Chaitén is I believe a forgotten volcano. Actually you could say for the most part it is an unknown volcano. At least to the masses. Everyone knows
about Yellowstone. Very few know about Chaitén. Did you know this volcano that was dormant for thousands of years erupted in May of 2008? Did you
know it has been erupting in one way or another virtually nonstop?
Dome building has been going at a historic rate for many months. In fact in these two images I captured you can see the before pic from August and
the after pic from a couple of days ago.
January 2009
August 2008
Today the volcano experienced a series of explosive eruptions with apparently some force. Here is a video of the explosion. The video is not my
work. This came from another site which I will include at the bottom of this post as a reference.
s147.photobucket.com...
Earlier in 2008 the author of the Fresh Bilge blob Alan Sullivan theorized that a number of earthquakes leading up to the eruption of the volcano
perhaps outlined the magma chamber. I used those points to calculate an estimated chamber size. This was my theory on the overall volume of the
chamber...
Lets assume those 5 big quakes marked the outline of the magma chamber. You would be looking at an oblong chamber that is about 45km from one end to
another and 30km from one side to another. Give or take a couple of km in length of width. Basically it would look like a stretched out oval. Using
what little I remember from geometry I split the thing in half and calculated the area of a parabola. Each half would be 230 km^2. So total surface
area would be 460 km^2. Calculating the volume would be a nightmare.
Looking at the number for Yellowstone they have it at 60km x 40km and 10km from top to bottom of the chamber. If a cube that would be 24,000 km^3. But
it isn't. The USGS estimates the capacity at 15,000 km^3 or 62.5% of the cubed volume. Since the dimensions above were similar in shape I am going to
apply their percentage to Chaiten. But since the chamber is smaller I am going to assume from top to bottom it is smaller as well. This calculation
assumes 5km instead of 10km. So 45km x 30km x 5km * .625 = 4,219 km^3.
It is speculated on Sullivan's site that this new large and unstable dome could collapse into the chamber resulting in a massive eruption perhaps
larger than Tambora. If my chamber calculation is correct the eruption would be catastrophic.
Chaitén Volcano is another matter. When the weather cleared yesterday afternoon. the mountain gave a fine show of fuming and ash ejection. The rate
of dome growth remains extremely high — the immense pile enlarges visibly from week to week. If this trend continues, the dome will be soon spalling
hot avalanches outside the buried caldera and into the valley that leads toward Chaitén town.
As the months of this unprecedented pileup pass, I get an uneasy feeling that the outcome of this process will not be a new mountain, thousands of
feet higher than the old caldera rim, but a new caldera of much greater size. The mass of dome material must now amount to many cubic kilometers, and
who knows how much more might emerge in a caldera-forming blowout. We could be talking of a Tambora sized event — or worse.
There are relatively few places where you can get any kind of news on this volcano which amazes me when you consider the potential devastation related
to a large scale collapse and explosion. You aren't going to find anything in the mainstream news because they honestly don't know about this
volcano and even if they knew of it chances are they wouldn't know the potential danger and would treat it as they would any other volcano in the
world. That is to say they would likely ignore it.
Keep an eye on Chaitén as we could be witnessing history in the making. What history? Perhaps the largest eruption in 200 years.
Sources
www.seablogger.com...
volcanism.wordpress.com...
www.climatepatrol.com... 
