[Pepper]

New thread being started due to the slow loading of the first one.

Pepper

[Caonacl]

The news from Java appears to becoming constricted. I'm not just speaking about Merapi either. With all the crisis the region, there appears to be relatively little news.

[Caonacl]

This 3rd party report is about one week old, but it describes dire conditions that have suddenly provided few update details.

Indonesian Earthquake:
New Zealand relief worker reports from Java

A New Zealand relief worker working for ChildFund in earthquake ravaged Java says the organisation is doing its best to evacuate the last of its sponsored children and their families out of the danger zone.

Java remains on a high state of alert and Waiheke Island resident Renzo Benfatto has now been in Java for more than a week, leading ChildFund’s emergency team as they assess the impact of this disaster on thousands of children in the region and respond to their immediate needs.

Speaking from a makeshift shelter outside the ChildFund base after another aftershock had caused the team to evacuate, Renzo says, “There are regular eruptions from the mountain – they are not vertical and they are very irregular. It depends on which way the lava flows as to the seriousness of the event. When there is an eruption, a siren sounds and the nearby villages have 10 minutes to evacuate. The threat of disaster is constant.” Only yesterday the team experienced a small localised volcanic eruption from Mt Merapi and another significant earthquake. Renzo says the region has suffered more than 850 aftershocks since the quake struck, adding to children’s fear of buildings. The sound of the emergency siren is now very familiar.

ChildFund New Zealand has two projects in the extreme danger zone around the volcano. These are the Marsudi Siwi Project, where two thirds of these families have been evacuated to a safe place. The other project is the Citra Kasihi Project and almost all these families have been safely evacuated. Renzo says, “We are now focused on assisting the remaining families to evacuate and on establishing alternative base camps.”

“We estimate there are around 6,000 people living in villages close to Mt Merapi – at night they usually sleep in the surrounding camps and in the day time they return to the villages to tidy up the debris and after effects of the earthquakes. Because of the heavy ash rains, we are providing masks, emergency lamps and plastic covers for water containers to prevent contamination. We are also supplying sleeping mattresses, blankets, school supplies, soaps and detergents. Food such as instant noodles, snacks and drinking water is also being made available, particularly for the children.”

ChildFund operates on-going projects in many of the communities affected by the earthquake in Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces. As part of its operations, ChildFund has set up scores of Child Centred Spaces as safe havens for children while their parents rebuild their homes.

The devastating earthquake with a magnitude of 6.3 hit the region on May 27 killing more than 5000 people, injuring 30,000 and leaving more than 131,000 homes destroyed. The humanitarian need in the area is still great. Donations are still urgently needed to support the relief effort.

Donations can be made by freephone 0800 223 111 or www.childfund.org.nz

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0606/S00099.htm

[Caonacl]

Poverty hits villagers as Merapi stays on high alert
Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Sleman

Mt. Merapi continued billowing hot clouds of ash and steam Sunday, leaving residents unable to work and forcing them to sell their livestock to raise money.

Some villagers who earn their living as traders are facing the bitter reality that their shops in the Kaliadem tourist area were buried by volcanic ash Wednesday. The volcano also sent massive heat clouds to the area, killing two men. .

"I can't even think anymore. How can I cope with these problems?" Sri Wahyuni, a food stall owner in the tourist area, told Antara.

The Kaliadem hamlet resident has been living in a shelter at SMKN 1 vocational high school in Cangkringan for the past two months. She says she has no strength left to visit her house near the Opak river.

"My children are going to school without uniforms, and I have only two sets of clothes with me," she said.

With no money, it's been difficult to take care of her livestock. Water shortages have also become a problem. "I've decided to sell one of our two cows to cover our living expenses," she said.

But even selling a cow will not bring peace of mind. One of her two children, Resa, is about to enroll in junior high school, so she has to come up with more money. "I don't know what else to do or what our family's future will be," she said.

Another villager, Yamirah, 34, was not sure whether she could raise enough money to send her daughter, Dwi Astuti, to junior high school, since she has had to stop working as a sand miner on the volcano's slopes. "I want her to at least graduate from junior high," she told Antara.

She could only pin her hopes on her husband's plan to become a construction worker in the city. "My husband said he would try," Yamirah said.

With no work or money, the villagers have no plan to move out of the volcano's dangerous path. "We don't have another house to go to. Besides, we have a big family, and Kaliadem is home," she said.

The volcano showed no signs of cooling down Sunday, spewing hot clouds every 30 minutes that trailed four kilometers down its slopes.

The mountain continued to spit lava sparks; 57 were recorded just within six hours on Sunday morning, traveling as far as 2.5 kilometers down the slopes.

The head of the Merapi section at the Yogyakarta volcanology center, Subandriyo, said Sunday that a new lava dome emerged soon after the volcano spewed searing clouds of ash and steam on Wednesday.

"The position of the new lava dome, which was formed on May 14, is concealed because it's in a cavity around 100 meters wide. We don't know its height and volume yet," he said.

The formation of the new lava dome, he said, would help reduce the quantity of hot clouds and sparks of lava, but it did not mean the volcano is becoming less dangerous.

"Hot clouds of ash and steam are still posing a serious threat to residents living on Merapi's slopes," he said.

He said residents who live within seven kilometers of the crater should remain in shelters as the volcano will be kept on high alert.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20060619.G01&irec=1

[Lisa the GP]

Don't you love these third world nations that don't think it is important enough to educate their populace for the good of all, and make the destitute pay for their children to go to junior high?

[Caonacl]

Don't you love these third world nations that don't think it is important enough to educate their populace for the good of all, and make the destitute pay for their children to go to junior high?
One day soon, I believe the world in general will realize it's folly in devaluing the potential of all it's members. We -as a species- need everyone to be as capable as possible to do what must be done to survive. The costs of ignorance is paid by all.

[MamaAlanna]

Don't you love these third world nations that don't think it is important enough to educate their populace for the good of all, and make the destitute pay for their children to go to junior high?I can't tell, but it sounds to me like she needs to pay for uniforms (and maybe books), not for the schooling itself. BTDT -- uniforms and books for the Catholic school my daughters attended were almost as expensive as tuition.

[Lisa the GP]

Okay, channelling Russ, I'll be the vicious dictator of the world for a minute, and I decree that all people of normal intelligence shall have mandatory schooling through high school, the promotions will be based upon performance not upon trying to make everyone feel 'good' and 'equal', that everyone must pass math through algebra and geometry to get a high school diploma, that it is okay to track kids into the 'eagles', the 'bunnies' and the 'turtles', that trade schools will have strict accreditation processes and standards such that nobody is embarassed to have a kid studying to be a plumber (which is a good-paying, skill-dependent job) or auto mechanic. In addition there'll be strict accredation of colleges, and tuition and 'fees' for *accredited* schools (college and trade) will be paid for by tax revenues, which means there will be none left over for things like subsidizing bridges to nowhere in Alaska or guaranteeing that a specific contractor or a contractor in any specific state will get the subcontract for any particular government project (as often happens in NASA projects). There will also be no further subsidies to the tobacco or oil industries, since as a vicious dictator I have no need to be elected and thus no need to pay them off for campaign contributions. :D

[Caonacl]

Scientist Says Volcano Threatens Farmers
By IRWAN FIRDAUS

The Associated PressMonday, June 19, 2006; 6:03 PM

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia -- Indonesia's most volatile volcano unleashed heavy clouds of burning ash and gas Monday, threatening the lives of hundreds of defiant villagers farming on its fertile slopes, a scientist said.

Mount Merapi spewed searing clouds 1.5 miles down the mountain's southeastern flank, dusting crops and rooftops in the villages of Kinahrejo and Palemsari with dark gray ash, said Triyani, a government volcanologist.

But hundreds of residents living within the government-designated danger zone, just a few miles from the rumbling crater, continued to tend crops and livestock, she said.

Triyani warned that villagers in Kinahrejo and Palemsari faced the risk of high-speed avalanches, such as the one that burned to death two rescue workers last week after they sought shelter in an emergency bunker.

Merapi has been at a state of high alert for seven weeks, though the status was dropped briefly earlier this month.

The government has ordered the evacuation of thousands of residents living within 11 miles of the peak, but says it cannot force them to leave or prevent villagers from returning to check their houses and crops.

"We are worried, but we have to see our home and take care of our animals," said Stuned, a villager from Palemsari who goes by only one name.

Merapi is one of more than 70 active volcanoes in Indonesia.

The main dangers at Merapi are fast-moving bursts of blistering gases and rock fragments called pyroclastic flow. Experts say a massive vertical eruption threatening people many miles away is very unlikely.

One killed more than 60 villagers in 1994, and about 1,300 people died when Merapi erupted in 1930.

Triyani said in the last few decades, lava and debris has almost always cascaded down the northern and western sides of the mountain. She said it was quite rare to tumble down the southeastern side, as it did on Monday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/19/AR2006061900979.html

[Caonacl]

Merapi residents forced to sell cattle
Suherdjoko and Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Sleman

Residents living along the slopes of Mt. Merapi have begun selling off their prized dairy cattle because the ashfalls that have covered the area since last week have made it difficult to feed or water the animals.

In Kaliadem hamlet in Cangkringan district, Sleman, residents who earn their living raising cattle have been unable to gather grass for the animals because of the ashfalls.

Concerned that their cattle could begin dying, many of the residents are getting what compensation they can by selling the animals cheaply.

"Each cow is sold for Rp 5.5 million (US$578.90) to Rp 6 million. Normally they sell for between Rp 7 and Rp 8 million," Tukiman, a Kaliadem resident, said.

"We are living in evacuation centers so there is nothing we can do. There have been 60 cows sold thus far," he said, adding that about 500 residents in the hamlet made a living raising dairy cows.

Tukiman said traders, well aware of residents' plight, were coming to Kaliadem to buy the cows at marked down prices. "We're still fortunate, though, that we are able to sell them because we also worry about their safety (during the volcano's eruption)," he said.

In Kaliadem there are at least 450 dairy cows, each of which produces an average of 15 liters of milk per day. Each liter of milk sells for Rp 1,500.

Besides the ashfalls, residents also are dealing with an absence of clean water after water pipes were destroyed by falling volcanic debris. "Moreover, Umbul Lanang spring in the hamlet is no longer producing water," Tukiman said.

Another resident, Sugeng, said the hamlet had faced water shortages for the last four days. Water assistance began arriving Monday via trucks dispatched by the regency administration.

"Life is temporarily back to normal. However, we are still afraid of the thunderous sounds coming from Merapi. Moreover, the ashfalls are still continuing today," Sugeng said Monday.

Meanwhile, the Volcanology Technology Research and Development Center in Yogyakarta is maintaining Mt. Merapi at its highest alert status, particularly around Gendol River and within an eight-kilometer radius of the volcano's crater, despite a noticeable cooling in the mountain's activities.

A press release signed by Subandriyo, head of the center's Mt. Merapi section, recommended that the areas along the Krasak, Bedog and Gendol rivers be evacuated because they were prone to hot ashfalls.

The press release also warned against any activities within the eight-kilometer radius zone, including sand mining, farming, livestock tending and hiking.

Center chairman Antonius Ratdomopurbo said that as of Monday afternoon the center's seismograph registered up to five incidents of hot ash spewing from Merapi. Even though the incidents were small in volume, their direction could not be detected because of the cloud cover.

On Sunday there were up to 27 incidents of hot ash spewing from the mountain, covering a distance of up to three kilometers in the direction of Gendol River.

"The source of the hot ash is not the new lava dome, which appeared after the large-scale hot ash eruptions on June 14, with a magma production of about 70,000 cubic meters per day," Ratdomopurbo said.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20060620.G01&irec=1

[Lisa the GP]

The cow situation is sad, but is the right thing to do. May the cattle be moved somewhere safe, and the people with their cash have enough to start up again somewhere else, with only a temporary downsizing.

[goatlady]

I hope your optimiztic outlook works that way. Seems to me almost a situation of "eating your seed corn" so to speak. They are selling at a loss with no idea when they will be able to restart their business again, so the sale $$ most probably will go for living expenses and from what I can gather their government offers nothing in the way of compensation or start-up loans.

[Caonacl]

Mount Merapi: Scientist fears rain could worsen situation 06/20/2006 11:13 Source:

If forecasts of rain on Wednesday and Thursday hold, millions of metric tons of built-up ash and rock fragments could be sent down Merapi's steep slopes in mudslides, a vulcanologist warned.

Meanwhile, avalanches of new debris tumbled 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) down the flanks of the volatile mountain earlier Tuesday, said the government volcanologist, who used the single name Subandrio, the AP reports.

He said rain threatened to cause landslides in a government-designated no-go zone where many villagers are still tending crops and livestock, despite orders from authorities to evacuate. While several hundred farmers remained behind, thousands of other villagers were living in government shelters.

The powerful, fast-moving flows of volcanic debris are known by their Indonesian name Lahar.

Merapi has been at a state of high alert for seven weeks, though the status was dropped briefly earlier this month. Two people died when they sought shelter at an emergency bunker when hot gas traveled 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) down the mountain on Wednesday.

http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/20-06-2006/82232-rain-0

[southerncross]

Don't you love these third world nations that don't think it is important enough to educate their populace for the good of all, and make the destitute pay for their children to go to junior high?

One day soon, I believe the world in general will realize it's folly in devaluing the potential of all it's members. We -as a species- need everyone to be as capable as possible to do what must be done to survive. The costs of ignorance is paid by all.

I can't tell, but it sounds to me like she needs to pay for uniforms (and maybe books), not for the schooling itself. BTDT -- uniforms and books for the Catholic school my daughters attended were almost as expensive as tuition.

Okay, channelling Russ, I'll be the vicious dictator of the world for a minute, and I decree that all people of normal intelligence shall have mandatory schooling through high school, the promotions will be based upon performance not upon trying to make everyone feel 'good' and 'equal', that everyone must pass math through algebra and geometry to get a high school diploma, that it is okay to track kids into the 'eagles', the 'bunnies' and the 'turtles', that trade schools will have strict accreditation processes and standards such that nobody is embarassed to have a kid studying to be a plumber (which is a good-paying, skill-dependent job) or auto mechanic. In addition there'll be strict accredation of colleges, and tuition and 'fees' for *accredited* schools (college and trade) will be paid for by tax revenues, which means there will be none left over for things like subsidizing bridges to nowhere in Alaska or guaranteeing that a specific contractor or a contractor in any specific state will get the subcontract for any particular government project (as often happens in NASA projects). There will also be no further subsidies to the tobacco or oil industries, since as a vicious dictator I have no need to be elected and thus no need to pay them off for campaign contributions.

O.K without getting Narky at all , Indonesia is a place that has the best and worst of either end of the scale, all the mod con's in this place, and all the attributes of a third world country in another only a few hundred Km's away. Running water, neon light's high class Hotels and BMW's cruising the street here, No sewage, running water, electricity, bitumen or roads just a short distance away and the relative quality of life that go's with each circumstance in between.
It was only a short time ago Indonesia crawled out from the dictatorship of Suharto, and not much has changed since. Most of the country is trying to drag itself into the 20th century, (yeah I know). Most of the population is still survivng on subsistence farming practises and the life style that go's with it. When it comes to education, survival comes first.

Thanks for the updates on Merapi Coancl, Im still of the mind that he/she will blow and make a BIG mess of things.

[Caonacl]

I think it will too. It is very interesting that the current eruptons are not at the summit, but down the slope of the mountain.

On another note, I found a picture of the Toba magma chamber that showed the southern portion was about 10x larger than the part the blew 74 million years ago. I lost the picture and have not been able to relocagte the source, but I think it shows it to be the source of the magma that feeds Krakatau and Merapi.

[Caonacl]

Gas, Debris Surge From Indonesian Volcano
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; 8:12 AM


MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia -- Indonesia's Mount Merapi sent avalanches of searing hot gas and debris roiling down its scorched slopes Wednesday, and a scientist warned that the peak's fragile lava dome still posed a threat to thousands of villagers.

The 9,700-foot volcano has been at a near-continuous state of high alert for seven weeks, forcing the evacuation of thousands of villagers in a government-designated danger zone.

More than half a dozen avalanches carried gas and volcanic debris more than two miles down the peak's flanks, said Subandrio, a government scientist who used only one name.

Magma has swelled into a volatile lava dome on the southern crater, he said, and there is a likelihood that it will collapse, causing an avalanche of the hot gas and volcanic debris trapped within it.

The government has ordered the evacuation of all residents living within about four miles of the peak, but says it cannot force them to leave or prevent villagers from returning to check their houses and crops. Hundreds have refused to go.

Another possible threat is posed by rain forecast for coming days that could wash millions of tons of ash and rock fragments down Merapi's steep slopes in powerful mudslides.

Two people died last week when hot gas shot down the mountain.

Searing gas clouds killed more than 60 villagers in 1994 and more than 1,300 people died in a a major eruption in 1930.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/21/AR2006062100430.html

Mount Merapi releases hot cloud of volcanic ash and gas as seen from Deles, Central Java, Indonesia, Wednesday, June 21, 2006. The rumbling volcano sent deadly avalanches of searing hot gas and debris roiling down its scorched slopes Wednesday, as a scientist warned the peak's fragile lava dome still posed a threat to thousands of villagers. (AP Photo/Susetyo Nugroho) (Susetyo Nugroho - AP)

[Caonacl]

instability likely the result of increased regional seismic activity

[kaneohegirl]

as morbid as it sounds I wish it would hurry up and go BOOM

[Lisa the GP]

I wish it would make a few burps first frightening enough to GET THOSE PEOPLE OFF THE MOUNTAIN.

I'm not happy with Pravda's definition of lahar.

Pyroclastic flow = hot ash fresh from the mountain roaring down at 100+ mph and 300F-3000F. The ash is suspended in hot gas.

Lahar = ash-mud mixture washed down *by water* from the mountain, temperature generally less than the boiling point of water at that particular elevation.

In context: US pacific northwest volcanos are prone to causing lahars because when they erupt, the glaciers at their summits melt precipitously, sending walls of mud and debris down their drainages.

[LizB]

Do y'all suppose the old man who was waiting for a sign from the mountain spirits is still waiting up there?

[M Fox]

Probably, especially since there are still people playing golf on the course nearby!

cable channel MSNBC - I'll see if there's something on the web about it..

[M Fox]

http://www.pga.com/news/travel/international/volcano051506.cfm

Says they're closing up shop, now.

Golf website http://www.merapigolf.com/

[Caonacl]

does anyone know how long Krakatau erupted before it blew?

[Caonacl]

does anyone know how long Krakatau erupted before it blew?

The reason I ask is because natural events generally follow the same sequence.

Beginning 20 May 1883, three months before the final explosion, steam venting began to occur regularly from Perboewatan, the northern of the island's three cones. Eruptions of ash reached an altitude of 6 km and explosions could be heard in Batavia (Jakarta) 160 km away. Activity died down by the end of May.

The volcano began erupting again around 19 June. The seat of the eruption is believed to have been a new vent or vents which formed between Perboewatan and Danan, more or less where the current volcanic cone of Anak Krakatau is. The violence of the eruption caused tides in the vicinity to be unusually high, and ships at anchor had to be moored with chains as a result. On 11 August larger eruptions began, with ashy plumes being emitted from at least eleven vents. On 24 August, eruptions further intensified. At about 1pm (local time) on 26 August, the volcano went into its paroxysmal phase, and by 2pm observers could see a black cloud of ash 27 km (17 miles) high. At this point, the eruption was virtually continuous and explosions could be heard every ten minutes or so. Ships within 20 km (14 miles) of the volcano reported heavy ash fall, with pieces of hot pumice up to 10cm in diameter landing on their decks. A small tsunami hit the shores of Java and Sumatra some 40 km (28 miles) away between 6pm and 7pm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa

[Caonacl]

Rain might trigger Merapi mudslides
Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Sleman

Mt. Merapi sent avalanches of hot gas and debris down its scorched slopes Wednesday, as a scientist warned the peak's fragile lava dome still posed a threat to thousands of villagers.

The smoldering volcano has been at a near-continuous state of high alert for seven weeks, forcing the evacuation of thousands of villagers in a government designated danger zone.

More than half a dozen avalanches Wednesday morning carried gas and volcanic debris 3.5 kilometers down the peak's flanks, Subandrio, head of the Mt. Merapi section at a Yogyakarta-based volcanology center, told AP on Wednesday.

Magma has swelled into a volatile 300,000 cubic meter dome on the southern crater, he said, and there is a likelihood that the lava dome will collapse, causing an avalanche of the hot gas and volcanic debris trapped within it.

The government has ordered the evacuation of all residents living within seven kilometers of the peak, but says it cannot force them to leave or prevent villagers from returning to check their houses and crops. Hundreds have refused to go.

Searing gas clouds from the volcano killed two men as they hid in a bunker in the Kaliadem tourist area when hot gas traveled seven kilometers down the mountain last Wednesday. Similar clouds killed more than 60 villagers in 1994, and more than 1,300 people died in a major eruption in 1930.

Another possible threat is posed by the rain forecast for coming days, which could wash millions of metric tons of built-up ash and rock fragments down Merapi's slopes in powerful mudslides.

Thousands of houses in three hamlets in Cangkringan district in Sleman could be threatened by the mudslides of cold lava, coming from some three million cubic meters of volcanic debris piling up near the Kaliadem tourist area and along riverbanks.

"In Kaliadem, there are more than three million cubic meters of volcanic materials. If it rains, they might turn into cold lava that could flow down into thousands of houses below," Sleman Regent Ibnu Subiyanto said Wednesday.

He said the regency administration had no specific strategy for dealing with the danger.

"One of the ways to block the cold lava is by digging trenches near the Gendol area to accommodate the lava and prevent it from reaching residential areas," Ibnu said.

He said the administration had several months before the rainy season set in.

The administration plans to involve the volcanology center in Yogyakarta, the central government and related experts in coming up with preventive measures to deal with the possible flow of cold lava, he said.

The deaths of the two men in Kaliadem and the threat of mudslides have nearby villagers concerned they will be ordered out of the area.

"If there is such a plan, I believe residents will oppose it. Residents are very worried they will be told to relocate because of the danger to their villages," Umbulharjo village head Bejomulyo said.

He said many residents in the area earned a living from tourists. "If they are forced to relocate, they might have problems earning a living in the new places."

A Kinahrejo resident, Wagiran, 52, urged the authorities only to close the affected tourist areas, not the villages on the volcano's slopes. "Don't move the villagers. We were born here and earn our living here," he said.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20060622.G01&irec=1

[Caonacl]

more regional earthquake activity

[LizB]

Is this much regional earthquake activity normal?

[LitlRedHen]

does anyone know how long Krakatau erupted before it blew?

The reason I ask is because natural events generally follow the same sequence.


Beginning 20 May 1883, three months before the final explosion, steam venting began to occur regularly from Perboewatan, the northern of the island's three cones. Eruptions of ash reached an altitude of 6 km and explosions could be heard in Batavia (Jakarta) 160 km away. Activity died down by the end of May.

The volcano began erupting again around 19 June. The seat of the eruption is believed to have been a new vent or vents which formed between Perboewatan and Danan, more or less where the current volcanic cone of Anak Krakatau is. The violence of the eruption caused tides in the vicinity to be unusually high, and ships at anchor had to be moored with chains as a result. On 11 August larger eruptions began, with ashy plumes being emitted from at least eleven vents. On 24 August, eruptions further intensified. At about 1pm (local time) on 26 August, the volcano went into its paroxysmal phase, and by 2pm observers could see a black cloud of ash 27 km (17 miles) high. At this point, the eruption was virtually continuous and explosions could be heard every ten minutes or so. Ships within 20 km (14 miles) of the volcano reported heavy ash fall, with pieces of hot pumice up to 10cm in diameter landing on their decks. A small tsunami hit the shores of Java and Sumatra some 40 km (28 miles) away between 6pm and 7pm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa

Caonacl~ This parallels your wikipedia info, above, & includes additional details.


http://discoverychannel.ca/on_tv/releases/krakatoa/

"When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, the explosion had a force equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT, annihilating two-thirds of the pre-existing island and leaving only the southern tip. The sound of the eruption - believed to be the loudest in recorded history - was heard as far away as Perth, Australia, more than 3,000km away. The blast sent shockwaves around the globe seven times and the tsunamis rocked ships as far away as South Africa. More than 10km³ of rock, ash and pumice were ejected, darkening the sky for days and the gasses emitted from the volcano wreaked havoc on the world’s climate for the next five years."
[snip]
"Krakatoa: Volcano of Destruction begins three months before the final fatal eruption on August 23. On May 20th, 1883, passing ships see a massive plume of smoke and ash rising from the island’s northern peak. Over the next three months, sudden tremors and distant explosions shake the region - but it’s a mere suggestion of what is to come. Then, on August 26, the telegraph master of a port in western Java hears an ear-splitting roar, and as the seas heave, he reports seeing Krakatoa “vomiting fire and smoke.”"
[snip]
"In the final apocalyptic phase, four tsunamis radiate out from the island, each one bigger than the last. The final wave is a 30-metre wall of water, black with ash and debris, which comes as the three peaks of Krakatoa crash into the sea and the region is plunged into darkness."
[snip]
~LRH

[Caonacl]

June 22, 2006 - 10:41 AM
Landslides and floods kill over 200 in Indonesia
By Yusuf Ahmad

SINJAI (Reuters) - Indonesian rescuers scoured mud-filled homes for bodies and some survivors suffered diarrhoea and skin diseases after landslides and floods on eastern Sulawesi island killed 210 people, officials said on Thursday.

A search-and-rescue operation has been underway in South Sulawesi province after two days of heavy rain at the beginning of the week, but officials said some areas were inaccessible because roads and bridges had been damaged.

Another 71 people were still missing in Sinjai regency, the worst-hit area after flooding early on Tuesday that turned swathes of land into vast lakes.
The Indonesian military, police and civilian search and rescue teams have been scouring the affected areas trying to recover bodies and digging into mud from landslides or left behind by the floods to look for survivors.

Rahman Bando, South Sulawesi branch head of the Indonesian Red Cross, said 180 people had died in Sinjai alone and 30 had died in other regencies in the province.

"We have provided public kitchens and our volunteers are looking for victims. Several areas are unreachable. Bridges and roads are broken. We walk in the rivers," he told Reuters by phone from the provincial capital of Makassar.

Makassar is about 1,400 km (870 miles) east of Jakarta.

Torrential rains and landslides are regular features of tropical Indonesia.

"Water is receding. Search and rescue teams keep searching in homes filled with mud," said Moersen Buana of the disaster task force in Makassar.

"Sanitation is becoming a problem. People can't use regular toilets because water systems are totally destroyed," he added.

Diarrhoea and skin diseases have begun appearing, Buana said.

WOODEN HOUSES FLATTENED

Rescuers found dozens of people on the missing list alive and are searching for survivors and bodies near the coastline using rubber floats, witnesses said.

Many villages on river banks in the area were damaged with wooden houses flattened and concrete buildings covered with mud.

Rampant deforestation often adds to the ease with which hillsides are saturated and collapse as well as to flooding, since the lack of vegetation means less ground water is retained, environmentalists say.

Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban told reporters that residents had cleared the hills around Sinjai for farmland.

"What happened in Sinjai is a warning for the rest of Indonesia if rain falls more than three hours," he said, pointing out that the country had lost vast areas of forest to farmland and logging.

Sulawesi is resource-rich, with numerous mining operations, but those are far from the affected areas, a mines ministry official said on Wednesday.

"The landslide is in the south where there is no mining operation. Mining operations in other areas have no problem," M.S. Marpaung, director of mineral resources in the mines and energy ministry, told Reuters.

The central government has sent blankets, medicines and sarongs and instructed local officials to help people move to safer areas.

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/international/ticker/detail/Landslides_and_floods_kill_over_200_in_Indonesia.html?siteSect=143&sid=6834406&cKey=1150973581000


SINJAI (Reuters) - Indonesian rescuers scoured mud-filled homes for bodies and some survivors suffered diarrhoea and skin diseases after landslides and floods on eastern Sulawesi island killed 210 people, officials said on

[Caonacl]

Is this much regional earthquake activity normal?
This amount of regional activityb is normal, but the problem is that the conditions at the Merapi lava dome are unstable at the momment.

[Caonacl]

....

[Caonacl]

Magnitude 6.2 - SULAWESI, INDONESIA

2006 June 24 21:15:02 UTC
Earthquake Details
Magnitude 6.2 (Strong)
Date-Time Saturday, June 24, 2006 at 21:15:02 (UTC)
= Coordinated Universal Time
Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 5:15:02 AM
= local time at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 0.427°S, 123.156°E
Depth 35.9 km (22.3 miles)
Region SULAWESI, INDONESIA
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Maps/10/120_0.php

[Caonacl]

Magnitude 5.0 - SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA

2006 June 25 15:09:52 UTC

Magnitude 5.0 (Moderate)
Date-Time Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 15:09:52 (UTC)
= Coordinated Universal Time
Sunday, June 25, 2006 at 10:09:52 PM
= local time at epicenter

Location 4.754°S, 102.106°E
Depth 47.4 km (29.5 miles) set by location program
Region SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA

[Caonacl]

As of the 29th of June, the VGHM reported that during 21-25 June, seismic signals at Merapi indicated almost daily occurrence of rockfalls and pyroclastic flows. Due to inclement weather, pyroclastic flows were only observed on 24 June and reached a maximum distance of 4 km SE along the Gendol River and 2.5 km SW along the Krasak River. Gas plumes were observed during 22-25 June and reached a maximum height of 1.5 km above the summit (14,600 ft a.s.l.) on 24 June.

Merapi, one of Indonesia's most active volcanoes, lies in one of the world's most densely populated areas and dominates the landscape immediately north of the major city of Yogyakarta. Merapi is the youngest and southernmost of a volcanic chain extending NNW to Ungaran volcano. Growth of Old Merapi volcano beginning during the Pleistocene ended with major edifice collapse perhaps about 2000 years ago, leaving a large arcuate scarp cutting the eroded older Batulawang volcano. Subsequently growth of the steep-sided Young Merapi edifice, its upper part unvegetated due to frequent eruptive activity, began SW of the earlier collapse scarp. Pyroclastic flows and lahars accompanying growth and collapse of the steep-sided active summit lava dome have devastated cultivated lands on the volcano's western-to-southern flanks and caused many fatalities during historical time. The volcano is the object of extensive monitoring efforts by the Merapi Volcano Observatory of the Volcanological Survey of Indonesia.

The Current Colour Code for Merapi is currently at ALERT LEVEL 4.

Volcano Merapi in Java (Indonesia) was successfully forecasted by SWVRC's programme ERUPTION Pro 10.6 to erupt in 2006 with 98.65% probability.

good link:

http://www.swvrc.org/cerupt.htm

[Pepper]

Notice: This thread has been moved from forum The Lookout Tower (http://www.curevents.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=24) to forum The Lookout Tower Archive (http://www.curevents.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=35).

Note: This is an automatically-generated CE thread move message. If you have a problem with this thread move, please try to find something that's actually <i>important</i> to worry about. If you can't, and <i>really</i> want to take up our time over this, please post your complaint at the Help Desk. Be sure to include the thread number. Thank you.

[Caonacl]

.....

[Caonacl]

Disaster in 'Ring of Fire'
18/07/2006 13:40 - (SA)

Jakarta - The earthquake that rocked Java and unleashed another deadly tsunami was the latest disaster in the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire" that has seen a burst of seismic and volcanic activity this year.

Less than two months ago the central Indonesian region was hit by a 6.3-magnitude quake that killed more than 5 800 people and increased activity at Mount Merapi volcano which was already on high alert for a major eruption.

Each new temblor adds to the infamy of the so-called Ring of Fire, the volatile edges of the north Pacific both on land or undersea that are bounded by the east Asian rim and the west coast of the Americas.

Some of the most dramatic natural disasters of recent history have happened within the Ring's arc, which stretches from Chile, north to Alaska and then west to encompass Japan, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands.

From the nuclear-like explosion of Krakatoa volcano off the coast of Indonesia in 1883 to the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 220 000 across 11 nations in late 2004, the Ring's awesome power is legend.

Indonesia suffered the heaviest casualties in the 2004 tsunami disaster, which was triggered by a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off Sumatra island.

The 2004 tsunami was followed by an 8.7-level quake just 160 kilometres to the south on March 28 2005, killing more than 600.

Other large scale disasters within the Ring were the eruption of Mount St Helens in the United States in 1980, the freak quake that felled much of San Francisco in 1906 and the one that devastated Kobe, Japan, in 1995.

Pieces of a puzzle
Since the start of the year there has been an increase in seismic activity with dozens of earthquakes in the Ring and the reawakening of Mount Merapi on Java.

The volcano is still on alert for possible eruption although the warning was last week downgraded from code red, the highest.

The fragile fault lines that skirt the zone are the reason for such geological volatility.

The Earth's crust is made up of a series of rocky plates that literally float on the molten rock of the planet's mantle and core, interlocked over the entire globe like the pieces of a puzzle.

These plates are in constant motion, clashing into each other or moving away from each other, creating stresses and pressure build-ups at their margins.

The edges, or fault lines, are weak points in the planet's surface where the crust drops to just a few miles in thickness; at its thickest it is about 20 miles deep.

Many, mostly small eruptions occur, but occasionally huge volcanic explosions, earthquakes or landslides are generated, as pent up energy is released through the weak fissures.

According to the US Geological Survey, since 1900 there have been on average 19.4 quakes of 7.0-plus strength on the Ring each year, but more than 30 have been recorded so far this year.

But there were just 11 in 2005, suggesting that year's burst may just be a natural fluctuation.

http://www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1969582,00.html

[artyanne]

Indonesian forest fire haze lifting in Thai south
SONGKHLA, July 19 (TNA) - The Indonesian forest fire haze which has enveloped southern Thailand in smog for some days began lifting in Songkhla on Wednesday morning.

According to news reports, the haze has lessened due to rain Tuesday night, improving visibility and bringing welcome relief for people suffering from respiratory ailments.

The local meteorological office warned that the although the strong southwesterly winds which have been carrying dust particles from Sumatra have weakened, it is still possible that the haze will return as some of the fires have not yet died down.

Dr. Kritha Thamkampee, a lung specialist at Songkha Nakharin Hospital said that the hospital is surveying patients with respiratory disease which may have increased due to the blanket of smog.

The hospital also advised patients to avoid exposure to the smog to prevent their symtoms from becoming aggravated. http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=23455

Poor people, if its not one thing its the other!

[ukmum]

Indonesia death toll passes 500
Debris is scattered in the beach area, July 18, in Pangandaran, West Java
People are still desperately looking for loved ones
The death toll in the Indonesian tsunami has risen to at least 520, fuelling questions over why no warning was given ahead of the disaster.

Government officials said they received a warning that the island of Java was threatened by a tsunami following an underwater earthquake off the coast.

But they said they were unable to pass on the warning to coastal areas.

A fresh earthquake hit the island on Wednesday, but no injuries or major damage have been reported so far.

The epicentre of the latest quake was under the sea off Java's southwestern coast, and buildings shook in surrounding areas as far away as the capital Jakarta.

But officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said no new tsunami was expected.

Indonesia is still working to build an early warning system following the massive 2004 Asian tsunami.


I saw enormous waves engulf our beach and sweep away cars and boats
Eyewitness Elan Jayalani

Tsunami explained
'We're living in caves'
Warning system 'not ready'
Press view on tsunami
A warning system is being installed in the western province of Aceh, where 130,000 people were killed in 2004, but the government says Java will not be covered until next year at the earliest.

The giant 2m-high wall of water which hit the resort of Pangandaran on Monday was triggered by a 7.7 magnitude earthquake.

Amateur video footage has emerged showing a black wall of water tearing towards a beach full of children.

Meanwhile, rumours of another giant wave hitting the coast caused hundreds of people to flee inland on Wednesday.

Soon after Monday's quake, US and Japanese agencies issued tsunami alerts for parts of Indonesia and Australia, but the Indonesian government says it was unable to relay the message to the coast.


HAVE YOUR SAY
Work out the tsunami warning details later. Lives are more important than money
Julie P, USA

Send us your comments
In pictures: Rescue work
And even if it had, there were no warning sirens or alarms to pass the information on to residents.

"Our system is not yet working properly. We are still developing a communication system especially for the regions," said one government scientist, Fauzi.

Peter Cameron, a Red Cross spokesman in the capital Jakarta, told the BBC the authorities had only received a warning about 20 minutes before the tsunami struck.

He said that "by the time they got it and got ready to disseminate it, the tsunami had already hit the coast".

Reminder of Aceh


JAVA TSUNAMI 17 JULY
Indonesia map
0819GMT: 7.7 undersea earthquake triggers tsunami
0838GMT: International quake monitors send warnings, but no local alert systems in place
0915GMT: Waves around two metres high hit Java coast
Damage from the tsunami has been reported along a 200km (125 mile) stretch of Java's coastline.

Police and army teams are searching affected areas with sniffer dogs and mechanical diggers.

"We are looking for people who are still missing or buried under the rubble as well as clearing the debris," said army officer Deden Rajab.

According to Maman Susanto, from the government's national disaster co-ordinating board, 275 people are still listed as missing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5192716.stm
Survivors in Pangandaran have been describing their terror, saying said the experience brought back memories of the 2004 tsunami.

"When I heard the word tsunami, images from Aceh flashed in my mind and like everybody else I ran and tried to distance myself from the sea as fast as possible," said Sudarmin, a 48-year-old coconut farmer.

More than 50,000 people have been displaced and are currently living in makeshift tents or on the floors of mosques.

Many people have been living in the hills since the disaster.

"I am too scared to go down," one elderly woman told the French new agency AFP.

[Caonacl]

The regions seismic activity is amazing

[Caonacl]

.....natural events generally follow the same sequence.

Beginning 20 May 1883, three months before the final explosion, steam venting began to occur regularly from Perboewatan, the northern of the island's three cones. Eruptions of ash reached an altitude of 6 km and explosions could be heard in Batavia (Jakarta) 160 km away. Activity died down by the end of May.

The volcano began erupting again around 19 June. The seat of the eruption is believed to have been a new vent or vents which formed between Perboewatan and Danan, more or less where the current volcanic cone of Anak Krakatau is. The violence of the eruption caused tides in the vicinity to be unusually high, and ships at anchor had to be moored with chains as a result. On 11 August larger eruptions began, with ashy plumes being emitted from at least eleven vents. On 24 August, eruptions further intensified. At about 1pm (local time) on 26 August, the volcano went into its paroxysmal phase, and by 2pm observers could see a black cloud of ash 27 km (17 miles) high. At this point, the eruption was virtually continuous and explosions could be heard every ten minutes or so. Ships within 20 km (14 miles) of the volcano reported heavy ash fall, with pieces of hot pumice up to 10cm in diameter landing on their decks. A small tsunami hit the shores of Java and Sumatra some 40 km (28 miles) away between 6pm and 7pm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa

4,000 Indonesian Evacuate Due to Active Volcano
By Cihan News Agency, Jakarta
Friday, July 28, 2006
zaman.com


Indonesian officials reported nearly 4,000 people were transferred to safer areas in five villages after Karangetang, one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia, started spewing lava.

Several villages were evacuated after Karangetang Volcano on Sulawesi island in Indonesia began to spew lava. State Volcano Agency Research Director, Saut Simatupang, said this was the second time the volcano has become active since July 17.


Six hundred people died in a violent earthquake that occurred earlier this month on Cava island in Indonesia. In May another 5,800 people lost their lives in the same island in another violent earthquake. The island, which is prone to seismic upheaval, also witnessed Merapi’s volcanic eruption.


http://www.zaman.com/?bl=hotnews&alt=&trh=20060728&hn=35148

[Caonacl]

LIVERMORE
1883 volcano eruption's legacy is cooler planet
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Thanks to a spectacular volcanic explosion in the late 19th century, global warming and sea-level rise over the last century haven't been quite as severe as they might have been otherwise, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere say.

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait of Indonesia spewed so many particles into the sky that the world's sunsets turned an eerie reddish color, inspiring painters as far away as Europe. The explosion's gases and dust also blocked sunlight and cooled the planet by an average of about 1 degree well into the 20th century.
Now the scientists have reported a surprising finding. A legacy of the explosion persists beneath the ocean surface: a vast layer of cold water chilled by the nuclear-bomb-class volcanic detonation of 1883.

Cold water is denser than warm water, so the chilled water sank beneath the waves. According to the scientists' computer model, the cold water is still there 123 years later -- a climatic leftover from the decade when President James Garfield was assassinated and the first Sherlock Holmes story was published.

The scientists discovered the deep-sea pocket of cold water indirectly, while modeling the long-term climatic and ocean effects of the Krakatoa blast. They will report their findings in a forthcoming issue of the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters, the American Geophysical Union in Washington announced Tuesday.

The volcanic explosion unleashed millions of tons of particles -- including sulfur dioxide -- into the stratosphere, a relatively warm layer of the atmosphere that begins about 6 miles above the ground. Stratospheric winds quickly blew the gases and other particles around the world. The sulfur dioxide interacted with oxygen and water vapor in the atmosphere to form sulfuric acid, which blocked some sunlight and caused the climate to cool.

The scientists involved in the research said they were surprised how long the cold-water layer has endured. If it hadn't persisted so long, the sea-level rise driven by global warming would have been slightly higher -- about one centimeter -- than it has been.

The persistence of the deepwater cold anomaly "really stunned us," said Tom Wigley, a leading expert on global warming at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Wigley co-authored the article with four Livermore lab scientists and a researcher in England.

When Wigley analyzed the computer printout, his first reaction was, "This has got to be a mistake," he said. But after some reflection, he realized it was just another reminder of the complex ways in which the ocean and atmosphere interact.

The Krakatoa eruption counterbalanced the global warming trend that has been under way at least since the early-to-mid 19th century Industrial Revolution, when human burning of fossil fuels began filling the skies with greenhouse gases that warm the climate.

Humans certainly can't count on future Krakatoa-style explosions to significantly delay the effects of global warming, Wigley cautioned. Present models indicate that average planetary temperature will rise by 5 to 6 degrees over the next century, he said.
Indeed, according to the study, subsequent volcanic eruptions -- such as the 1991 explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines -- had minimal cooling effects because of the human-caused planetary warming already under way.

The evidence that humans are largely to blame for global warming is "overwhelming," Wigley explained, and "feedback effects" like temporary coolings induced by volcanic eruptions are comparatively minor factors. Still, scientists are trying to include volcanic phenomena in their computer models of global warming for the sake of comprehensiveness.

Asked if he thinks global warming is to blame for the latest California heat wave, Wigley said that for statistical reasons, it's "very difficult" to know whether global warming triggered a specific short-term weather event.

Even so, global warming is like "weighting a dice" -- it increases the odds of heat waves, he said. And in a world where more and more cars and industries are burning fossil fuels, "we're adding more weight as time goes by."

The article's lead author is Peter J. Gleckler of Livermore. Besides Wigley, neither Gleckler nor the other co-authors -- three from Livermore and J.M. Gregory of the University of Reading in England -- could be reached Tuesday.

Livermore lab spokeswoman Anne Stark issued a statement: "For years, the laboratory has been developing the most-advanced models to help interpret current and predict future climate change. In this recent research, scientists were able to interpret the effects of volcanoes on past climate. In fact, ocean temperatures dipped and offset a large percentage of sea-level rise caused by humans."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/02/BAGMOK9FJ21.DTL

[ukmum]

Very interesting article, may be worth reposting in the weather/science room.

[Banko]

Very interesting article, may be worth reposting in the weather/science room.

Indeed.

This is REALLY 'dry' stuff...and ain't nobody gonna' read it. But it IS persuasive.

"Published online before print April 19, 2004, 10.1073/pnas.0400323101
PNAS | April 27, 2004 | vol. 101 | no. 17 | 6341-6345

Geophysics
Bipolar correlation of volcanism with millennial climate change

Ryan C. Bay *, Nathan Bramall, and P. Buford Price

Physics Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

Contributed by P. Buford Price, March 10, 2004

Analyzing data from our optical dust logger, we find that volcanic ash layers from the Siple Dome (Antarctica) borehole are simultaneous (with >99% rejection of the null hypothesis) with the onset of millennium-timescale cooling recorded at Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2; Greenland). These data are the best evidence yet for a causal connection between volcanism and millennial climate change and lead to possibilities of a direct causal relationship. Evidence has been accumulating for decades that volcanic eruptions can perturb climate and possibly affect it on long timescales and that volcanism may respond to climate change. If rapid climate change can induce volcanism, this result could be further evidence of a southern-lead North–South climate asynchrony. Alternatively, a volcanic-forcing viewpoint is of particular interest because of the high correlation and relative timing of the events, and it may involve a scenario in which volcanic ash and sulfate abruptly increase the soluble iron in large surface areas of the nutrient-limited Southern Ocean, stimulate growth of phytoplankton, which enhance volcanic effects on planetary albedo and the global carbon cycle, and trigger northern millennial cooling. Large global temperature swings could be limited by feedback within the volcano–climate system.

Although the Earth maintains a remarkably constant temperature, climate fluctuations have been identified on many timescales. On the 103-year scale, poorly understood Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events (1, 2), extremely rapid coolings/warmings and subsequent cold/warm periods, are best exhibited during the last glacial period [20,000–110,000 years before the present or 20–110 thousand years ago (ka)] but may extend with reduced amplitude into the Holocene (3) (the comparatively stable, warm, last {approx}11 ka). Proposed causal mechanisms involve harmonics of Milankovitch (orbital) forcing, thermohaline circulation, internal ocean–atmosphere oscillations, solar forcing, and even long-period tidal resonances in the motions of the Earth and Moon. Recent work suggests that the fluctuations resemble those of a system possessing threshold instability. Rapid transitions between states are exhibited in many climate models, including those of oceanic circulation, atmospheric energy balance, and atmospheric regime change. It is becoming increasingly apparent that global climate models currently either omit some natural forcings from the simulations or underestimate the size and extent of climate response to threshold crossings, e.g., by considering the North Atlantic as the amplifier for DO oscillations and only including North Atlantic triggers in the model (4). The possibilities that rapid climate change can induce volcanic activity and, conversely, that volcanic eruptions can force millennial climate have both been suggested in the past (5). Based on evidence we have found using our optical profiles of deep boreholes in the polar ice caps, we conclude that volcanism may supply a vital missing link in millennial climate change.

Dust Logger. Ice cores extracted from boreholes yield precious samples for laboratory analyses of gases, isotopes, crystal fabric, chemistry, and particulates as far back as 100–400 ka. Our complementary approach is to measure in situ features of the glacial ice by lowering an optical instrument into the boreholes, which are kept open with an insoluble antifreeze matched to the density of ice. The dust-logger principle is simple (6). Light-emitting diodes shine 370-nm light radially (horizontal to ±5°) into the ice surrounding the borehole in which the instrument is kept centralized. At shallow depths, the light encounters air bubbles and dust; at greater depths, where all bubbles have transformed into air hydrate crystals, the light is absorbed or scattered only by dust particles. A fraction of the light scatters back into the borehole and is detected by a phototube that is shielded from outgoing light. Depth resolution is determined by the planar collimation of the source, its separation from the phototube, and, for weak signals, the smoothness of the borehole wall. Our log of the GISP2 borehole (3,054 m) closely tracks the depth dependence of Ca2+ (a measure of insoluble dust; ref. 7) and {delta}18O of water (a proxy for temperature; ref. 8) measured in the ice cores, because colder periods are generally associated with higher winds, higher aridity, and consequently a greater amount of dust swept into the atmosphere. Among other features, our log shows abrupt DO changes in dust concentration over periods as short as a decade. Bubbles in the ice at Siple Dome (West Antarctica, 1,004 m) are present all of the way to bedrock but contribute decreasingly to light-scattering with depth. Secular climate changes seen worldwide produce variations in background dust that negatively correlate in Fig. 1. In bubbly Siple Dome ice, absorption on dust decreases the return signal, whereas at GISP2 scattering on dust in bubble-free ice (the situation at depths >1,600 m or ages >11 ka) increases the signal.

Fig. 1. Scattering on the higher dust concentrations that accompany cold periods increases the dust-logger signal in a profile of the clear ice at GISP2 (Upper), whereas absorption on dust decreases signal in the bubbly ice at Siple Dome (Lower). The GISP2 data have been smoothed for clarity; a few interstadials and the Younger Dryas (YD) are labeled. Volcanic signatures at Siple Dome are indicated with hashing; when magnified, each signal (here distorted in age space) is a distinctive asymmetric double spike (see, for example, the cusp near 71 ka).

Volcanic Ash Verification. In addition to its response to dust, our dust logger responds with a unique signature to the thin (approximately mm to several cm), opaque layers of ash deposited by volcanic eruptions, in particular, in ice in which scattering is dominated by bubbles, which do not absorb light. We have verified that the ash signals identified with our loggers at Siple Dome are caused by volcanic emissions. The distinctive response of the dust logger to thin, opaque volcanic ash layers is an asymmetric double cusp (see Fig. 1) produced as the focused-beam emitter and the receiver consecutively traverse the ash layer (6). Monte Carlo simulations confirm that the signal distinguishes ash layers from the more gradual changes in dust concentration and the quasi-periodic scarring of the borehole by the drill. Visual scans of the ice core certified the darkest of the ash deposits, except for those in badly fractured sections from depths below {approx}780 m ({approx}30 ka), where visual searches for ash in the Siple Dome core have been impractical. In unfractured core sections, ash layers that at first escaped visual detection were evident in the logger data and then later confirmed visually in the core. By probing outward into the ice surrounding a borehole, the logger samples a larger cross section of ice (of the order m2) and integrates lateral irregularities that can be misleading in studies of the 13-cm-diameter core. Many of the ash layers detected in our optical borehole logs were not visible in the core to the naked eye and so are likely composed of micrometer- and submicron-sized particles. To assist in confirming their volcanic origin, we sent Nelia Dunbar (New Mexico Tech, Socorro, NM) a list of depths of a sample of 24 ash layers from below 500 m ({approx}7.8 ka) that we had located with the logger, most of which could not be seen in the core. By melting portions of the core, filtering, and microscopically examining the filtrate (9, 10), she found all but three within {approx}30 cm of the depth we specified and confirmed that they were indeed layers of volcanic tephra (glass shards). The remaining three (not used in the correlation calculation), despite being clear examples of ash signals in the borehole logs, were probably missed because of errors of as much as 1 m in our corrected depths, because she limited her search to depths close to the predicted locations. In some cases she recovered enough material to analyze composition, and it appeared to correlate with basaltic, basanitic, and trachytic sources on the Antarctic continent. A few non-Antarctic compositions suggested South American provenance. We detected >60 volcanic ash layers in the Siple Dome ice but far fewer at GISP2. In addition to a higher altitude and less favorable location relative to volcanic regions, bubbly ice (where ash identification is most straightforward) makes up only 10% of the temporal ice record at GISP2.

Dating. To reduce minor errors in depth we forced our borehole profiles to agree with studies of the cores; we tied features in our dust logs at GISP2 to Ca2+ measurements by Mayewski et al. (7), and at Siple Dome we calibrated the strongest volcanic ash signal depths to those measured in visual core scanning. We then applied the best available age vs. depth conversions{dagger} (refs. 11 and 12 and references therein). Siple Dome ages before 11 ka were determined by matching core gases with those at GISP2, by using methane concentrations back to 19 ka with estimated relative age uncertainties of ±0.5–1 thousand years (kyr) and isotopic anomalies of trapped O2 (which, like methane, is constant throughout the atmosphere) before 19 ka with relative age uncertainties conservatively estimated to be between -1 kyr and +1–2.5 kyr.


Results and Discussion
Top
Abstract
Methods
Results and Discussion
Implications
References

It is clear from Fig. 1 that periods of more frequent volcanic ash deposits at Siple Dome are generally associated with stadials (colder stages within an overall glacial period) at GISP2. We evaluated the statistical significance of this volcano–stadial association with a rigorous Monte Carlo technique, because standard correlation measures such as the Pearson product-moment estimator can be spurious when applied in a time series context. In the Holocene, abrupt climate changes cease and consequently so does any obvious volcanic association. We focused on the period between 27 and 70 ka (Fig. 2). During more recent times, millennial features cannot be easily discerned in the climate record, and the high variability in the two series at glacial maximum would drive the correlation even higher. For times before 70 ka, the error in the age vs. depth conversions may become too large. We converted the two time series to point series, with an event at Siple Dome being a volcanic ash deposition and an event at GISP2 being the onset (beginning of the cooling phase) of a DO peak in dust signal that exceeded some threshold. The Siple Dome point series was fixed as the template with 27 events, and the GISP2 point series of 19 events was taken to be the target, which was allowed to float by an offset in time. The correlation measure was then the minimum of the rms residual between template–target nearest-neighbor events as a function of offset. A simple Monte Carlo simulation then determined the occurrence likelihood that a random distribution (homogeneous Poisson process) of 19 events in the target series would obtain a greater correlation measure (smaller residue) than the real data. We found strong correlation with a statistical significance of 99.1% (one chance in 110) and an offset of almost exactly zero. A graphical representation of this correlation is shown in Fig. 3. The onset times of the peaks in GISP2 dust are plotted against Siple Dome volcanic event times, with the nearest-neighbor volcanic events that contributed to the residue (for the real GISP2 data) plotted in red and the outlier events plotted in black. A slope of 1.0 would reflect perfect correlation. A second Monte Carlo calculation using the peak times instead of the leading-edge times of the GISP2 stadials gave a significance of 99% (one in 100) and a robust Siple Dome (volcanic) lead time of the order of 800 years. Although this lead is within conservatively estimated relative dating errors of 1 kyr at the five tie points used in the calculation, it persists throughout the data sets. A third Monte Carlo calculation evaluating association of the volcanic activity with the trailing edges of the stadials (warmings) gave a significance of 96.7% (1 in 30) and an offset of nearly 2 kyr. Extending the second calculation (peak times) to cover the interval between 75 and 20 ka, and thereby including the high event densities of the late glacial period, increased the correlation to nearly 99.7% (>300 to 1). Alternatively, the use of methane tie points (E. Brook, J. W. C. White, A. S. M. Schilla, M. L. Bender, J. P. Severinghaus & R. B. Alley, unpublished work) back to 43 ka for relative dating preserves both the high correlation and the volcanic lead. Thus, the correlation of Antarctic volcanic activity with northern abrupt climate change is insensitive to time intervals examined and to small uncertainties in the age vs. depth relationship.



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Fig. 2. Interval over which the correlation was calculated, with hashing to indicate Siple Dome volcanic events (Lower) and GISP2 DO cold events (Upper). For clarity, a few of the weakest volcanic events are not indicated. The stadial near 67 ka has been associated with the Toba supereruption (28).



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Fig. 3. Graphical representation of the correlation, with the volcanic markers that contributed to the residue for real data in the Monte Carlo significance calculation plotted in red; those that were not nearest neighbors are plotted in black. More than half of the residuals are <300 years.

Because of their proximity, volcanoes of the Antarctic plate are likely overrepresented in the Siple Dome volcanic record, in particular, those in the Marie Byrd Land province on the north flank of the West Antarctic rift system, one of the planet's largest active continental rifts. The Siple Dome volcanic ash record may not represent episodic increases in volcanism but merely increases in deposition due to reorganizations of atmospheric circulation over Antarctica. To help resolve this uncertainty we defined a Siple Dome ash index as the 1-kyr running average of our existing volcanic ash measurements on a signal scale of 1–20 based on area under the curve (6), and we compared it to the global volcanicity estimate of Bryson and Bryson (13). The Bryson team combed the literature for all radiocarbon-dated eruptions, eliminated duplicates, and counted the number per century by using a database of nearly 3,000. After correcting for the paucity of older eruptions in the records they were able to generate an index of global activity. The agreement of our ash deposition index at Siple Dome with the Bryson activity index, when both are integrated over 1 kyr, is rather good (Fig. 4). Studies of the Siple Dome ice core (14) indicate that Siple Dome climate may have strong ties to the Pacific region, so the submicron-sized component of ash in the clean Siple Dome ice could be a representative sample of the global atmospheric fine ash load, including very small injections that would not be detected by visual inspection of ice-core sections. If our ash record is entirely dominated by local sources, these may have served as quantitative indicators, over sufficiently long time-scales, by erupting sympathetically with periodic increases in volcanism of all types worldwide. As Fig. 4 shows, the two indices are also similar to the GISP2 volcanic sulfate record of Zielinski et al. (15) in that the greatest activity occurred at {approx}9 or 10 ka, during the main deglaciation of the early Holocene.



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Fig. 4. Comparison of our Siple Dome ash record with the global volcanicity index of Bryson and Bryson (13) (Upper) and the GISP2 volcanic sulfate of Zielinski et al. (15) (Lower), each averaged over 1 kyr. The Siple Dome ash magnitude ranking is from ref. 6; the Bryson volcanicity index has been renormalized. The Bryson curve does not extend back beyond 35 ka because of the limitation of radiocarbon dating. All three curves indicate that the greatest activity was {approx}10 ka during the main deglaciation of the early Holocene.

The concept of a connection between volcanic eruptions and the advance of glaciers dates back to Lamb (16), and the idea has persisted (5). We found the closest association between volcanic events and the onset of millennial cold periods, and this persistent coincidence seems to point to a volcanic-forcing view of causation. The reversed-causality explanation should not be excluded on the basis of the Monte Carlo significance calculation, given the relative dating errors and previous findings that Northern Hemisphere climate is time-lagged with respect to that of the Southern Hemisphere. We will explore a number of plausible mechanisms for forcing in both directions.

Millennial Climate Change Forcing Volcanism. Kyle et al. (17) pointed out that abundant visible tephra layers found by Gow and Williamson (18) at Byrd Station (also near volcanic sources in West Antarctica), which were clustered during the late part of the last glacial period, might have been due to a thickening of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that initiated the eruptions in nearby Marie Byrd Land. Zielinski et al. (15) noted that in the sulfate record at GISP2 the periods of greatest volcanic activity seemed to occur during changing climatic conditions, especially during the early Holocene. Maclennan et al. (19) found a link between deglaciation and volcanism in Iceland that they attributed to increased melt generation rates in the shallow mantle caused by unloading of the ice sheet. Numerical studies have shown that mantle stress accumulation associated with glaciation/deglaciation and meltwater change may have triggered or accelerated active Quaternary volcanism of the circum-Pacific (20). Eruptions might be induced by climatically driven atmospheric jolts to the solid Earth's rotational angular momentum (21) or by crustal stresses resulting from ice-sheet loading/unloading effects on the planet's distribution of mass.

The high volcanic activity during the main deglaciation of the early Holocene (Fig. 4) suggests that ice-sheet unloading and/or sea level rise increased volcanism during this period, although this response may not be fast enough to explain the volcanic variability seen during the glacial period. The volcanism we detected at Siple Dome may be further evidence of a North–South asynchrony, having been driven by southern climate changes, which typically led Greenland changes by 1–2 kyr over the last glacial period (22). Our volcanicity record at Siple Dome correlates less with Antarctic temperature changes than with those in the Greenland record, as evidenced in the Siple Dome record itself (see Fig. 2). The broad peak near 50 ka is a southern cold event, one of several seen throughout Antarctica between the Last Glacial Maximum and the stadial near 60 ka seen globally, yet we found no associated volcanic ash during this period. The episodic volcanic activity we have found may be connected to changes not readily seen in Antarctica because of the continent's isolation by circum-Antarctic ocean circulation. The agreement between our Siple Dome ash record and global indices of volcanism is surprising if the ash reflects only local effects. Perhaps sea level or some other global climate variable with wide-ranging influence was able to affect volcanic rates uniformly over much of the globe.

Volcanism Forcing Millennial Climate Change. Ice-rafted debris sediments found in the North Atlantic correlate with DO events, and these surges of fresh water are thought to have disrupted or even largely halted ocean thermohaline circulation (23, 24). Amplified by gradients in salinity but driven primarily by high-latitude cooling, the thermohaline circulation is believed to have alternated between a glacial state and an interglacial state on the millennial scale. This finding has prompted searches for an external, possibly atmospheric cooling mechanism, which does not involve thermohaline circulation or orbital parameters, to trigger episodic ice-sheet discharges.

From his studies of global volcanism in compiling his Dust Veil Index, Lamb found that eruption patterns seemed to indicate that stresses building up within the Earth's crust led to wide-spread simultaneous fractures, and the resulting volcanism was sufficient to explain climate changes on a variety of timescales. Gow and Williamson (18) originally suggested that the tephra layers they found at Byrd during the last glacial period may have been an indication that eruptions of volcanic ash in Antarctica triggered or intensified worldwide cooling. Bray (25), an early proponent of a connection between glaciation and volcanism, found that of 18 phases of glacial advance and volcanic activity, all but four showed a lag in ice advance of 100–300 years after the initial volcanic eruption. Because of poor statistics his conclusions were not regarded as convincing at the time. Bryson (26) suggested a link between long-timescale volcanic variations and climate fluctuations in the Holocene. Some have suggested that the Toba mega-eruption {approx}71,000 years ago could have initiated the glacial period (27) or enhanced the kiloyear stadial event that followed (28).

The large-particle ash component of a volcanic eruption settles out quickly from the atmosphere, presumably limiting its influence in both space and time. If volcanic ash covered a substantial area of snow or ice, this could significantly reduce the surface albedo of that region for a short time and possibly cause melting, in particular, if the eruption occurred in the summer. The aerosol component of an eruption, resulting mainly from the emission of SO2 and H2S, can remain aloft and potentially force climate on timescales of years, decades, or longer (29). Volcanic aerosols affect the Earth's radiation balance, principally by reflecting sunlight back into space and cooling the planet. By serving as cloud condensation nuclei, sulfate aerosols are believed to change the microphysical structure, water content, lifetime, and extent of clouds (30). Not only the type and magnitude but also the location of an eruption are thought to determine its climatic impact. Largely because of amplification through snow/ice albedo feedback, namely, runaway ice-sheet growth or melt, Hansen et al. (31, 32) found that an arbitrary surface forcing is twice as effective at high as at low latitudes; i.e., a given magnitude forcing alters global surface air temperature by twice as much.

Martin (33) suggested that mineral fertilization of "high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll" regions of the ocean where iron or other trace species are rate-determining for the growth of oceanic biomass may have a pronounced effect on biological CO2 fixation. Increased productivity would tend to decrease atmospheric CO2 at the ocean surface, with a response time on the order of 100 years (34). Stimulation of diatoms that fix organic carbon but not calcite carbon further reduces atmospheric CO2 on a timescale of kiloyears (34) by changing the ratio of organic carbon to calcite in ocean sediments (34–38). The CO2 content of the glacial atmosphere was lower than the preindustrial Holocene value, and this difference has been attributed to increased aeolian continental dust fluxes of iron (33, 39, 40) to the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, which is known to be iron-limited and to have an abundance of unused nutrients (37, 38, 41). The higher levels of dust that would have resulted from lowered atmospheric CO2 and temperature might have then been fed back for amplification.

Phytoplankton in the remote ocean are accustomed to low iron availability and typically have carbon-to-iron molar ratios <10-4, meaning that a tiny injection of new iron to pelagic ocean surfaces can produce a relatively large amount of new biomass. Because of the efficiency of surface carbon recycling, however, much of the carbon fixed by phytoplankton does not immediately sink out of the mixed surface layer but remains in contact with the atmosphere. Many other phytoplankton climatic forcings (42–45) are only poorly understood and could dominate their complicated effect on green-house gases, which may primarily serve as a weak tracer of their activity on the millennial scale. Calcite-producing coccolithophores, which are found everywhere but especially in subpolar regions (Coccolithus pelagicus), affect ocean albedo by greatly enhancing scattering at the surface with little increase in absorption. Acting like tiny mirrors, the coccoliths produced by these microorganisms reflect strongly with little wavelength dependence and back-scatter radiation at a level an order of magnitude higher than would be expected from Mie theory. Intense blooms can be seen from space and increase ocean albedo to 10%, several times higher than the reflectivity of barren waters. Such an increase over the entire Southern Ocean would equate to a forcing on the order of 1 W/m2 reduction in incoming solar energy, similar in magnitude to that estimated to arise from anthropogenic CO2. Albedo forcing has been found to be roughly twice as effective on equilibrium temperature response as CO2 (31, 32). In addition to directly back-scattering solar radiation, phytoplankton decrease ocean heat retention and cool the overall water column. By shading the deeper waters and trapping energy near the surface where it can escape to the atmosphere, the canopy decreases heat input to the deep ocean which is transmitted around the globe. Phytoplankton produce the sulfur compound dimethylsulfoniopropionate, which decomposes in sea water into dimethylsulfide, diffuses into the atmosphere, and is oxidized, leading to acidic aerosols that function as efficient cloud condensation nuclei. In areas where cloud condensation nuclei are scarce, this could increase planetary albedo by creating more and brighter clouds of greater longevity.

Atmospheric input of iron to the Southern Ocean is generally three to four orders of magnitude lower than in the North Atlantic and North Pacific (46). Although terrestrial atmospheric dust during glacial times likely dominated the flux of rate-determining nutrients over most of the Northern Hemisphere ocean area, volcanism may well have been a main (transient) source of trace minerals over most expanses of ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. The sulfur that accompanies the iron injected by volcanic eruptions, in conjunction with photochemical reactions (47), increases the solubility of marine aerosol iron in seawater by reducing the Fe(III) to Fe(II). Meskhidze et al. (48) suggest a link in the Northern Hemisphere between ocean productivity and mobilization of iron in aeolian dust due to anthropogenic SO2 emissions.

Fertilization by the 1991 Pinatubo eruption has been suggested as the cause of an unexpected dip in atmospheric CO2 (34, 49) and a 1014 mol pulse of O2 emanating from the oceans in the Southern Hemisphere during austral summer 1991–1992 (50). Ash injection 100 times that of Pinatubo, including individual eruption volumes 10–50 times greater, can be expected on a timescale of 1 kyr. Whereas Watson (34) assumed 1% by weight iron concentration for the ash deposited by Pinatubo, the ash samples from Siple Dome were found to contain iron on the order of 10% (9), unusually high for explosive volcanism. A fertilization 20 times as effective as the Pinatubo eruption could serve as a sink, at least temporarily, for an amount of carbon greater than annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions (7 billion metric tons). Alternative explanations for Pinatubo's effect on CO2 have also been suggested, such as increased terrestrial photosynthesis or a reduction in terrestrial soil and plant respiration (51).

The overall maximum in volcanic activity occurred in the Holocene between 9 and 9.5 ka. No glacial transition was associated with this volcanism, except perhaps for the relatively short-lived and weak 8.2-ka cold event (3) of the order of -5°C seen at all northern latitudes. If the Holocene differs substantially from the glacial regime, as is widely believed, then when the ice volume was larger, temperatures were colder and sea level was lower; this could help explain a muted effect.


Implications
Top
Abstract
Methods
Results and Discussion
Implications
References

Volcanism may be critical to our understanding of climate threshold instabilities and in developing a consistent picture of climatic teleconnections between hemispheres. Volcanism represents the most violent of potential reactions to or causes of abrupt climate change, and the possibility of increases in volcanic activity further underscores the need for a more comprehensive understanding of the earth system. It has often been proposed that iron fertilization of the ocean could be used as a sort of bioremediation to compensate for global warming. Although our results suggest that such action has the potential for dramatic consequences, it would likely be difficult to engineer effective fertilization of a large enough area of ocean to have substantial climatic impact. If warming and deglaciation induce volcanism, and if increasing volcanic activity can promote glaciation, this system represents a volatile although ultimately stable feedback for atmospheric temperature regulation. Large global temperature swings could be limited by a mechanism in which volcanism causes cooling, whereas warming factors trigger ice-sheet unloading and/or sea-level rise, leading to increased volcanic activity.


Acknowledgements

We thank Gary Clow and Robert Hawley for collaboration; Nelia Dunbar for analysis of ash layers; Kurt Cuffey, Reid Bryson, and Michael Bender for discussions; Michael Solarz and members of the University of California, Berkeley, Physics Machine Shop and Electronics Shop for assistance; and others who have reviewed and evaluated this manuscript. This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grant OPP-0125794.


Footnotes

Abbreviations: ka, thousand years ago; kyr, thousand years; DO, Dansgaard–Oeschger; GISP2, Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2.

{dagger} Brook, E. & Bender, M. (2002) National Snow and Ice Data Center, WAISCORES SDMA:11.90–98.15:April-26–2002. Back

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bay@cletus.physics.berkeley.edu.


References


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http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/17/6341

This 'hard science' is so boring, I want to SCREAM.

[Caonacl]

Very interesting article, may be worth reposting in the weather/science room.

feel free to do so. I posted it hear because I believe that a Krakatoa type explosion may be part of the natural warming/cooling cycle. The irony may be that if you're lucky if you get a Krakatoa. If you're not lucky, you get a Yellowstone or a Toba.

[Caonacl]

Tectonic quakes still continue shaking Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta (ANTARA News) - Tectonic quakes are still shaking Yogyakarta and its sorroundings in Central Java after the one that killed hundreds of people some time ago.

At around 3.46 pm on Wednesday a light tremor was recorded at the seismograph at a Mount Merapi observation post but it did not affect the volcano`s activity, Heru, an attendant of the post said.

He said the seismograph had recorded several quakes in Yogyakarta and its sorroundings in the past few days.

The volcano`s danger status has been lowered after its activity has dropped. He said molten lava still continued coming out of the mountain`s top but its frequency continued to decline from day to day and its flow seldom reached more than one kilometer down the slopes.

The magnitude 3.2 quake that happened on Wednesday had its epicenter in Panggang, Gunung Kidul.

The quake that struck earlier that day at around 11 am measuring 3.1 on the Richter scale also had its epicenter in Panggang in a depth of 10 kilometers.

The head of the data and information section of the local Meteorology and Geophysics Agency here, Tyar Prasetyo, said a 2.4 maginitude quake jolted the city and its sorroundings three days ago.(*)


COPYRIGHT © 2006 ANTARA

August 2, 2006

http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=17582

[Caonacl]

FYI--

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY MEMOIR NO.27
Geology of Sumatra
John Milsom
University College London, London, UK

Sumatra is an active (Andean) continental margin that would be linked by land to Southeast Asia if sea level fell by as little as 50 metres. Present-day tectonic processes are controlled by three major fault systems, the most obvious of which is the subduction thrust which outcrops in the Sunda Trench. The trench curves very little in the 800 km between Enggano and Nias, i.e. off central Sumatra (Fig. 2.1), but is markedly convex towards the Indian Ocean both further north and further south. Water depths of more than 6000m are reached in the south but the maximum in the north may be less than 5000 m. The difference is usually, and convincingly, attributed to the presence on the Indian Ocean plate of the Nicobar Fan, consisting of sediments, derived ultimately from erosion of the Himalayas, which increase steadily in thickness towards the north (e.g. Hamilton 1979). Continuing subduction is attested by a Wadati-Benioff Zone (WBZ) that extends to depths of the order of 200 km (e.g. Newcomb & McCann 1987) and by volcanic activity in the Barisan mountains, the peaks of which generally lie within a few tens of kilometres of the coast. The change, of more than 450, in the trend of the trench between 960E and 980E (the 'Nias Elbow') may have been initiated by subduction of the 2 km high Investigator Ridge (Investigator Fracture Zone or IFZ), which trends approximately N-S at about 990E. Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000) defined a 'Central Domain' of mainland Sumatra between the Nias Elbow and the ridge intersection as anomalous in a number of ways (notably in the differing trends of the Sumatran Fault and the volcanic line) and as distinct from more regular Northern and Southern domains on either side (Fig. 2.1).

Figure 2.1. Sumatra: the neotectonic setting. The figure has been oriented on the main fault direction. The India-Southeast Asia convergence vector changes significantly in both direction and magnitude over the length of the island, from 52 mm/yr directed at N100E (at 20N, 950E) to 60 mm/yr directed at N170E (at 60S, 1020E). Convergence data (and mainland structural domains) are from Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000). The seismic image of Line 42-43 is shown in Figure 2.7. The volcanic Barisan mountains (shaded above 1000 m) run virtually the entire length of the island along the line of the Sumatran Fault. The thick grey line on the west coast of Nias indicates the location of possible catastrophic slope collapse. I.F.Z. = Investigator Fracture Zone.

Inland, the dextral transcurrent Sumatran Fault runs the entire length of the island, from Banda Aceh to the Sunda Strait (Fig. 2.1). A variety of names have been used for both the overall fault system and parts of it, and new nomenclature developed by Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000) divided it into nineteen individual segments. Even this detailed study failed to answer many fundamental questions, and estimates of total lateral displacement still vary from several hundred kilometres to as little as twenty kilometres. The 150 km suggested by McCarthy and Elders (1997) seems to be about the mean of the published values. The fault trace coincides roughly with the watershed of the Barisans and with the volcanic line, although most of the volcanoes lie somewhat to the northeast of the fault and only nine of the fifty youngest centres lie within 2 km of it (Sieh & Natawidjaja 2000). A more precise correlation is with the subduction thrust, since for most of its length the distance between the Sumatran Fault and the trench axis differs by no more than 30 km from the average value of 290 km.

The third and most enigmatic of Sumatra's major fault systems is the Mentawai Fault, at the outer margin of the forearc basin (Fig. 2.1). In many publications the name is reserved for the segment extending from the Sunda Strait to Nias (Samuel & Harbury 1996) or the Batu Islands (Diament et al. 1992), but the same disturbance zone continues at least as far as the Andaman Sea (Malod & Kemal 1996) and possibly to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Movement has been variously interpreted as normal, strike slip or reverse (Sieh & Natawidjaja 2000). There are considerable changes in appearance on seismic sections even within the region from Nias southwards; the structure was described by Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000) as a homocline and by Karig et al. (1980) as a 'fault-flexure'.

<snip>

Shallow seismicity
As in most active continental margins, shallow (<60 km depth) earthquakes in Sumatra are distributed over wide areas of the upper plate and are not restricted to the WBZ (Fig. 2.2). Maximum shallow earthquake activity occurs within the sliver defined by the Sumatran Fault in the east and by the subduction thrust in the west and at depth, and is most intense along the line of the forearc ridge. Relatively few shocks of magnitude greater than 5 occur beneath the mainland.

The insets to Figure 2.2 attempt to show separately the distributions of events within the uppermost 40 km of the crust and at depths of between 40 and 60 km. Because of the uncertainties inherent in determining the depths of shallow earthquakes (see discussion in Engdahl et al.,1998), many of these events will have been misallocated, but some of the differences between the plots are likely to be real. The 40-60 km events are concentrated in a narrow zone centred on the forearc basin and most are probably directly associated with the subducted oceanic lithosphere, i.e. with the WBZ. There are, however, some similarities with the patterns of shallower events, noticeably in the tendency for epicentres to be concentrated in short linear zones at right angles to the trench, presumably due to some form of forearc segmentation. There must be considerable forearc extension (see McCaffrey, 1991) if the estimates of large variations in rates of transcurrent slip (more than 400 km of offset in Aceh but negligible displacements in the Sunda Strait; Curray et al. 1978) are correct (see also Bellier & Sebrier 1995). The trend of the linear alignments changes slightly north of the Nias Elbow to partly match the change in orientation of the trench but, surprisingly, NE-SW alignments of epicenters can be seen east of the even more dramatic change between Sumatra and Java (Fig. 2.2).

A second feature of the shallow seismicity is the separation of the shallowest earthquakes (Fig. 2.2; lower inset) into two divergent zones, one along the forearc ridge (with a bend or offset where the IFZ enters the subduction zone near the Batu islands), the other very approximately along the west coast of Sumatra. The forearc basin itself is relatively quiet seismically. The offset at the IFZ is interesting because Newcombe and McCann (1987) noted that ruptures associated with great (> M7) earthquakes do not propagate across this region. In 1833 a Magnitude (Mw) 8.7 event faulted the plate margin for about 600 km from Enggano to the Batu Islands, while the effects of the Mw 8.4 event in 1861 were confined to a 300 km segment between the Batu and Banyak Islands

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Toba seismicity
A more comprehensive picture of Sumatra seismicity than is provided by Figure 2.3 was presented by Hanus et al. (1996), who plotted hypocentres within 50 km wide, NE-SW swathes that together covered the whole of the island. Arguably their most interesting plot was A15, which included the northern part of the forearc island of Nias and much of the Toba caldera (Fig. 2.1). The WBZ in this region dips at an angle of a little more than 30o and the deepest shocks occur between 200 and 250 km. There is a small but noticeable gap in seismicity beneath the volcanic line at depths of about 150 to 180 km and a corresponding region of shallow seismicity immediately beneath the volcanoes.

In detail, the picture provided by Hanus et al. (1996) is suspect because of the reliance on ISC hypocentre locations. These, being derived from interpretations of teleseismic data based on global velocity models, are inevitably of fairly low accuracy. The significance of this limitation has been demonstrated by Fauzi et al. (1996), who used additional data from a newly established (but now permanent) network of short-period digital seismometers to study earthquakes in the vicinity of Toba. The primary aim of the work reported, which covered the period from October 1990 to April 1993, was to investigate a hypothesised break in the downgoing slab due to subduction of the IFZ. Seismic activity was found to be unusually high in the appropriate area but no discontinuity was detected and a limit of 20 km was placed on the magnitude of any possible displacement. There was more success with a subsidiary objective of defining the shape of the WBZ as it followed the bend in the offshore trench between Nias and Simeulue. In contrast to both the ISC and Engdahl et al. (1998) data, hypocentres derived from the local study and plotted for narrow cross-strike swathes were found to be tightly concentrated in very narrow zones that changed in dip scarcely at all around the bend (Fig. 2.4). Estimated depths also tended to be smaller than those based only on teleseismic data, especially beneath the forearc basin.

Figure 2.4. Movements of sites in Sumatra as determined by GPS observations during the period 1989-1993 (Prawirodirdjo et al. 1997). Vectors show rates of movement relative to a stable Southeast Asia. They imply stress accumulation in parts of the forearc region, some of which would have been released by the June 2000 earthquake near Enggano. The location of this earthquake, and of aftershocks for which Harvard CMT fault-plane solutions have been calculated (Abercrombie et al., 2003), are also shown. The main shock location is taken from the NEIC internet listings. The two subevent solution proposed by Abercrombie et al. (2003) is shown in Figure 2.5. MS = Muara Siberut. S = Sinabang. Pecked grey line shows location of barrier to propagation of deep earthquakes inferred by Newcomb and McCann (1987).

A more recent seismological study of the Toba area used a temporary network comprising 30 short-period and 10 broad-band seismographs deployed for four months in the first half of 1995 (Masturyono et al., 2001). Tomographic methods were used to define velocity variations beneath the caldera. The results support the hypothesized existence of two distinct eruptive centers, one in the south-central part of the lake and the other at its northern end, which erupted at different times (Knight, 1986). Low velocity zones underlying these two centres and extending down into the mantle are separated by a region with a more typically crustal velocity structure.

Relative horizontal movements
The information on present-day tectonic processes in Sumatra provided by seismology is now being supplemented by geodetic data from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. Repeated measurements at fixed pillars provide an essential complement to earthquake studies, which record only episodic, although sometimes very large, displacements. During seismically quiet periods, GPS measurements monitor aseismic creep and can indicate regions in which stress is increasing and may be released catastrophically at some time in the future. Because of the short time intervals over which observations are made (typically 3 to 5 years), GPS measurements must always be considered in the context provided by estimates of long term relative plate motions

Most of the GPS site markers in Sumatra were established by BAKOSURTANAL, the Indonesian mapping and geodetic survey authority, working in collaboration with various US institutes, and most are located north of the equator (Prawirodirdjo et al. 1997, Genrich et al. 2000). Additional measurements were made at sites near Bengkulu and Medan and on Nias and Billiton in the course of the GEODYSSEA study, which covered the whole of southeast Asia. The GEODYSSEA results defined a 'Sunda' Block that includes Borneo, the Malay Peninsula and Indochina and moves east relative to Eurasia at 7-10 mm/yr (Chamot-Rooke & Le Pichon 1999, Michel et al. 2001). Billiton Island and Medan are clearly within this block, as is much of Sumatra east of the Sumatran Fault, but motions near and to the west of the fault are much more complex. The main BAKOSURTANAL campaign (sites shown in Fig. 2.4) began in 1989. Detailed analyses of the data obtained to 1996 in the Central Domain (Fig. 2.1) have been provided by McCaffrey et al. (2000) and by Genrich et al. (2000). To supplement these analyses, Prawirodirdjo et al. (2000) also considered the results of conventional triangulation surveys extending over a period of 100 years in the same area. These generally confirmed the GPS estimates of 20-30 mm/yr of dextral movement on this portion of the Sumatran Fault.

Figure 2.4 shows the site motions relative to Southeast Asia as interpreted by Prawirodirdjo et al. (1997) and (also relative to Southeast Asia) the averaged long term Indian Ocean movement vectors (Demets et al. 1990). Strain partitioning was evidently only partially achieved, at least over the short time interval involved, nor were movements confined to the main fault systems. Sites east of the Sumatran Fault but within 50 km of it were not stationary with respect to Southeast Asia but recorded small but significant displacements to the north and northwest. Similar patterns near other major strike-slip features have been interpreted as recording stress accumulations in wide regions of deformed rock that are ultimately released by faulting (e.g. Armijo et al. 1999).

Sites in the forearc experienced much larger trench-parallel displacements, but McCaffrey et al. (2000) argued that only about two-thirds of the necessary slip was accounted for and that most of the remainder must have been accommodated oceanward of the crest of the forearc ridge. However, the situation varied considerably from place to place. On forearc islands in the Central Domain (between the Batu and Banyak Islands) the trench-normal components were small, suggesting strong partitioning of convergent and transcurrent movements, but it seems that the forearc was largely coupled to the downgoing slab everywhere to the south of the Batu Islands. The boundary between the two regimes occurs in the region where the IFZ enters the trench. Prawirodirdjo et al. (1997) tentatively interpreted the northwestwards decrease in coupling as a consequence of the subduction of thick, water-rich sediments of the Nicobar Fan, resulting in high pore pressures in the forearc wedge and weakening of the upper plate by the introduction of hydrothermal fluids. The change in coupling would thus be due to the barrier to sediment flow from the northwest presented by the IFZ, rather than directly to its presence as an asperity on the lower plate.

The combination of gradual change in the orientation of the Indian Ocean/SE Asia convergence vector and the change in trench orientation at the Nias Elbow implies almost orthogonal convergence across the trench in the vicinity of Simeulue and the Banyak Islands. The Sumatran Fault, however, changes direction much less noticeably, and the differences in curvature of structures on the mainland and along the forearc ridge produce a widening and deepening of the forearc basin northwest of Simeulue. Rather surprisingly, the GPS motions of the two sites in the Banyak Islands were almost perfectly parallel to the trend of the Sumatran Fault, and so to the trench further south. The lack of GPS sites on Simeulue means that neotectonic patterns in this fascinating area remain, for the moment, undefined.

The data from GPS measurements can be compared with long-term slip estimates based on geologic and topographic offsets at the Sumatran Fault. Slip rates estimated from stream offsets on SPOT imagery vary from 10 mm/yr at the Sunda Strait to 23 mm/yr near Lake Toba (Bellier & Sebrier 1995). Much of this change occurs in the Central Domain, where the rates estimated by Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000) using geological offsets increase from 11 mm/yr in the southeast to 27 mm/yr in the northwest. Slip rates estimated from GPS observations vary much less, increasing by only 4 mm/yr, from 23 mm/yr to 27 mm/yr, over the same distance (Genrich et al. 2000). Sieh and Natawidjaja (2000) suggested that the geologically indicated changes in slip rates along the fault must have developed only during the last 100 ka, because of the absence of compressional accomodation structures, but left the geologic-GPS discrepancy unexplained. They also suggested that the total slip on the Sumatran Fault might be little more than the 20 km of the maximum verifiable geologic offset, and that the remainder of the roughly 100 km offset required by stretching in the Sunda Strait might have been accommodated by slip on the Mentawai Fault. Their proposed deformation history (which they emphasized was only one of a multitude of possibilities) involved arc-parallel stretching during the Pleistocene but provided no role for the segment of the Mentawai Fault north of the Nias Elbow.


Figure 2.5. GPS vectors and the Great Earthquake of June 2000. The upper diagram shows overall movement vectors relative to Southeast Asia and their trench-parallel and trench-orthogonal resolved components. The lower diagrams compare these components individually. Vector 1 is the regional convergence vector, after DeMets et al. (1990). The remaining vectors are GPS vectors from the 1991 - 1993 campaign at sites at the bases of the arrows, after Prawirodirdjo et al. (1997). 'Beachballs' show the locations of the two subevents proposed by Abercrombie et al. (2002) for the June 2000 earthquake.

GPS Data, the Enggano earthquake and the Mentawai Fault
During the period covered by published GPS measurements, the southern forearc islands (Siberut to Enggano) were moving northwest relative to Sumatra at roughly the same rate as the underlying Indian Ocean Plate (Fig. 2.4). Enggano, in particular, participated in virtually all of the motion of the Indian Ocean during the period of observation, which unfortunately in this particular case extended only from 1991 to 1993 (Fig 2.5). Much smaller relative motions were recorded at two sites on the adjacent coast of the mainland and therefore only a small part of the trench-parallel motion required accommodation further inland, in the vicinity of the Sumatran Fault. More than half the trench-parallel motion and an even greater proportion of the trench-normal motion must have been absorbed between Enggano and the coast, either at one or more discrete faults or by distributed strain over the width of the forearc basin.


Figure 2.6. (a) Interpreted single-channel seismic reflection sections across the Mentawai Fault in the southern part of the Sumatra forearc basin (after Diament et al. 1992). Line locations as shown. (b) Multi-channel seismic reflection section across the Mentawai Fault south of Enggano, after Schlüter et al. (2002). Location shown on Figure 2.6a. The greater penetration achieved on the more recent survey suggests a transcurrent origin for the feature which, in the nearby southernmost single-channel section, appears to be a simple faulted anticline.

Seismic reflection sections from many parts of the basin favour localised faulting in the forearc basin, since deformation of Late Neogene sediments is generally confined to the narrow zone close to the eastern coasts of the forearc islands which was named the Mentawai Fault by Diament et al. (1992). However, the now numerous published images of this feature obtained on crossings reported by Karig et al. (1980), Diament et al. (1992) (Fig. 2.6a), Malod and Kemal (1996) and Schlüter et al. (2002) (Fig. 2.6b) and the excellent multichannel imagery obtained by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) south of Nias (Fig. 2.7), indicate a very complex and variable structure. Considerable uncertainties remain as to its true nature. On some seismic sections (e.g. Diament et al. 1992) it appears to be a simple faulted anticline, while in other areas the zone of weakness has been exploited by shale diapirs which conceal fundamental structures (Milsom et al. 1995). The extreme linearity has been used as an argument for a fundamentally transcurrent role (Sieh & Natawidjaja 2000) but subsidence of the forearc basin and elevation of the forearc ridge imply either normal or thrust components. Where it emerges on land, in southeastern Nias, the fault was interpreted by Samuel & Harbury (1996) as an originally extensional fault that has suffered Pliocene to Recent subduction-related inversion. Significant transcurrent movement was regarded as improbable. Interestingly, however, seismic section presented by Schlüter et al. (2002) (Fig. 2.6b) shows the disturbance as having moved away from the landward side of the forearc ridge (which is itself fragmented in this region; see Figure 3.1) to a position within the forearc basin. This fact, and the image itself, are more compatible with transcurrent than vertical motion. Indeed, Schlüter et al. (2002) suggested that the transcurrent function of the Sumatran Fault might be in the process of shifting to the Mentawai Fault. This is an attractive hypothesis but difficult to reconcile with the suggestion by Sieh & Natawidjaja (2000) that the total offset on the Sumatran Fault is rather small, despite the abundant evidence (including occasional large earthquakes; Untung et al., 1985) for recent and continuing offsets along it.



Figure 2.7. SIO Line 42-43, showing the Mentawai Fault immediately south of Nias. Section provided by Scripps Institution of Oceanography

A further complication is introduced by a possible relationship between the Mentawai Fault and the Batee Fault. The latter is a dextral splay from the Sumatran Fault that trends offshore near the Banyak Islands and was interpreted by Karig et al. (1980) as displacing or terminating the Mentawai Fault near Nias (Fig. 2.1). The Mentawai Fault is often shown as either ending near Nias (e.g. Diament et al. 1992) or merging with the Batee Fault, but a very strong gravity gradient indicates a major structural discontinuity between the two westernmost islands in the Banyak group (Fig. 3.5). This is roughly the position where a Mentawai Fault continuation would be expected if the Batee Fault were not present. Moreover, the existence of Mentawai-type structures still further north has been confirmed by Izart et al. (1994) and by Malod and Kemal (1996) using single-channel reflection data.

Additional insights into the role of the Mentawai Fault in the Enggano area were provided in June 2000 by an Mw 7.9 earthquake followed by a train of strong aftershocks (Fig. 2.5). P and S wave studies of the primary event suggested that this comprised two subevents, involving strike-slip within the Indian Ocean Plate followed by thrust motion on the subduction fault (Abercrombie et al. 2003). The events were too deep, and in the wrong plate, to be due to failure on the Mentawai Fault, but they do provide important data on its relationship to the transition between the accretionary wedge and the continental margin. Matson and Moore (1992) suggested that this transition occurs near the east coast of Nias in the Central Domain and that the subduction fault originally reached the surface in this area. Its subsequent migration oceanwards was interpreted as a consequence of the development of the accretionary wedge that now forms the forearc ridge. This is consistent with the Malod and Kemal (1996) interpretation of the Mentawai Fault along its entire length as marking the transition between the wedge and a rigid backstop of pre-existing basement. On this hypothesis, the linearity of the fault is a consequence of the linearity of the original subduction trace, which would, in turn, have been controlled by the linearity of the former passive margin.
The GPS results indicate that in areas such as Enggano, and possibly only for short periods, the accretionary wedge moves with the subducting plate and must therefore compress against the backstop, resulting in folding and reverse faulting. Potential energy stored in this folded and faulted zone can be released in large earthquakes in which the wedge moves oceanwards and deformation near the backstop is reversed. Presumably such reversals are only partial, so that deformation gradually increases. At no point in this stick-slip cycle would large earthquakes necessarily occur within the wedge or at the interface between wedge and backstop, because accreted material is usually too weak to sustain large local stress. Large earthquakes will therefore be associated principally with the unsticking of the wedge from the downgoing slab along the main subduction thrust and with relative lateral movement between locked and unlocked segments of the forearc. Events of both types appear to have occurred in June 2000, with the movement between segments of the Indian Ocean plate increasing the stress and triggering failure along the subduction thrust (Abercrombie et al. 2003). The results of future GPS measurements in the Enggano - Bengkulu area (there have, unfortunately, been no measurements on Enggano since the earthquake) are thus likely to be very different from those obtained between 1991 and 1993.
Future GPS measurements will also monitor the extent to which trench-parallel motion is accommodated by the Mentawai Fault. It seems probable that the new vectors will resemble the vectors shown in Figure 2.4 for the islands north of Siberut, i.e. they will show almost entirely trench-parallel motion, implying a primarily transcurrent long-term function. The characteristics of both the main earthquake and the extensive aftershock sequence suggest that effects of the Enggano Great Earthquake are unlikely to be seen in the forearc north of Bengkulu (Abercrombie et al. 2003), and in fact no such effects have been observed in post-earthquake GPS studies. If this is the case, then dangerous levels of stress must be accumulating in the region from South Pagai to Siberut.
Vertical movements

It is more difficult to monitor vertical movements with GPS than horizontal movements, both because of the generally smaller displacements and because the accuracy is inherently lower. At present, more reliable estimates of rates of vertical motion are being obtained by observing short-term changes in relative sea level. Natawidjaja et al. (2000) studied the submergence and emergence of corals and deduced a pattern of progressive landward tilting of the forearc ridge, with uplift within about 115 km of the trench axis and submergence at all greater distances. Instantaneous vertical movements of tens of centimetres associated with large earthquakes were superimposed on this pattern.

Individual islands in the northern part of the forearc often record similar tilting. Islets shown on Dutch colonial maps as protecting Sinabang Harbour, at the eastern end of the north coast of Simeulue (S in Fig. 2.4), are now permanently submerged, and palm trees are dying along much of the coast as salt water invades the soil around their roots. Muara Siberut, the main town on Siberut (MS on Fig. 2.4), is regularly flooded at high tide and some nearby offshore 'islands' consist entirely of mangroves with their roots submerged even at low tide.

On Nias the situation is more complicated, since the west coast can be divided into two very different sectors. In the north the coastal region is flat and swampy and the beach is broad and gently sloping, but in the south there are cliffs 50-100m high and the sea floor shelves steeply. This section of the coastline is concave seawards and appears to be a scarp created by failure of an unstable slope (see Fig. 2.1). The relatively low gravity field along the coast and offshore (Fig. 3.5) suggests loss of mass from this region and also supports the concept of failure of a slope that has been uplifted to unsustainable elevations. On the opposite (eastern) side of the island, rivers have been incised in narrow valleys to depths of 5-10 m within a broad coastal plain east of the Mentawai Fault, suggesting recent and rapid uplift, but further north there is evidence of both uplift and subsidence.

The uplift of the coastal plain on Nias could have been associated with great earthquakes. Zachariasen et al. (1999) interpreted the results of a detailed study of coral heads exposed around the Mentawai Islands of Sipora and North and South Pagai, south of Siberut, as recording aseismic subsidence followed by co-seismic uplift related to the great earthquake of 1833. In this area, and in contrast to areas further north, both aseismic and co-seismic movements appear to have involved tilting towards the trench. Deducing long-term regional displacement patterns from measurements of movements over a few years, or even over tens of years, is clearly never going to be a simple exercise.

http://www.es.ucl.ac.uk/people/milsom/smtrntct.htm

[Caonacl]

BTW-

By my read (RE post above), they knew the 2004 eathquake was on the way at leat a year before it occured. I don't recall any planning for the event.

[Caonacl]

Regional activity

Philippines: Thousands Flee, Volcano Eruption Imminent
By Mitch Marconi
Aug 7, 2006

The Mayon volcano in the Philippines appeares ready to erupt today as six explosions reportedly sent ash columns as high as a half-mile. The event prompted officials to evacuate tens of thousands of people from an extended danger zone, according to published reports.
Vulcanologists had previously said an explosive eruption by Mayon, one of the country's most active volcanoes, could threaten the lives of nearly 60,000 people.

Mayon has had 47 eruptions in recorded history, the latest being a mild outpouring of lava in June 2001.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_21232666.shtml

[Caonacl]

Aftershocks won't affect Mt Merapi's activity


Yogyakarta (ANTARA News) - Two aftershocks which occurred in the northern areas of Yogyakarta on Saturday would not affect the activity of Mount Merapi which is currently in a state of alert, an volcanologist said.

Heru, an official of the Volcanic Activity Monitoring Post in Kaliurang, Sleman district, Yogyakarta that the two aftershocks did not increase the activity of Mt. Merapi which until now was still spewing out glowing lava and trails.

"Everyday, the volcano is recorded to spew out a total of 150 glowing lava with a maximum distance of two kilometer sliding down to its slope toward Gendol River," he said adding that when the aftershock was happing the trails remain stable.

But he also pointed out that a few moment after the quakes, many residents called by phone asking about the impact of the aftershock on Merapi`s activity.

Two consecutive aftershocks measuring 3.7 and 2.8 on the Richter scale jolted Yogyakarta early Saturday morning.

The epicenter of the first tremor was located east of Prambanan village in Sleman district, or 7.64 degree South Latitude and 110 degree East Longitude, while the second one was located at Kretek village in Bantul district.

A local Meteorology and Geophysics office (BMG) spokesman, Tiar Prasetyo, said the two quakes which occured at 00.40 a.m. and 4.14 a.m. local time prompted the residents to scramble out of their homes in panic.

However, Tiar Prasetyo said no casualties nor damages had been reported so far.

The province of Yogyakarta and Central Java on May 27 were shocked by a powerful tectonic earthquake which claimed about 5,000 lives and left at least 1.5 million others homeless.

The region seriously affected by the earthquake was Bantul plain south of the town of Yogyakarta. This plain is very densely populated, with people living in small villages separated by rice fields, and remnant sugar cane fields that used to feed a number of large sugar factories.

Java island lies on the boundaries of the Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. This position places it on the Ring of Fire and predisposes it to common earthquakes and other tectonic activity. The interaction of the two plates below the surface of the Earth caused this earthquake. (*)
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=18511

[Caonacl]

Mud volcano floods Java
Disaster-plagued Indonesian island faces new threat.
Richard Van Noorden

What has happened?

Residents carry their belongings through mud as they evacuate their homes in east Java.

TRISNADI/AP/EMPICS

For 3 months a sea of hot mud has been gushing from the ground in Sidoarjo, East Java, 35 kilometres south of Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya. The steaming mud pool is growing at an estimated 50,000 cubic metres a day, accompanied by hydrogen sulphide gas, and now reportedly covers more than 25 square kilometres. The flow has not yet been stopped; thousands of people have lost their homes.

How bizarre... has this sort of disaster happened before?

The Sidoarjo disaster is an example of a 'mud volcano'. Mud and gas accumulates when sea sediments are trapped in subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides under another, and can erupt out of volcanic cones or simply from a crack in the ground. Mud volcanoes have burst on every continent, but are abundant in the South Caspian region (offshore and onshore Azerbaijan) and offshore Indonesia in the East Java Basin.

But the Sidoarjo mud volcano is rather unusual. It's huge. And, says Sam Rice, a geologist with the Cambridge Antarctic Shelf Programme, UK, reports of the mud eruption suggest that it is a hybrid between typical mud volcanoes and hydrothermal vents. The mud is of an unusually high temperature (60 °C) and contains enormously high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide gas. This suggests that some kind of volcanic, hydrothermal activity is going on at the same time.

What creates the conditions for a mud volcano?

Achim Kopf, a geologist from the University of Bremen, Germany, who has studied mud volcanoes extensively, explains that marine sediment can be scraped off an oceanic tectonic plate as it slides underneath a continental plate. If the sediment accumulates rapidly and water is trapped in its pores, this can stop the sediment being cemented by pressure. The resulting reservoir of mud can be trapped underground. In the case of the East Java mud flow, the mud is thought to have come from a reservoir some 2.7 kilometres below the Earth's surface.

And what triggers an eruption?

A number of things can create a crack that allows trapped mud to bubble to the surface; particularly earthquakes and drilling.

And in Java specifically?

In Java both of these things have happened recently. The oil and gas exploration company PT Lapindo Brantas is drilling in the area, and the gas and hot mud first spewed from the company's drilling rig on 28 May.

Geologist Georg Delisle of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Hannover, Germany, explains that the drilling apparently penetrated into the liquid sediment and created a connection back to the surface. The pressure then squeezed up the mud, like toothpaste from a tube. But it is likely that other connections were made to the surface, he adds — not just through the drilling pipe — because attempts to pump concrete into the pipe to block the flow of mud have failed.

On 27 May an earthquake struck and devastated Yogyakarta on Java, and this too could have cracked the ground, potentially helping to release the mud. But the quake's epicentre was some 300 kilometres away from the mud volcano (making it only 2 on the Richter scale in that area).

The issue of what, exactly, caused this disaster is highly politically charged. It is still under investigation by police, the government and international experts.

Just how big is the eruption?

According to many geological experts, the scale of this mud volcano is unprecedented — at least on land.

In 1945, the Makran earthquake in Pakistan triggered the sudden emergence of three offshore mud volcanoes, and in March 1999 a mud volcano rose out of the water overnight to form Malan Island, 3 kilometres from Pakistan's coast. It is hard to estimate the volume of mud created by such underwater eruptions. And, notes Rice: "Because the extrusion of mud and toxic gas occurs on the seabed it does not threaten human life and does not make the headlines."

'Well-kick' — the sudden surface eruption of gas and mud during offshore oil drilling — is common, but usually stops after a few days. Delisle recalls a smaller-scale incident in the 1960s where a geothermal well in the Wairakei geothermal field, New Zealand, ran wild: it took 3 months to stop the geothermal steam that found its way to the surface alongside the original borehole.

Can the disaster be stopped?

Nobody knows. So far, nothing has worked. PT Lapindo Brantas's senior vice-president Imam Agustino has been quoted saying: "The best-case scenario [for stopping the mudflow] is now mid-November, but I have to admit it might never be stopped."

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060828/full/060828-1.html

[Caonacl]

RE: post above, I wonder what happens when magma moves into the voids produced by the displaced mud?

Does anyone have any reference for this type of phenomenon occuring prior ro a major erruption?

[Caonacl]

11,000 people flee homes as hot toxic mud engulfs villages and farmland
John Aglionby in Porong
Thursday August 24, 2006
The Guardian


· Prospector accused of causing massive eruption
· Residents complain of inadequate compensation


Four villages and 19 factories have been submerged in a 240-hectare (600-acre) sea of mud in East Java that is growing up to 50,000 cubic metres a day in a major environmental disaster triggered during an oil exploration venture.
A few rooftops are still visible, along with hastily constructed dykes which could not hold back the flow of toxic mud that began on May 29 around an oil exploration drilling rig.

Eleven miles of dykes are being built by 1,500 soldiers and labourers around the clock to contain the growing catastrophe, in which 11,000 people have lost their homes or been forced to evacuate.

The company, which is facing daily protests from residents, now accepts its drilling may have caused the world's largest disaster of its kind.
A 100 metre-high column of thick white smoke is visible several miles from Porong district, 22 miles south of Indonesia's second largest city, Surabaya, in East Java, and the smell of rotten eggs pervades the hazy tropical air. The mud is up to seven metres deep, and every few seconds the earth jolts and another dollop of hot sediment belches out. Occasionally the mud exits more dramatically, shooting up several metres into the air with a loud "whooosh". The gas stings people's eyes and it is impossible to breathe without taking in the fumes, even with a mask.

The drilling company is PT Lapindo Brantas, which is controlled by the family of Indonesia's powerful senior welfare minister, Aburizal Bakrie. Its senior vice-president in charge of the clean-up, Imam Agustino, admits he has no idea when the mudflow will be stopped, let alone when the affected land will be useable again.

"We don't know if the source of the mud really comes from the well bore or somewhere else," he told the Guardian. "The best-case scenario [for stopping the mudflow] is now mid-November, but I have to admit it might never be stopped."

Porong's "mud volcano" is coming from liquid sediment up to 2,750 metres (9,000ft) deep that was formed 5m years ago, the Jakarta Post reported. The first two attempts to block the flow - by plugging the borehole, which extends two miles underground, and pumping concrete into its bottom - had to be abandoned when the mud continued to rise.

The current plan is to drill into the mud reservoir from three directions and fill it with concrete. "The problems are that we don't know how big the reservoir is and there's never been anything like this on this scale so we don't have any precedent to help us," Mr Imam said.

Preparations are already under way for the worst-case scenario. "We want the well to be stopped but if we can't do that we have to be ready," Indonesia's environment minister, Rachmat Witoelar, told the Guardian as he inspected a potential site for the water from the mud to be dumped at sea. "We would siphon off the water, treat it and then pump it through pipes 16 kilometres [10 miles] to the sea. The mud will then be treated further before being removed."

Despite Mr Imam claiming it was too early to blame Lapindo, Mr Witoelar had no doubts. "Lapindo has to pay for its mistake and restore the environment," he said. Nine people, mainly from Lapindo and the drilling sub-contractor, are being investigated by police, and trials could start within weeks. The drilling rig that was being used when the mud started flowing will be introduced as evidence.

Unless the mudflow is stopped soon, other problems are expected to exacerbate the crisis. As Lapindo runs out of places to build ponds to store the mud, the sediment threatens to cover the main railway line just three metres away. The main motorway to the region on another side of the sea of mud has already been raised 2.5 metres and is being raised another two metres. Other villages are in danger of being submerged and experts estimate that the land has been sinking by up to three centimetres a month since May.

The rainy season, forecast to start in October, may also worsen the situation. "Who knows what will happen when it starts raining," said Andiko Harmiyul, the deputy leader of the mud management team. "All I can say is that we will build the dykes as high and big as necessary."

For the 11,000 people made homeless, Lapindo is paying rent for alternative accommodation for two years plus moving costs, 300,000 rupiah (£17.50) a person a month for food, arranging alternative schooling and negotiating to buy the destroyed houses. Thousands of people have received free medical treatment. Farmers are receiving compensation of two years' income in advance and factories are being relocated.

But many feel the company is being untransparent, unfair and uncaring.

"We've all stopped work but we've been given no money to make up for what we've lost," said Siti Mualimil, a food seller who, along with 8,000 other people, has been camping for two months in a market that had been built but not yet used. "The farmers are doing much better than us."

Car mechanic Dodi Sumartono said: "I reckon I'm earning about 50% less than I was before the mudflow started. We now go to people to fix their cars rather than them coming to us but it's not the same."

Mr Imam said the company did not know what to do to help those affected. "We're an oil and gas company so we're not equipped to handle them," he said. "That's why we leave it to the local government who has the skilled people."

But the consequence is that many residents believe Lapindo is shirking its responsibilities. "Why don't they come and deal with us," Ms Siti said. "Are they afraid?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,,1856933,00.html




Hot mud gushes from the ground in Porong in East Java. Photograph: Eka Dharma/Getty

[Caonacl]

Mon, 9 Jan 2006 11:32:49 -0500

Subject: 74,000 year cycle of super volcano nearly completed

>From http://indiadaily.com/editorial/6320.asp

2012 completes a 74,000 year cycle of super volcano – all signs point towards a massive under water eruption

India Daily Technology Team
Jan. 8, 2006

The underwater volcanoes are increasing exponentially. The harmonic tremors are also on a steep rise. A 74,000 year cycle of devastating "super volcano" nears as we approach 2012.

The December 2004 Tsunami epicenter points towards a possible site for the super volcano.

According to some geologists, it is possible that the recent Tsunami is precursor to a massive shift in tectonic plates and a super volcanic eruption in that area dwarfing what happened even 74,000 years back.

The year 2012 is specially mentioned in many ancient civilizations as something to be scared about.

Many believe that will the year when human civilizations will be threatened. It is the year some say when the whole human civilization will change forever.

74,000 years back a massive volcano in Sumatra filled the earth’s atmosphere with dark cloud for years. The event reduced the world temperature by 8 to 10 degrees Celsius. Close to 80% of the living beings including humans were dead on the earth.

According legends among Indonesia tribes, the calamity was accompanied.

The super eruptions can cause massive calamity devastating all
vegetations and farming in the earth causing massive starvation and hunger.

According to some geologists, the next one is due around 2012 based on that 74,000-year cycle. Many are pointing towards Yellow Stone National Park in America where Earth’s crust is wafer thin in geological scale.

Mount St. Helens has started erupting. The Geological calm of the world is extremely disturbed.

Tsunamis, Landslides, Minor earthquakes in tune of thousands are shaking the whole world’s tectonic plates.

Most countries are reporting unusual weather patterns and excessive major and minor quakes.

In many parts of the world lakes are losing their water and manifesting a sinkhole. Mud volcanoes and geysers in Yellow Stone National Park are manifesting excessive temperature rise and increased frequencies of eruptions.

[Caonacl]

Supervolcano
Beneath the beauty of Yellowstone

Amidst the stunning wilderness of America's most famous National Park, steam and hot water bubble and hiss from thousands of colourful, mineral-encrusted springs and vents. Together with its wildlife and spectacular scenery, these geothermal phenomena make Yellowstone one of the most incredible places on the planet. But America's most popular tourist attraction is also a time-bomb that could spell disaster for us all.

The hot springs, geysers and bubbling mud pools are all outward manifestations of a huge body of magma residing not far beneath the surface. The land around Yellowstone regularly swells and subsides - each breath raising the ground level by up to a couple of metres. Scientists know one day this bulging, molten lava will burst through the Earth's crust – it's just a question of when.
Annihilation breathes

The last super-eruption plunged the world into a freezing, volcanic winter that lasted a decade, and threatened the human population with extinction. Based on the predictions of top volcano experts and the detailed planning and evacuation strategies of government agencies, this explosive factual drama examines what would happen if this catastrophic event were to occur again.

State-of-the-art computer graphics integrated with mock-factual sources make for a horrifyingly realistic build-up to the eruption and the climax itself. Then the devastating aftermath across the globe is revealed – environmentally, politically, economically and socially – as viewers glimpse the future and a post-apocalyptic world.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/supervolcano/programme.shtml

[Caonacl]

Philippine volcano shows signs of imminent eruption By Manuel Tecson
Sun Aug 13, 1:21 PM ET

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines (Reuters) - Mount Mayon, a volcano in the central Philippines, showed signs a major eruption was imminent as it belched smoke and spewed burning rocks and mud, scientists said on Sunday.

Four explosions have been recorded since Saturday. One mild eruption shot gray ash columns into the air and sent heated volcanic debris cascading down Mayon's slopes, said the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs).

"This could be the beginning of a big bang events," Ed Laguerta, a vulcanologist, told reporters.

"This could be an indication that a hazardous explosion may very imminent due to the flow of pyroclastic materials on Saturday," he said as rain and dark clouds covered the mountain, hiding the summit.

Last week, Phivolcs scientists warned that the 2,462-meter (8,077 foot) Mayon, the country's most active volcano, could explode any time, raising the alert level to 4 and forcing more than 40,000 people to move from an 8-km danger zone on Mayon's southeast flank.

A major hazardous eruption had been expected Wednesday night due to the possible gravitational pull of a full moon, but the volcano calmed for the next three days.

A full moon coincided with at least three of Mayon's nearly 50 explosions over the last 400 years, including the two most recent in 2000 and 2001.

On Saturday, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo toured some school buildings and public parks serving as temporary shelter areas for people who have fled their homes and farms since the volcano started acting up last month.

Arroyo, who initially gave disaster officials about 250 million pesos ($4.8 million), promised more relief goods to feed displaced people and ordered the provision of permanent structures and sanitation facilities to prevent an outbreak of diseases.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060813/sc_nm/philippines_volcano_dc_2

[Caonacl]

Background Material

St. Helens blew the lid off geology, too

Tuesday, May 9, 2000

By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

More than two hours after the cataclysmic eruption of Nevado del Ruiz, a hot torrent of boulders and mud unleashed by the volcanic blast swept through Armero, Colombia, killing 23,000 people.

It was a stormy night in November 1985, and for the third time since 1595 the town was wiped out by a volcanic mudflow, called a lahar. In minutes, the thriving town 46 miles from the volcano was buried beneath 130 feet of mud.

Four years later and half a world away, oil crews were evacuated from Alaska's Cook Inlet as bulging lava domes swelled in the crater atop Redoubt Volcano.

The domes gave way and the eruption filled the air with ash, causing a passing jetliner, engines choked with ash, to plunge to within 4,000 feet of craggy peaks before power was restored and the plane landed safely in Anchorage.

And in the summer of 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines awoke with a start from a 500-year-long slumber, forcing about 200,000 people to flee the volcano's slopes and adjacent lowlands before an eruption sent flows of searing gas, ash and pumice raging down surrounding valleys.

Five years later, the interior of those pyroclastic flows -- more than 600 feet deep in places -- was still 900 degrees.

All three volcanoes -- Nevado del Ruiz, Redoubt and Mount Pinatubo -- are volatile jewels in the 30,000-mile Pacific "Ring of Fire," which accounts for 75 percent of the world's 500 active above-sea volcanoes, including our Cascade Range and its dozen active volcanoes.


Hydrologists Richard Iverson and Matthew Logan have spent two years constructing a mini-flume that uses dry sand and laser beams to study rock avalanches.Mike Urban/P-I
Seven of the Pacific Northwest's fiery peaks have erupted in the past 200 years, with the most recent on May 18, 1980.

Fifty-seven people died in the eruption of Mount St. Helens, which forever changed the landscape of Southwest Washington as well as the science of volcanology.

"Mount St. Helens was a wake-up call both to the scientific community and the emergency management community, and the society at large," said Carolyn Driedger, a hydrologist with U.S. Geological Survey in Vancouver.

It reminded people that "the Cascade volcanoes are an active volcanic range and the same process that formed the peaks we see today can change them in our lifetime or in the future."


A look into the Earth
To understand what happened on May 18, 1980, scientists are looking deep within the Earth to study what was happening under St. Helens 40,000 years earlier.

Here's what they know:

Earth is not a solid rock. It's three concentric layers, each with their own unique properties -- a kind of 7,926 mile-wide peanut M&M.

The peanut center is Earth's dense, metallic core, and the surrounding chocolate represents a partially melted mantle. The crunchy shell is the Earth's rocky crust.

Much like a slightly crushed M&M, the Earth's crust is broken into more than a dozen huge pieces, called plates. Moving a few inches a year atop the molten mantle, the plates are slowly crunching together, sliding past, or scraping over and under each other.

The Ring of Fire marks where 3-mile-thick plates under the Pacific Ocean jam up against 21- to 40-mile-thick continental plates. The thinner, undersea plate is actually heavier, and is pushed down and under the more buoyant continental crust in a creeping collision called subduction.

The subduction of the dense, cold Pacific plate isn't a smooth escalator ride to the Earth's interior, but a jarring, jerking descent. As the plates grind past each other, they cause nerve-rattling earthquakes and give rise to volcanoes.

A church in the town of Xalitzntla stands under the Popocatepetl volcano in the state of Puebla, Mexico, as it spews ash in May 1997.AP photo
Exactly how volcanoes develop is a mystery. Scientists believe that 60 miles deep, high temperature and pressure melt some of the rock from the colliding plates, sending molten blobs percolating up into magma chambers.

The source of the magma is the subject of debate: does it come from the subducting oceanic plate, the mantle associated with the continental plate, or both?

"It's a little like an iceberg," said Steve Malone, a University of Washington research professor in geophysics. "The volcano is the little bit we see at the surface. What goes on below it is silent."

Volcanologists are also unsure what triggers the ascent of the magma, whether it flows into the chamber in brief hiccups, a steady trickle or a rush of molten rock just before an eruption.

"It's kind of like being a detective," said Tom Pierson, associate scientist in charge at the USGS office in Vancouver, 40 or so miles southwest of Mount St. Helens.

Working with clues from seismic activity, volcanologists think the cauldron of magma 5 miles below St. Helens is filled in bursts, resulting in eruptions about every 150 years -- frequent in geological terms.

In contrast, Mount Rainier's chamber might be replenished with a slow stream of molten rock from the 60-mile-deep subduction zone, said Malone, resulting in many centuries of quiescence between blasts.

Volcanologists use familiar examples to describe movements in the massive underground magma chambers.

"It's like a juice box," said Chris Newhall, a volcanologist with the UW and USGS.

But the juice is molten magma, steam and gas under tremendous pressure. The outlet is a "straw" to the surface, plugged by magma that has cooled to around 1,300 degrees and "frozen" into solid rock.

Volcanoes in the Ring of Fire pop their plugs in particularly violent bursts. High silica content in the magma thickens the molten rock, trapping gases and water, which eventually explode.


Predicting nature
While volcanoes are as old as the Earth, our knowledge of them is still rudimentary.
"It's really challenging to predict what nature is going to do," Newhall said.

In the two months before St. Helens blew, the peak began to rumble and its northern flank swelled as pressure from the magma grew. Volcanologists knew an eruption was coming, but they couldn't say when or how strong it would be.

To predict any eruption with certainty, scientists would have to do the impossible: penetrate miles into the molten mass to find out how much water, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide are in the magma, and measure the pressure in the volcano.

"All those (measurements) are inaccessible -- you can't do a needle biopsy on a volcano," said Newhall.

Scientists can only watch the overt clues, monitoring seismic activity, distortions of the peak and ash expulsions. None of that was enough to predict precisely when St. Helens would blow. No dramatic changes in the mountain were observed in the days before the blast.

Presaged by a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, the eruption came in a one-two punch: The north side of the peak simply slid away, allowing the pent-up juice to blow out in a spectacular lateral explosion, massive mudslides and pyroclastic flows.

And even as Southwest Washington was forever changed at 8:32 a.m. on Sunday, May 18, 1980, so was the science and the art of volcanology.

"We were just a juvenile science," Driedger said.

But researchers quickly learned in the trial by fire, stunned at what they saw right in their own back yard. Before St. Helens, scientists largely studied the comparably docile lava eruptions of volcanoes in Hawaii. A violent eruption on the mainland brought new attention to bear on St. Helens and its cousins in the Ring of Fire.

"St. Helens started the renaissance of concern about volcanic hazards worldwide," said Kevin Scott, a USGS geomorphologist and hydrologist.

The blast prompted the U.S. Geological Survey to open the Vancouver office for monitoring activity of Cascade volcanoes from Mount Baker to Lassen Peak in Northern California, and others worldwide.

Scientists developed detailed hazard maps for local peaks, describing the paths of mudflows and identifying unique risks from each peak based on evidence from past eruptions..... continued

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/mountsthelens/ring09.shtml

[Caonacl]

Mud volcanoes are a geological phenomenon that has largely escaped the attention of the general public. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of them, scattered all over the globe. Over the past few decades scientists from all over Europe have been researching the mud volcanoes on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea in an international project called 'Medmud'.

Mud volcanoes - which come in different sizes, from knee high to as big as a mountain - are often shaped like normal volcanoes, but instead of lava they expel a mixture of mud, rocks and gasses. Most of the time they just bubble away gently, but they can be dangerous. When a mud volcano ejects large amounts of gas suddenly, there is a risk of asphyxiation for humans and animals in the immediate vicinity. The gas plume can also catch fire. Luckily most mud volcanoes are found on the sea floor where they cause little harm.

But what causes mud volcanoes? According to John Woodside, geologist at the Free University in Amsterdam and one of the leading researchers in the 'Medmud' project, they can be seen as open pressure valves in the earth's crust. The tectonic plates which form the surface of our planet rub together all the time. As a result they produce large amount of debris in the form of sediment. This sediment builds up on the crack between two plates and gradually increases the pressure beneath it. At some point the pressure becomes so great that gas, water and sand is pushed out; a mud volcano is born.

Underwater volcanoes - Because most of the joins between tectonic plates are located under the oceans, most mud volcanoes are also submarine. But it's not always the case. There are a lot of mud volcanoes in the US, Azerbaijan and China, and an ancient Greek settlement was wiped out when a dormant mud volcano explosively came to life.

The Medmud project has concentrated on the ecological effects of mud volcanoes. On the one hand they provide a unique ecosystem for bacteria on the sea floor, with their abundant heat and minerals, but they also add to the Greenhouse Effect. The methane gas they often produce in large amounts is a very potent greenhouse gas. While it is broken down to carbon dioxide fairly quickly in the atmosphere, that gas also has a greenhouse effect.

Gas release Of course mud volcanoes have been around since the dawn of time, so you may well ask what the fuss is about, but there is a catch. We humans can make mud volcanoes accidentally. If, while searching for oil or gas, a hole is drilled in the crack between tectonic plates * this is common practice for Russian geologists, its easy drilling - the bore hole can collapse, resulting in a ragged opening that's hard or even impossible to close again. In such a case huge amounts of methane can suddenly enter the atmosphere. There is no telling what effect that may have on our climate, and, because mud volcanoes are a good indicator of the presence of oil and gas, simply not drilling in such areas is not an option.

For these reasons Dr Woodside regards his work as far from over. Better understanding of the geological processes which produce mud volcanoes is needed, and the means of preventing sudden and uncontrollable leaks induced by drilling need to found.

http://www.crystalinks.com/volcanoes.html

[Caonacl]

NNo one knows when or if this is going to stop.

August 18, 2006
Porong District Sinking Under Mud: East Java, Indonesia
With hot toxic mud continuing to gush from a gas well in East Java, the surface of the affected land has been sinking, changing its physical characteristics and making it unsuitable for a residential area, experts say.

Veteran geologist Andang Bachtiar said the land's "subsidence" actually began several days after the mudflow started May 29 in Porong, Sidoarjo.


He estimated that the land has been sinking by between two and three centimeters per month.

"It has happened slowly at a small rate, so people do not notice," said the former chairman of the Indonesian Geologists Association.

Andang said the movement of the earth's surface could hardly be seen as the mud had piled three meters high and inundated more than 150 hectares of land in the district. He said he believed the subsidence was a natural phenomenon to adjust the earth's surface after the area was covered by more than two million tons of mud.

The sludge spewing from a well operated by Lapindo Brantas Inc. originates from as deep as 9,000 feet below the surface. The flow of mud, dubbed a "mud volcano" by geologists, is coming from liquid sediment formed over five million years ago, stretching from Purwodadi in Central Java to the islands of Bali and Lombok, Andang said.

Geological websites explain that a mud volcano is formed by a mixture of hot water and fine sediment (mud and clay) that either pours gently from a vent in the ground like a fluid lava flow, or is ejected into the air like a lava fountain by escaping volcanic gas and boiling water.

The fine mud and clay typically originate from solid or fragmented rock, according to the U.S. Geological Survey website. Volcanic gases and heat escaping from magma deep inside the Earth turn groundwater into a hot acidic mixture that chemically changes the rock into mud.

Mud volcanoes are often associated with petroleum deposits, according to the Wikipedia website.

Andang could not say when the flow of mud would stop, adding that it would only subside after it received no more sediment. He estimated that the sources of sediment stretched about five kilometers from the source of the flow.
He suggested that since nobody knew how to stop the mudflow, mass relocations of residents should be carried out soon.
"After that, the government and the company (Lapindo Brantas Inc.) should focus on three things -- containing and neutralizing the sludge, and disposing of the water from the mud," he said.

The State Minister for the Environment has said Lapindo can dump water extracted from the sludge into the Madura Strait, but only after the water is filtered to remove hazardous substances.

The ministry has also encouraged people to make use of the mud by turning it into bricks and roof tiles, saying its lab tests have shown that the solid form of the mud does not pose threats to human health.

A senior geologist with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Iskandar Zulkarnain, said the mudflow was the world's largest incidence of sludge gushing out of the earth.

"Efforts to curb the flow have failed for two reasons: none of the technologies deployed to stop it worked well, and nobody in the world has experience in tackling a natural phenomenon like this," said the head of the institute's mineral and natural resources division.

Tb. Arie Rukmantara

[Caonacl]

Let me put it another way.... how would it be if we suddenly saw rivers of mud pouring from the ground at Yellowstone?

The Super Volcano

The eruption of a super volcano would plunge the Earth into an ecological nightmare that is almost past understanding.

I have to admit something right off the bat. I love natural disasters. Dont get me wrong - I dont love them for the numbers of humans who are killed, homes and businesses lost, or other animals and plants killed. Nope, I dont like that at all. But I love volcanoes, earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, tsunami, and all the other things our planet happily throws our way. Our world is a dynamic planet, changing under our very feet, and she doesnt care if what she does is inconvenient for us. She does what she does. And we have to accept and deal with it.

Volcanoes are especially neat. To me, volcanoes are a way of reaching into the bowels of the Earth. It seems to be her way of saying that no matter how quiet things seem, theres fire beneath the crust we live on, and she can make that painfully clear to us with very little warning. When I was about 11 years old and my family and I were living in Italy, we took a vacation to see Pompeii. We got to do the unparalleled adventure - we climbed Mt. Vesuvius. Its not that hard of a climb - theres actually a path all the way to the cone, or at least there was when I was there in the early 1970's. It was stunning to stand at the top of an active volcano, to feel the soil, hot in my hand, to see pots of mud boiling at the bottom of the cone. Its an experience Ill never forget.

Now, although due to illness I am beyond my volcano climbing days, I have cable, and thanks to my television, I see a world of discovery and adventure, research and exploration. Ive seen shows on volcanoes, tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes, and everything in between. And then, I saw something incredible.

Now, please note that I am not going to go into the entire path of this discovery. That will be another day, and hopefully written by someone more knowledgeable than I. There is an incredible story behind the one Im going to tell, and it should be told.

Anyway, this show comes on and its called Super Volcanoes. Super Volcanoes!!! Ive heard of regular volcanoes. Ive seen what Mt. Vesuvius is capable of, and the world saw Mt. St. Helens blow, in addition to other volcanoes all over the world. But a super volcano? What the heck is that?

Well, it seems that there are volcanoes so big, so massive, that when they erupt it effects the climate of the entire Earth. You would have over nine inches of ash over 1,000 miles away. The area effected by the blast would be more than 2,000 square miles. And when this one blows, it will be 2500 times bigger than Mt. St. Helens. And where is it? Some of you might have actually walked through it. Its Yellowstone National Park, in the north-western region of the United States.

It is estimated that volcanic activity began in the Yellowstone region around 2 million years ago. Its been erupting on an average of every 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago. Far be it from me to say that we are a tad overdue, but there it is.

Now, please dont think that Im saying that it is going to blow. Right now they have noticed some elevation of the caldera, that is 53 by 28 miles in size - thats sort of where the "super" must come in. There has been an increase in thermic activity and seismic activity in the park.

Now, you must be asking yourself what will happen when Yellowstone does blow. Well, it wont be pretty. There will be significant ash deposits over two-thirds of the country. The massive amounts of ash, dust, and gases will cause seriously reduced amounts of sunlight to reach the Earths surface for an extended amount of time. There will be massive loss of life, loss of animals and plants and possible extinctions, crops would fail all over the planet, and we would find ourselves living in a mini-Ice Age for at least several years.

Primary Blast Zone
Fortunately, we have the USGS (United States Geological Service) and the University of Utah keeping an eye on it, and there have actually been advances in predicting volcano eruptions. Of course, there is no way of knowing when it will erupt, but I wouldnt move just yet. There are several other super volcanoes throughout the world, all of which would have an equally devastating effect on our planet and our lives. We all owe it to ourselves to know what is around us, and to be aware that our dear Mother Earth is not always predictable, not always kind, and is completely capable of threatening our survival as a species.


http://www.thecheers.org/article_346_The-Super-Volcano.html

[Caonacl]

see post #44 at thread

http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?p=531048#post531048

for interesting parallel

[Caonacl]

Java mud can carry the H5N1 virus

http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?p=531187#post531187

[Caonacl]

Kawah Ijen curse -- black teeth, acid creeks Duncan Graham, Contributor, Surabaya

Got a problem with polluted water? Seek the factory. Search for the clear-felled land. Or a toxic dump.

Human-made causes. All fixable, given cash and political will.

But what happens when the source of the pollution is natural, never-ending and gargantuan?

That's the situation in the north-east corner of East Java where the seeping crater of the Kawah Ijen volcano is poisoning the waters used by 50,000 people for drinking and bathing, and scalding their irrigated crops.

The water is hyper-acidic, saturated with almost all known minerals. Its long-term effects on the people are not known, but 90 percent have black teeth. The condition is caused by an excess of fluoride, a compound added in tiny doses to the water supplies of many Western nations to reduce tooth decay.

Skin and eye problems are also encountered. These are easily seen. What's happening to the bones and brains? Are any of the minerals retained in the body? More study is needed to reveal the other effects.

The crater lake, one of the biggest in the world, holds about 36 million cubic meters of water. It's about 200 meters deep and the water temperature varies between 20 and 40 degrees Celsius.

Although regularly replenished by rain, this is no dilutant. Gasses burping from the bowels of the earth through the water like bubbles in a fizzy drink create extreme pollution.

About 50 liters a second leaks from the crater into the Banyupahit-Banyuputih (bitter and white) River. This flows down to Asembagus on the Straits of Madura. Here more than 3,500 hectares of rich land are irrigated from the dammed river.

The favored crop is rice -- but this is acid-sensitive. Around 70 percent of plantings fail. Sugar cane is more tolerant but far less profitable.

The water exceeds all standards for irrigation and drinking. No fish skim the waterways, no riparian reeds whisper in the breeze. This is a brook that babbles death -- toxicity on a grand scale.

What's to be done? After a seminar in Surabaya earlier last month involving local and Dutch experts, and attended by about 85 people The Jakarta Post canvassed solutions.

According to Indonesian government volcanologist and geochemist Sri Sumarti the problem was identified almost a century ago.

In 1921 the Dutch built a sluice near the outfall. When the lake was full the gate was lowered and excess water flushed out to sea after downstream farmers were alerted.

"The crater lake last overflowed in 1976," she said. "The sluice has been renovated since then and could be used but that solution is no longer appropriate.

"We don't know why the lake levels are decreasing but its probably seepage through the porous ground. The level is now 15 to 20 meters below the sluice."

Dr. Manfren van Bergen from the University of Utrecht said the Dutch started watching volcanoes seriously and keeping records of activity after 1918. That was when Kelud exploded, killing about 5,000 people near Kediri in central East Java.

That volcano also had a crater lake, and the fountain of hot mud and rock devastated 15,000 hectares of good land.

"After Independence the Dutch were unwelcome for a while, but the records of volcanic activity were preserved in Holland," he said. "Long-term information is critical in forecasting events."

Now international relationships have improved, the old statistics are available and more than 600,000 euros (Rp 7 billion) has been allocated to research on Kawah Ijen.

The money has been spent on projects leading to the Surabaya seminar and emphasizing the hazards.

*****

During and after the workshop, which was also attended by affected farmers and government officials, some obvious and imaginative proposals were made.

The big engineering project response was rapidly demolished. It would take at least 55 kilometers of piping to drain the lake and send the water to the sea.

The pipes would have to be made of acid-proof materials. There were no engineers or economists present to put a rupiah tag on that notion, but all reckoned the figures would be stratospheric.

Diluting the acid is also a no-no. This would take mountains of limestone, and even then the gasses would continue to percolate, according to Dr. Ansje Lohr from the Netherlands Open University.

She's been involved in a survey of 23 villages in the area. This found only a "partial awareness" of the problem -- despite the black teeth and the sulfur-yellow water. Surprisingly, many said the water was not distasteful -- maybe because it's all they've ever drunk.

Few were aware that the problem was the crater-lake, and those who did thought a return to the Dutch flushing solution should be tried. They didn't know the lake level had dropped.

Even families who bought drinking water or who had an uncontaminated well were still affected by swallowing water while bathing.

"There are many unanswered questions because there's been little research," Dr. Lohr. said. "Cattle graze the area, so will bakso (meat balls) made from the beef be contaminated? And what about vegetables and cereals grown with the acid water? We don't know.

"Most farmers depend on irrigated water. They want to grow rice, but most of it dies. The people are getting really poor."

*****

The priority, according to Dr. Budi Widianarko from Soegijapranata Catholic University in Semarang, is to get clean drinking water to the villagers.

"We can't handle the two issues of public health and finding a long-term answer simultaneously," he said. "Access to safe water is critical. Any new wells must be free from future contamination. Solutions for agriculture are more complicated.

"The pollution is causing more and more problems, economically, socially and in people's physical and mental health."

Dr. Budi forecast that in the long run government subsidies would have to be paid if people were to stay in the area.

These could make up the difference between profit from a rice crop and a cane harvest so farmers would concentrate on producing sugar.

But should the people remain? If the risks to their well being are acute, the impact on health unknown and the chances of making a good living remote, then maybe the long-term solution is to relocate the farmers and abandon the land.

Because the waters are full of minerals could these be extracted and sold? Geoscientist Dr. Thom Bogaard from Utrecht University thought gypsum could be recovered, but again the cost might exceed the value of the mineral.

"More research is required," he said. "This isn't just important for Kawah Ijen but all volcanoes in Indonesia as people move higher and higher to make a living. About 10 percent have acid lakes.

"The danger is that one solution could create another problem. Any answer has to be sustainable."

The hot turquoise waters in the caldera don't deter tourists -- with the French particularly enthusiastic. The acid river also flows through the Baluran National Park. What's the impact on the wildlife? Again the same answer: We don't know.

Maybe crop growing should be forgotten and visitors farmed. That would mean extensive upgrading of facilities. It takes six hours by bus and foot to reach the crater from Banyuwangi which is enough to deter all but the most determined.

What happens next? That's up to the national, regional and local governments as they study the findings of the Surabaya seminar. Anticipate more talkfests.

There's another scenario that's beyond all the planning and report writing. Kawah Ijen is dormant -- not dead. If it explodes again all the puny attempts by humans to control nature will vanish in a hail of volcanic ash and storms of acid water.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailfeatures.asp?fileid=20060901.T01&irec=0

[Caonacl]

Hot mud must be processed before disposal to sea, says minister


Jember (ANTARA News) - State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar has said the Lapindo Brantas hot mud shoud be processed before it was disposed of to the sea in order not to disturb the life in the sea.

http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=19274

In principle, the solution for the hot mud problem has actually been found, namely, processing the mud until it is worth disposing of to the sea, the minister said here Thursday.

"We are trying to minimize the impact of the mud flow to the surrounding environment," he said.

The minister called on all parties to make the accident a lesson to prevent it from further environmental damage. "After exerting all human capabilities, let`s now pray. Allah (God) may give the best way to solve the problem of Lapindo Brantas hot mud," he said.

The spraying of hot mud has been going on since May 29, 2006, when workers of an oil and gas exploration company Lapindo Brantas were exploring gas in Sidoarjo. After the incident, a number of villages became submerged in hot mud forcing thousands of people to abandon their homes to find safer areas. (*)

[Caonacl]

RE: article above. one wonders how they intend to process the mud, and if they plan on extracting toxic materials, how they plan on disposing of any hazardous waste.

[Caonacl]

Police name 9 suspects over 'mud volcano' mining disaster
By Indonesia correspondent Geoff Thompson

Police in Indonesia have named nine suspects in connection with a mining disaster in East Java, which has been dubbed a "mud volcano".

The suspects were named after a three-month investigation.

The nine suspects accused of environmental pollution come from the mining venture's operating company Lapindo Brantas.

Australian company Santos has an 18 per cent stake in what has been a misadventure for the last three months.

Since late May noxious, steaming mud has been spewing from the ground and has now inundated at least three square kilometres and displaced about 12,000 people.

Several people have also died in the clean-up effort.

Rather than getting better, the problem appears to be getting worse with daily mud eruptions again reaching 50,000 cubic metres.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1732970.htm

[Caonacl]

In addtional to this, regional volcanic activity appears to be increasing after a lull.
Indonesia mudflow breaks barriers, injures six
26 Sep 2006 04:57:00 GMT

Next A villager searches for his belongings, which were washed away by leaking hot mud from an oil and gas exploration operated by local company PT Lapindo Brantas, in Sidoarjo, East Java, August 30, 2006.
REUTERS/Sigit Pamungkas By Hari Retnowati

SURABAYA, Indonesia, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Barriers built to control a torrent of mud gushing out from an exploratory oil well in Indonesia failed to hold late on Monday, injuring six workers and inundating nearby villages.

Several experts have said the mudflow, which started to spurt in late May, could have been triggered by a crack about 6,000 feet (1,800 metres) deep in East Java province's Banjar Panji well.

However, a group of international scientists said this week the mudflow might be a natural phenomenon that could be impossible to stop.

The mud has swamped four villages over an area larger than Monaco, displacing more than 10,000 people and highlighting the chequered environmental practices in exploiting resources in Indonesia.

The Monday night barrier breaches had been predicted by hundreds of villagers living near the sand-and-gravel dykes who fled the area last week. But, several site workers who stayed in the abandoned houses failed to anticipate the flood.

"Around 9 p.m. (1400 GMT), I heard thunder and my bed shook. When I woke up, hot mud was already knee deep," said escavator operator Effendi, who suffered bruises.

The surge injured five of his colleagues. One had burns from waist to ankle.

In Jakarta, European scientists said the flow might be coming from an emerging mud volcano.

The Media Indonesia daily newspaper on Tuesday quoted geologist Adriano Mazzini from Norway's Oslo University saying the burst might be unstoppable and that guessing the timing of the flows and their possible end could be impossible.

That theory has been raised before by a few Indonesian scientists and those working for well operator PT Lapindo Brantas Inc. which disputes the mud is directly connected with the drilling operation at its Banjar Panji well.

Engineers hired by Lapindo, including U.S. and Australian experts, have failed to stop the flow of around 50,000 cubic metres (1.75 million cubic feet) of hot mud every day.

The ongoing crisis has forced the local government in East Java province to allow the channeling of the muddy water into a nearby river, despite concerns it could pollute the ocean, a source of income for millions living on Java's eastern coast.

"We are racing against time. The rainy season is near and we must reduce the pressure against the dykes," Sidoarjo deputy regent Syaiful Illah told Reuters.

Jakarta officials want to remove the water from the mud, treat it and then allow it to flow into the sea through a 20 km (12 mile) pipeline which may take months to be approved.

(Additional reporting by Achmad Sukarsono in JAKARTA

[LizB]

This is fascinating, even while distressing. I never heard of a mud volcano.

At yellowstone a couple of years ago they told us it wil blow some day but said not to worry, if it was going to blow that night we couldn't escape far enough away in the time left, so just enjoy the park.

But as to 2012, "The year 2012 is specially mentioned in many ancient civilizations as something to be scared about." Mayan calendar is the only one I know of, but what fun to have scientists joining the religious in proclaiming "the end is near!"

[Caonacl]

This is what I worry about:

Gas Well Accident Releases 1.7 Million Cubic Feet Of Mud A Day
2006-09-27 10:48:31
http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=8631

What is going to move in to fill the void from all of the flowing mud? Before Krakatoa blew,a lot of the land subsided into the sea. Are we going to see the land sinking next? Does this large flow of mud disturb the nearby magma-chambers and/or fault lines?