Guest “geology” by David Middleton
The world’s most active volcano is at it again…
Happening now: a new eruption of Kīlauea inside Halemaʻumaʻu
— Hawaii Volcanoes NPS (@Volcanoes_NPS) December 21, 2020
See live webcams inside Halemaʻumaʻu, courtesy of USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: https://t.co/Yf1Kc3AeJ9 pic.twitter.com/bsNmt3ZTUg
No major changes as of 4:09 a.m. HST. The fountain on the N wall of Halemaʻumaʻu crater is dominant, with weaker fountaining exhibited at W fissures. The lava lake is slowly rising. A billowing gas plume continues to drift to the southwest. pic.twitter.com/enYj1U9yos
— USGS Volcanoes🌋 (@USGSVolcanoes) December 21, 2020
The water lake that had formed in Halema‘uma‘u crater after the 2018 eruption is now a lava lake.
Eruption Boils Away Kilauea Water Lake, Forming New Lava Lake
by Big Island Video News
on Dec 21, 2020(BIVN) – The Sunday evening eruption of Kīlauea – the first eruptive activity at the volcano in over two years – has already erased the growing summit water lake and is replacing it with a new lava lake at the base of the crater.
The eruption started suddenly at approximately 9:30 p.m. HST during a brief earthquake swarm at the summit. Scientists say multiple fissures opened on the walls of Halemaʻumaʻu crater. The lava cascaded into the summit water lake, boiling off the water and forming a new lava lake at the base of the crater.
The activity is contained within Halemaʻumaʻu crater in Kīlauea caldera, scientists say. One of the fountains within the crater was 165 feet tall.
[…]
Big Island Video News
Is this volcano anywhere near Mauna Loa (apologies if the spelling is inaccurate) which is where CO2 concentrations, and other climate-related “stuff” gets measured? If so, what would be the impact on measurements? Anyone like to speculate?
Same island, about 20 miles apart.
The measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory aren’t affected by volcanic gases.
They only measure CO2 emitted by automobiles and coal fired power plants.
That’s because only CO2 emitted by power generation and transportation is Bad CO2. All other forms of CO2 is Good CO2
The only measure CO2 when the wind is coming off the oceans. They don’t take measurements when the wind is coming off the volcanoe.
Not everything is a conspiracy.
I looked at the procedures about 2009 and found no reason to doubt the accuracy of the CO2 record from Mauna Loa Observatory.
Atmospheric CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa – and other sites – are well documented.
November 2020: 412.89 ppm
November 2019: 410.25 ppm
A main site is:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
How they measure is here:
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html
The issue raised by OldCynic is a common comment on this and similar sites. The issue is worth reading about.
Is the conjunction of large planets just a coincidence?
The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn is just math and totally unrelated to anything on Earth, apart from people taking pictures of the sky.
But don’t the planets, although distant, exert some gravitational effect on the Earth, as does the moon?
Being in line would maximise their gravitational effects (wouldn’t it?).
Yes, but maximizing the very, very tiny yields, in this case, very tiny.
Exactly, Old George. Remember, in the gravity formula the total of the masses is divided by r squared, where r is the distance between center of masses. This produces a very small number, so planets/volcanism not associated.
Yes… But it’s insignificant, relative to the Sun and Moon.
No…
https://www.theplanetstoday.com/gravitational_forces_of_the_planets.html
The distance (r2) between the centers of mass is the reason that only the Moon and the Sun
exert a significant gravitational stress on Earth.
Yes they do exert a gravitational effect, however they effect the entire planet equally.
What are the phenomena in the oceans of Earth we call tides? Where do they come from?
Actually, it effects the planets’ hemisphere facing the “conjunction” a wee bit more than the away-facing hemisphere. Then the whole thing spins around every 24 hours (give or take).
By far, the most noticeable impact of this conjunction is bunches of loons somewhere have strapped on loin-cloths and danced around a big ‘ole fire. After everybody got all sweaty & dusty, they got drunk/high on whatever, just like they pretend their ancestors did.
It’s at exactly this point that loons discovered aliens built the pyramids, dug the Grand Canyon, built Atlantis, constructed Stonehenge, crashed spaceships into Area-51, and continue, to this very day, to abduct human subjects from the territory currently known as Alabama for full-body cavity-searches.
ps: given the size of the visible universe, there are probably about 1,000,000 significant cosmic occurrence every earth day. Maybe more..
You know, those “loons somewhere strapping on loin-cloths and dancing around a big ‘ole fire.” probably have less impact on our lives than those loons in gov’t and on twitter. I think I’d prefer the dancing. 🙂
There have been many eruptions when there weren’t conjunctions.
There have been many conjunctions when there weren’t eruptions.
Well put.
Mt Ruapehu was put on Alert Level 2 yesterday (our summer solstice) after the crater lake warmed up to 43*C and the mountain began rumbling & quaking…
The active volcano is on the same faultline system as White Island (recently erupted killing tourists) and part of the Taupo caldera zone in the centre of the North Island.
As a bonus, there’s snow on the way for the South Island peaks – a hoot listening to ‘hot experts’ attempting to explain away a snowy White Christmas in the middle of summer downunder!
As an aside have you been watching the temperatures at Alice Springs? 17 deg yesterday. Very strange hot summer.
This is one of the most monitored volcanoes on the planet, and they were still unaware that it was going to erupt. I hope the rift zone is well-plugged. The remaining people living there don’t need to evacuate at Christmas.
From base to summit, the volcanoes that make up the Big Island complex have the world’s tallest mountain comlex.
“Mauna Kea’s summit is at 13,796 feet (4,205 meters) above sea level, but it extends about 19,700 feet (6000 meters) below the water’s surface. Therefore, its total height is 33,500 feet (10,210 meters), nearly a mile taller than Mount Everest, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).” source: https://www.livescience.com/32594-which-mountain-is-the-tallest-in-the-world.html
The mid-Pacific hot spot in the mantle seems to be a much different heat flow structure than the mantle heat flow to the crust under Iceland (rift zone) or a continental plate like that under Yellowstone’s super-volcano where the distance to mantle is greater. Hawaii is of course not on the “Ring of Fire.” The Hawaiian Islands are surrounded by almost 20,000 ft Pacific Ocean floors.
In those other areas, deep chamber fillings and the rising heat give low-frequency rambles as plastic layers fracture and swell. There’s no rift zone (like Iceland on the mid-Atlantic Rift) in Hawaii of course nor is there a complex super magma chamber structure feeding closer chambers like is under continental plate volcanic regions Yellowstone). Hawaii is in fact the tallest free-standing vertical structure in the world rising from the Pacific floor 20,000 feet
The result being the typical seismic low-frequency deep chamber filling warning signs of rumblings are not there for Hawaii’s current active volcano.
The Ring of Fire is also overdue for 9.0+ quake.
There is the Cascadia Subduction under the coast of Washington State. Event time unknown. But 9.0+ is possible.
Those in Ocean Shores, Ocean Park/Long Beach or similar ought to move.
The image with the circles looks like “The Scream”.
This eruption is all because Australia didn’t sacrifice enough at the altar of global warming wokeness.
Send more virgins to Hunter Biden.
I’m sure that Hunter prefers more ‘experienced’ women.
Back in the early 1980s, it first erupted and my wife and I were there at the military camp by the volcano. Took us in a bus that evening. There was a layer of clouds so saw the lower part of the eruption, went through the layer and there was a giant plume of fire coming up through the clouds. Never forget it.
The Gods are angry.
be fun if it manages to fill the caldera and overflow
Likely the growing ocean mount Lōʻihi somehow is closed off and now the lava doesn’t have it’s usual place to go so up through the next vent. Will get itself sorted out, but if it takes a long time it will be a spectacular show.
Far more likely is that the MASS of the whole mountain complex is ever – so – slowly sinking under its weight an the plasticity of the hot basaltic rock underneath. The net result though is that the rising magma is under not just ‘enomous pressure’ nominally, but even higher than just the mass of the column pressure. Hence it squirt out under pressure. That and as it rises, the body-pressure decreases, allowing dissolved gasses to return to a semi-solvated condition, lowering the density of the magma, again … allowing it to fountain, just as one observes in these mafic/basaltic eruptions. Quietly.
“Since 2018” really?
In other news, in my area December 22 is the warmest day since December 19.
But in climatespeak that qualifies as “unprecedented”!
For a helicopter view:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/chopper-peers-cone-erupting-volcano-013604422.html
I’d say Kilauea is only second most active volcano after Etna, which has been erupting continuously and copiously for decades. Stromboli is also continuously erupting, as is Yasur in Vanuatu, but you can’t beat Etna and Kilauea for lava production.
Looking a those twitter feeds reminds me just how illiterate that mob landscape is. Sigh…