Via NASA’s spaceweather.com Here’s something you don’t see every day, in fact it has only been seen once before by the volcano researchers that got the photo. The diameter of the ring must be huge to be visible at the photo distance. I’m estimating about 1-2km in diameter.
On May 1, 2010, 4:17 Pm Volcano Photographers Steve & Donna O’Meara were stunned when they photographed a perfectly shaped Volcanic Smoke Ring blown out by Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Southern Iceland.
Here’s the close up view:
Images ©Steve & Donna O’Meara http://VolcanoHeaven.tumblr.com
“This is a rare phenomenon,” say Steve and Donna. “We’ve only seen it one other time at Italy’s Stromboli volcano in 2001.”
Joseph Licciardi, an earth sciences professor from Oregon State University, was there to see it, too. “The ring was visible for five minutes and then fell apart,” he told the UK Dail Mail. “I am thrilled that I was present at the event.”
In addition to Eyjafjallajokull and Stromboli, volcanic smoke rings have also been observed at Mt Etna. Just how the rings form remains a mystery. It’s possible that bursts of gas through narrow vents would do the job, much like cigar or cigarette smokers blow rings with their mouths.
Smoke rings could soon become more common over Iceland. Eruptions of Eyjafjallajokull are usually followed by even bigger eruptions from the nearby Katla volcano. Indeed, experts are warning that an eruption of Katla may be close at hand. Check the odds!
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Here’s smoke rings on Mt. Etna:
You can make smoke rings yourself with common home hardware:
There’s even underwater bubble rings:
jorgekafkazar says:
May 28, 2010 at 7:50 pm
“That “flue” is a silo.”
duh.
Some 60 years ago when the old crude oil burning, single cylinder Lanz Bulldog tractors were common around here in SE Australia, the big straight exhaust pipe from that single cylinder very slow revving engine was an excellent generator of smoke rings / vortex rings.
On a still morning, a blip on the throttle and that big single cylinder engine was away with a big “pop” and a nice impressive slowly rising and expanding smoke ring / vortex ring .
Another bit harder blip on the throttle at the right moment, another even bigger and louder and accelerating “pop” from that single big cylinder and a good operator could blow another smaller smoke ring / vortex ring clean through the slower larger ring often by then some 6 feet or more up above the exhaust pipe and sometimes followed by two or three more small smoke rings racing up through that large slower moving original smoke ring.
It was fascinating to watch.
And that has to be some pipe and some blast to blow that ring in the photo shot.
Eyjafjallajokull has got nothing on this kid:
How does a glacier emit a smoke ring? My Icelandic is at about the same level as my Cantonese and Zulu, but even I know that “jökull” means glacier. You don’t perchance mean Eyjafjöll (an Icelandic volcano), do you?
Or maybe its from a secret Minuteman launch?
Saint Gore was so upset by the CO2 emissions he threw away his halo.
How dare that volcano not do its part to save the planet!
A smoke ring is known, in mathematical circles, as a “Hill’s vortex” after Professor Micaiah Hill – my great grandfather – who described the mathematics of this phenomenon in 1894. As Vice-Chancellor of London University he organised the disparate colleges into a single entity and was offered a knighthood (twice) turning it down on the grounds that the honours system was corrupting. Neither his brother, Sir George, the numismatist, who was Director of the British Museum, nor his son, Air Chief Marshall Sir Roderick, were so particular. As for his other son, my grandfather, Professor Geoffrey Hill, he designed the first swept-back wing, tail-less aircraft in 1925 and was one of the 3 or 4 most influential designers between the wars; his daughter Gwen was the first female consultant oncologist. Sadly, the genes have since reverted to the mean.
That smoke ring is beautiful, just the right acceleration of the gas out of a nearly circular vent.
On still, cold winter mornings here in Canada, it’s common to see smoke rings emitted from the exhaust pipes of certain vehicles as they move away from traffic lights. I think diesel pickup trucks do it most often, but I have seen it from several cars as well. Seeing it always brings a smile.
When visiting Etna in the summer of 2000 the volcano was blow smoke rings like this. I remember seeing o number of them.
sheer puffery:-)
Volcanic ‘burps’…
Seems almost cartoon-worthy… a volcano saying : “spitooey” and then burping out a ring of smoke at the end.
Too cute.
Those volcanoes like to show off every now and then… reminding us who’s the real boss of this rock.
One of the most widely seen smoke ring sources was the cigarette advertisement in New York’s Times Square, which for several decades blew a large smoke ring horizontally across the square about twice a minute. On calm days it would continue all the way across the square, while winds would break it up after a few dozen feet.
That is very cool.
On another note I used to have an old RV with a stuffed engine. It had a side exit exhaust (the back half fell off, so I bent it out sideways). It had a very lumpy idle with leaking valve seals. In the right conditions, it would blow perfect blue smoke rings out into the traffic while waiting at the lights, at the rate of about 1 per second. Their novelty value made people less hostile to my pollution belching monster. I did the right thing and put it out of it’s misery.