Volcanology/Geology questions

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Alaska Volcano Observatory was first opened in 1989-90 when Redoubt had it's famous eruption, with frequent active volcanoes and many not in immediate thread of eruption many are seismic. Alaska Volcano observatory began using the same methods as Hawaii Volcano Observatory for monitoring the most active volcanoes in and around surrounding areas. The eruption of Redoubt was well known because of an aircraft flew through the ash cloud almost ending with no good results. 1 in 4 aircrafts fly through volcanic ash a year.

[coyote55]

There was a story circulating at the time that the  late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was really incensed after the 747 was nearly lost to the Redoubt ash cloud.... he made an irate phone call to USGS management, to the tune of:  "Why the hell aren't you monitoring OUR  volcanoes?" 

 

Once in a while, good things come from angry politicians!

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

10 hours ago, coyote55 said:

There was a story circulating at the time that the  late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) was really incensed after the 747 was nearly lost to the Redoubt ash cloud.... he made an irate phone call to USGS management, to the tune of:  "Why the hell aren't you monitoring OUR  volcanoes?" 

 

Once in a while, good things come from angry politicians!

HAHA yes, now it take one millimeter to close airspace and the airport down. They closed it when Spurr had it's eruption in 1992.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

After that near fatal crash of the flight with the aircraft going through the ash cloud of Redoubt it was also the same year Alaska Volcano Observatory was opened, there was no observatory in Alaska at the time. If any of the 6 erupt near the town of Anchorage, they do close all airports except for the base one if emergency help is needed. The observatory is trying to get more instruments to place around the 2 active volcanoes but are using different ones on different island s since one can not have instruments on it. The eruption with this volcano has been going on since mid November where the activity elevates and goes back down.

[SorryNotSorry]

Has anyone ever lowered a camera and a floodlight far enough down into a depleted oil well to see what the inside of the empty anticline chamber looks like? Would it be possible to take samples from the floor of the chamber and find fossilized plankton? Or would it mostly be just rock strata covered with tarry goop?

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Not that I ever heard of, but it could be possible. 

[coyote55]

7 hours ago, Woodworker1968 said:

Has anyone ever lowered a camera and a floodlight far enough down into a depleted oil well to see what the inside of the empty anticline chamber looks like? Would it be possible to take samples from the floor of the chamber and find fossilized plankton? Or would it mostly be just rock strata covered with tarry goop?

By the time oil gets to a structural trap such as an anticline, fault, or whatever, it's been heated, filtered, and squeezed along its journey to the point where most or all biological structures have long since been destroyed. Coal, however, can be a different story - it's not unusual to find fossils, especially in lower grades of coal.

 

Almost all wells are screened at the bottom so it would be really difficult to see much - but I suspect your idea of "rock strata covered with tarry goop" would be pretty close to reality.

[SorryNotSorry]

What I meant was, some plankton have silica skeletons, much like diatomaceous earth under a microscope. Silica is a fairly indestructible substance, in the absence of bright red heat, hydrofluoric acid, or hot concentrated caustic soda or caustic potash. I think the real challenge would be to dissolve out the asphaltenes without damaging the microscopic silica skeletons.

 

Boneless creatures such as annelids would pretty much leave no traces.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Silica is high in gases, this is why is explodes out of volcanoes ranging from the volcanoes in Alaska and California and Yellowstone. Some Indonesian volcanoes as well such as Anak Krakatau. Basalt lava has less of the gases making the eruptions like the ones in Hawaii.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

If you think that the volcano on Mars is the largest in the Universe look to a moon orbiting Jupiter called Loki. Loki is active and vast in size.

[Piotrek]

Can we also ask questions about earthquakes here?

You status update got me thinking- how far do you think we are from being able to predict earthquakes? Have you heard about any progress being made in this direction?

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

This thread is for Geological events such as earthquakes and eruptions, by telling when larger quakes are going to hit smaller ones will begin before leading up to the much larger one. For example in late 2015 I noticed an increase in earthquakes and how they were shaking that we would have a nice large one soon, now we can not tell when it will have but we know it will by how many small quakes hit an area. So in January on the 23 there were 4 earthquakes all ranging from 3.8 and the last 4.9 and at 0130 am I am up still watching the earthquake map as I hear what I thought was one but there were 2 quakes coming, a 6.8 and the one that hit two seconds later was 7.1.

Right now California is due to have a large one. However smaller quakes we can not tell when they will happen it's the larger ones that smaller ones predict .

[Muledeer]

When will you arrive in Yellowstone?

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

4 minutes ago, Muledeer said:

When will you arrive in Yellowstone?

13 days, I'll be in Montana first.

[warrigan]

don't know how i didn't see this thread before!   i finished my undergrad in geology literally yesterday  

 

On 12/30/2016 at 5:04 PM, Shieldmaiden WinterDragon said:

If you took all the material fro the 1883 eruption, brought it to Manhattan you could cover it in 60 meters. this eruption was the largest and deadliest in known history.

i thought tambora (vei 7) was the largest in recorded history?

i had a cool volcanology project where i tried to find the unknown eruption of 1809 (which actually erupted in december of 1808)...have you heard of this eruption?  

 

i took a geology trip to indonesia with a prof and some students in march, and we visited anak krakatau!  we were there 2 days after a small eruption, and we got to go right up to the fresh flows.  they were still hot, and someone poked a stick into the rock and the stick caught on fire! 

 

 

[Piotrek]

@Shieldmaiden WinterDragon

But we cannot use this method to tell when an earthquake is going to happen with any accuracy, or can we? Do you think we will be able some day soon to say "this area will be hit in ... " and give a reasonably precise time, so that people can prepare for a big earthquake/evacuate?

 

Also, when you mention California, are you refering to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#The_next_.22Big_One.22 ?

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

1809: The missing volcano

Just now, Piotrek said:

@Shieldmaiden WinterDragon

But we cannot use this method to tell when an earthquake is going to happen with any accuracy, or can we? Do you think we will be able some day soon to say "this area will be hit in ... " and give a reasonably precise time, so that people can prepare for a big earthquake/evacuate?

 

Also, when you mention California, are you refering to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andreas_Fault#The_next_.22Big_One.22 ?

No, we can not tell exactly when one will hit but only through small quakes leading to the larger ones is how we can tell that one is on the way, also for the California earthquake that is due it's along near San Andreas fault and the people near the area have been warned about it, there have been seismic increase near Mammoth Lakes region and going southeast, it's overdue for a large quake and so is Alaska.

[daveb]

Part of the "due for a big quake" predictions is about statistics, isn't it? In other words, the numbers show that there is a likelihood of a big quake in a given time frame. But it doesn't pinpoint times and places specifically. The small quakes, leading up to big quakes, gets closer do doing the latter, but the time frames are necessarily small. I don't know if it will ever be possible to get much better than that. If it's anything like weather prediction chaos theory shows that you can only predict so far out - after that, even with perfect knowledge of present conditions the further out in time you get the less accurate you can be about predicting results. The same starting conditions can produce different outcomes.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

2 minutes ago, daveb said:

Part of the "due for a big quake" predictions is about statistics, isn't it? In other words, the numbers show that there is a likelihood of a big quake in a given time frame. But it doesn't pinpoint times and places specifically. The small quakes, leading up to big quakes, gets closer do doing the latter, but the time frames are necessarily small. I don't know if it will ever be possible to get much better than that. If it's anything like weather prediction chaos theory shows that you can only predict so far out - after that, even with perfect knowledge of present conditions the further out in time you get the less accurate you can be about predicting results. The same starting conditions can produce different outcomes.

Before larger quakes there will be foreshocks and no we can not pinpoint where they will happen but based on the given area the foreshocks happen which will always be in a large area and all over we can only guess the area but not be certain about it but let the whole area know that one is on the way. There were foreshocks leading to the one in Alaska this morning the 5.1 quake all from Anchor Point and north of Talkeetna and the quake so happened to be near Talkeetna this morning.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

42 minutes ago, rigg said:

don't know how i didn't see this thread before!   i finished my undergrad in geology literally yesterday  

 

i thought tambora (vei 7) was the largest in recorded history?

i had a cool volcanology project where i tried to find the unknown eruption of 1809 (which actually erupted in december of 1808)...have you heard of this eruption?  

 

i took a geology trip to indonesia with a prof and some students in march, and we visited anak krakatau!  we were there 2 days after a small eruption, and we got to go right up to the fresh flows.  they were still hot, and someone poked a stick into the rock and the stick caught on fire! 

 

 

Yes I heard of the eruption and it's still being looked into, it was  bigger and there were ice samples taken in Iceland and so far it might have been Putana in Chile which erupted in 1810 it might be a possibility but research is still being done on it to narrow down on where the eruption was.

[coyote55]

14 hours ago, Shieldmaiden WinterDragon said:

Before larger quakes there will be foreshocks and no we can not pinpoint where they will happen but based on the given area the foreshocks happen which will always be in a large area and all over we can only guess the area but not be certain about it but let the whole area know that one is on the way.

Have to reluctantly disagree here - large earthquakes don't always have foreshocks, especially those that occur in the deeper portions of Benioff zones.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

You're not in an area that is heavily prone to quakes then to not notice them, as for many other areas do have foreshocks before larger quakes. Foreshocks will always come before large quakes and they are not large enough to be noticed. Other nations have different methods of monitoring earthquakes.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Foreshock" and "aftershock" are relative terms. Foreshocks are earthquakes that precede larger earthquakes in the same location. Aftershocks are smaller earthquakes that occur in the same general area during the days to years following a larger event or "mainshock." They occur within 1-2 fault lengths away and during the period of time before the background seismicity level has resumed. As a general rule, aftershocks represent minor readjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the mainshock. The frequency of these aftershocks decreases with time. Historically, deep earthquakes (>30 km) are much less likely to be followed by aftershocks than shallow earthquakes. 

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Examples of foreshocks they can go on for awhile before the actual quake(s) take place such as the 2 in British Columbia this morning, mapping the quakes before they hit was a sign that there was something coming, two 6.2 quakes and now there are aftershocks. These quakes an hour apart each, one being 2.2 km under the surface and the other 10.0 km below the surface. When these types of quakes are this shallow the spread out well that being said the monitors in Anchorage picked them up and so did the ones southwest of Anchorage. It is only the deeper larger quakes that normally will not have foreshocks but will most likely have aftershocks.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Using Seismic Waves to Image the Yellowstone Magma Storage Region 

April 23, 2015 

Yellowstone subsurface cross-section schematic oriented SW-NE, depicts rise of magma beneath mantle plus heating and movement of mantle and crustal material.

How do we know what's beneath Yellowstone, and how can we image the shallow magma? Seismologists at the University of Utah (UU, a YVO member agency) have worked with several other institutions to create an image of the Yellowstone magma reservoir using a technique called seismic tomography. By looking closely at data from thousands of earthquakes, they discovered that there are two magma reservoirs—one shallow and one deep—and that they are much larger than originally believed.

To create an "image" of the magma storage region (reservoir) beneath Yellowstone, the research teams reviewed data from thousands of earthquakes. Seismic waves travel slower through hot, partially molten rock and faster in cold, solid rock. Researchers make a map of the locations where seismic waves travel slower, which provides a sub-surface image of the hot or partially molten bodies in the crust beneath Yellowstone.

Back then Yellowstone was thought to be geothermally active from an extinct volcano until 1959 a 7.1 quake hit the park killing 28 and 14 bodies were never found and since Yellowstone became an observatory. 

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Another example of incoming large quake(s) is smaller quakes leading to the larger ones, no Large quake comes without warning, they WILL have foreshocks and smaller quakes before they occur. Just this morning near Tanaga Volcano in the Aleutian island chain had multiple  small quakes leading up to the 2 large quakes it had 30 to 50 minutes ago, I have the current data and the past 48 hours of in creased regional quake data to the quakes just minutes ago. I'll share them once I load them.

[daveb]

Just to be clear, these foreshocks are observably different from the usual small shocks/quakes that happen all the time, right? So they have some way of pulling them out of the "background noise"? Then one question about forecasting major quakes is how accurate they can be and what the lead time is. In other words, how far ahead of time can they predict one will happen with a high degree of probability and how precisely can they pinpoint the date/time it should be expected? How does it compare to something like predicting weather, for example? I know it can't be a precise and as accurate as predicting something like a chemical reaction in a test tube or some astronomical events, like when a planet or other body will be in a particular location relative to other bodies. Then again, it doesn't have to be that precise to be useful; which is another aspect. Predictions of things like tornadoes and hurricanes (and earthquakes) can be useful if they can be made with enough accuracy and timing to allow people to evacuate and avoid them, without having too many false positives that people get fed up and/or start doubting and ignoring the predictions. On the other hand, knowing an area has the potential for large earthquakes means you can do things to mitigate disastrous effects ahead of time, like building or retrofitting structures to withstand quakes better, and training emergency personnel and the public to be better prepared in case a big earthquake does happen. And forecasting can be useful to scientists who study earthquakes, even if the predictions aren't yet precise or accurate enough to be useful or helpful for more general use to warn the general public.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

Foreshocks foretell when one large one is coming or many small quakes leading up to an event yes. such as.

This was recorded 48 hors in advance before the 2 mainshocks, although we know when one might be on the way like you said we can not tell WHEN one will hit, we just know it's coming. This was 24 hors before the mianshocks that took place this morning.

This area and the region near BC that had their large quake had signs of large quake(s) coming, we just have to monitor it and see when it will happen.

Now the two between 0730 are the 2 mainshocks followed by many after shocks  

these aftershocks are still going but will continue to decrease in size.

[daveb]

Sorry, the seismograph records are greek to me.

[SithAzathoth WinterDragon]

6 minutes ago, daveb said:

Sorry, the seismograph records are greek to me.

I'll share a better one with pointed out readings in it, I could go step by step of each reading but I'd go on for hours