erupting at least twice in the last 100 years and a series of tests were run in the 1970s to determine the best course of action if lava flows from Mauna Loa threatened Hilo again. Overall, it appears that in limited situations, targeted bombing campaigns on vulnerable parts of the volcano - mainly spatter cones that are the source of lava tubes high on the slopes of Mauna Loa - might cause sufficient diversion as to prevent lava flows from reaching Hilo.

Lockwood and Torgerson (1980) mention two attempts to bomb the volcano while it was actively erupting - once in 1935 (here is some video of that campaign) and once in 1942, during World War II. Both attempts yielding no noticeable results, but some of the evidence of the bombing campaign can still be found in the form of small craters in lava flows (usually less than 10 m across) or in bombs coated in basaltic glass (see below). Now, both of these bombing attempts were performed using antiquated (at the time) bombs, and even though the pilots of the bombers reported "sheets of red, molten rock thrown up 200 feet", the lava flows were unaffected (but both ended relatively soon afterwards by causes unrelated to the bombing). Both of these attempts were centered around the idea that bombing lava tubes could disrupt the flow of lava and force it to exit the tube system far upslope from settlements, thus causing the lava to flow harmless on the volcano's upper flanks.

An unexploded bomb on Mauna Loa. Image from Lockwood and Torgerson, 1980.

In the 1970s, some tests were conducted by the U.S. Air Force and HVO scientists to see what might be the most effective means of bombing if the goal is to divert a lava flow. These tests (see image below) were on an older lava field with no active lava flows and were performed using relatively modern (for the 70s) ordnance. What was found was that if you target spatter cones that feed lava tube systems, then lava flow disruption - where the surface was most fragile and not dense, solid rocks like above some lava tubes. Bombing the actual lava tubes or flow levees didn't seem to be very effective. Interestingly, the bombing did show signs of widespread effects, with cracks found in the lava up to 10 meters from the actual crater and disruption of the hardened lava surface as far as 50 meters away.

The study came to some conclusions that I hadn't really considering when it comes to bombing lava flows, especially in Hawai`i. On the plus side, many times lava flows near the summit area at Mauna Loa occur on government lands, so bombing could occur without disruption of private property. Also, bombing the flow to divert lava is a relatively low cost endeavor, especially relative to the cost of lava flows reaching populated area. However, on the negative side, bombing Hawaiian volcanoes is bound to cause native Hawaiians some consternation as the bombing could be perceived as an affront to Pele. In a more practical sense, not all eruptions will have obvious vulnerable spots to bottom and indiscriminate bombing of lava flows could have unintended effects.

Plume from a test bombing of an old lava flow on Mauna Loa, performed in 1975. Image from Lockwood and Torgerson, 1980.

There you have it - bombing a volcano to divert lava flows could work - but only if you pick the right place. This isn't a matter of just dropping the largest bomb you can find and hope for the best. In fact, Lockwood and Torgerson (1980) say that lava tube disruption could be accomplished, if the target it picked correctly, with as little as a single 900-kg conventional bomb. This means close cooperation between the military and volcanologists to find the right spot to bomb. It might not be as exciting as racing to get that thermonuclear weapon down the gullet of a volcano in the nick of time to save Seattle from Rainier, but likely a whole lot more effective (in those cases where lava flows are your biggest threat).

Reference:

Lockwood, J.P. and Torgerson, F.A., 1980, Diversion of lava flows by aerial bombing - Lessions from Mauna Loa volcano, Hawaii. Bulletin of Volcanology, vol. 43-4, pp. 727-741.

Top left: Lowering a nuclear bomb into a Pacific volcano in order to start an eruption in 1965's "Crack in the World".

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[Geology2] Can Siberian Hot Springs Reveal Ancient Ecology?

Albert Colman, assistant professor in geophysical sciences, researches a class of bacteria that consumes the carbon monoxide both produced by other microbes and derived from the volcanic gases bubbling up in the hot springs in eastern Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Albert Colman)

Can Siberian Hot Springs Reveal Ancient Ecology?

ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2011) — Exotic bacteria that do not rely on oxygen may have played an important role in determining the composition of Earth's early atmosphere, according to a theory that UChicago researcher Albert Colman is testing in the scalding hot springs of a volcanic crater in Siberia.

He has found that bacteria at the site produce as well as consume carbon monoxide, a surprising twist that scientists must take into account as they attempt to reconstruct the evolution of Earth's early atmosphere.

Colman, an assistant professor in geophysical sciences, joined an American-Russian team in 2005 working in the Uzon Caldera of eastern Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula to study the microbiology and geochemistry of the region's hot springs. Colman and his colleagues focused on anaerobic carboxydotrophs -- microbes with a physiology as exotic as their name. They use carbon monoxide mostly for energy, but also as a source of carbon for the production of new cellular material.

This carbon monoxide-based physiology results in the microbial production of hydrogen, a component of certain alternative fuels. The research team thus also sought to probe biotechnological applications for cleaning carbon monoxide from certain industrial waste gases and for biohydrogen production.

"We targeted geothermal fields," Colman says, "believing that such environments would prove to be prime habitat for carboxydotrophs due to the venting of chemically reduced, or in other words, oxygen-free and methane-, hydrogen-, and carbon dioxide-rich volcanic gases in the springs."

The team did discover a wide range of carboxydotrophs. Paradoxically, Colman found that much of the carbon monoxide at the Kamchatka site was not bubbling up with the volcanic gases; instead "it was being produced by the microbial community in these springs," he says. His team began considering the implications of a strong microbial source of carbon monoxide, both in the local springs but also for the early Earth.

The Great Oxidation Event

Earth's early atmosphere contained hardly any oxygen but relatively large amounts of carbon dioxide and possibly methane, experts believe. Then during the so-called Great Oxidation Event about 2.3 to 2.5 billion years ago, oxygen levels in the atmosphere rose from vanishingly small amounts to modestly low concentrations.

"This important transition enabled a widespread diversification and proliferation of metabolic strategies and paved the way for a much later climb in oxygen to levels that were high enough to support animal life," Colman says.

The processing of carbon monoxide by the microbial community could have influenced atmospheric chemistry and climate during the Archean, an interval of Earth's history that preceded the Great Oxidation Event.

Previous computer simulations rely on a primitive biosphere as the sole means of removing near-surface carbon monoxide produced when the sun's ultraviolet rays split carbon dioxide molecules. This theoretical sink in the biosphere would have prevented substantial accumulation of atmospheric carbon monoxide.

"But our work is showing that you can't consider microbial communities as a one-way sink for carbon monoxide," Colman says. The communities both produce and consume carbon monoxide. "It's a dynamic cycle."

Colman's calculations suggest that carbon monoxide may have nearly reached percentage concentrations of 1 percent in the atmosphere, tens of thousands of times higher than current concentrations. This in turn would have exerted influence on concentration of atmospheric methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, with consequences for global temperatures.

Toxic Concentrations

Furthermore, such high carbon monoxide concentrations would have been toxic for many microorganisms, placing evolutionary pressure on the early biosphere.

"A much larger fraction of the microbial community would've been exposed to higher carbon monoxide concentrations and would've had to develop strategies for coping with the high concentrations because of their toxicity," Colman says.

Colman and UChicago graduate student Bo He have conducted fieldwork in both Uzon and California's Lassen Volcanic National Park. Colman has most recently journeyed to Kamchatka for additional fieldwork in 2007 and 2010.

"This fantastic field site has a wide variety of hot springs," he says. "Different colors, temperatures, chemistries, different types of micro-organisms living in them. It's a lot like Yellowstone in certain respects." Lassen's springs have a narrower range of acidic chemistries, yet microbial production of carbon monoxide appears to be widespread in both settings.

Collaborator Frank Robb of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, lauds Colman for his "boundless enthusiasm" and for his "meticulous preparation," much-needed qualities to ensure the safe transport of delicate instruments into the field.

Some of the microbial life within the caldera's complex hydrothermal system may survive in even more extreme settings than scientists have observed at the surface, Colman says. "One thing we really don't know very well is the extent to which microbial communities beneath the surface influence what we see at the surface, but that's possible as well," Colman says. "We know from culturing deep-sea vent microbes that they can live at temperatures that exceed the temperatures we're observing right at the surface, and some of the turn out to metabolize carbon monoxide."

The National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Astrobiology Institute have funded Colman's Kamchatka research. The work offers insights into astrobiology, the study of the potential for life on other worlds, by showing how organisms might thrive in extreme environments beyond Earth, including the subsurface of Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa, or even planets orbiting other stars.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Chicago. The original article was written by Steve Koppes.

University of Chicago (2011, April 27). Can Siberian hot springs reveal ancient ecology?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 28, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2011/04/110426164006.htm

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[Geology2] Geologists Solve Mystery of the Colorado Plateau

Geologists Solve Mystery of the Colorado Plateau

ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2011) — A team of scientists led by Rice University has figured out why the Colorado Plateau -- a 130,000-square-mile region that straddles Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico -- is rising even while parts of its lower crust appear to be falling. The massive, tectonically stable region of the western United States has long puzzled geologists.

A paper published April 27 in the journal Nature shows how magmatic material from the depths slowly rises to invade the lithosphere -- Earth's crust and strong uppermost mantle. This movement forces layers to peel away and sink, said lead author Alan Levander, professor and the Carey Croneis Chair in Geology at Rice University.

The invading asthenosphere is two-faced. Deep in the upper mantle, between about 60 and 185 miles down, it's usually slightly less dense and much less viscous than the overlying mantle lithosphere of the tectonic plates; the plates there can move over its malleable surface.

But when the asthenosphere finds a means to, it can invade the lithosphere and erode it from the bottom up. The partially molten material expands and cools as it flows upward. It infiltrates the stronger lithosphere, where it solidifies and makes the brittle crust and uppermost mantle heavy enough to break away and sink. The buoyant asthenosphere then fills the space left above, where it expands and thus lifts the plateau.

Levander and his fellow researchers know this because they've seen evidence of the process from data gathered by the massive USArray seismic observatory, hundreds of observatory-quality seismographs deployed 45 miles apart in a mobile array that covers a north/south strip of the United States. The seismographs were first deployed in the West in 2004 and are heading eastward in a 10-year process, with each seismograph station in place for a year and a half. Seismic images made by Rice that are analogous to medical ultrasounds were combined with images like CAT scans made by seismologists at the University of Oregon; the resulting images revealed a pronounced anomaly extending from the crust well into the mantle.

Levander said the combined Colorado Plateau images show the convective "drip" of the lithosphere just north of the Grand Canyon; the lithosphere is slowly sinking several hundred kilometers into the Earth. That process may have helped create the canyon itself, as lifting of the plateau over the last 6 million years defined the Colorado River's route.

Levander said USArray has found similar downwellings in two other locations in the American West; this suggests the forces deforming the lower crust and uppermost mantle are widespread. In both other locations, the downwellings happened within the past 10 million years. "But under the Colorado Plateau, we have caught it in the act," he said.

"We had to find a trigger to cause the lithosphere to become dense enough to fall off," Levander said. The partially molten asthenosphere is "hot and somewhat buoyant, and if there's a topographic gradient along the asthenosphere's upper surface, as there is under the Colorado Plateau, the asthenosphere will flow with it and undergo a small amount of decompression melting as it rises."

It melts enough, he said, to infiltrate the base of the lithosphere and solidify, "and it's at such a depth that it freezes as a dense phase. The heat from the invading melts also reduces the viscosity of the mantle lithosphere, making it flow more readily. At some point, the base of the lithosphere exceeds the density of the asthenosphere underneath and starts to drip."

Levander said the National Science Foundation-funded USArray is already providing a wealth of geologic data. "I have quite a few seismologist friends in Europe attempting to develop a EuroArray, one of whom said, 'Well, it looks like you have a machine producing Nature and Science papers.' Well, yes, we do," he said. "We can now see things we never saw before."

Co-authors of the paper are Cin-Ty Lee, associate professor of Earth science, and graduate student Kaijian Liu, both of Rice; Eugene Humphreys, professor of geophysics, and graduate student Brandon Schmandt of the University of Oregon; former Rice postdoctoral researcher Meghan Miller, now an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the University of Southern California; and Professor Karl Karlstrom and graduate student Ryan Crow of the University of New Mexico.

National Science Foundation EarthScope grants and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Prize to Levander funded the research.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Rice University.

Journal Reference:

A. Levander, B. Schmandt, M. S. Miller, K. Liu, K. E. Karlstrom, R. S. Crow, C.-T. A. Lee, E. D. Humphreys. Continuing Colorado plateau uplift by delamination-style convective lithospheric downwelling. Nature, 472, 461-465 (27 April 2011) DOI: 10.1038/nature1000

Rice University (2011, April 28). Geologists solve mystery of the Colorado Plateau. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 28, 2011, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2011/04/110427131812.htm

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[Geology2] Be Safe OT

seeing the news here in California- Hope all our members (and others) are safe after the storms last night! Be safe! This is going to be a dangerous, crazy summer!-deb

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VOLCANO MADNESS

Thursday, April 28, 2011

[Volcano_Vista_HS] Hawks Softball vs. Cibola TODAY at 4 PM

[californiadisasters] Anniversary Reminder

Re: [Geology2] Be Safe OT

[Geology2] Why would you ever bomb a volcano?

Why would you ever bomb a volcano?

[Geology2] Can Siberian Hot Springs Reveal Ancient Ecology?

Can Siberian Hot Springs Reveal Ancient Ecology?

[Geology2] Geologists Solve Mystery of the Colorado Plateau

Geologists Solve Mystery of the Colorado Plateau

[Geology2] Be Safe OT

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