Volcano Watch 2014

a reply to: Thebel

Thanks so much for posting this.
So dreadfully frightening for all those hikers, their families, and the scientists charged with monitoring and keeping the public safe.

40 new graphs on the blog, 28 of them are going back to 11.08.2014, Lat/Long Cross sections, you can see them added to the daily posts and 12 new closer Latitude ones, on the B-D-H cross section graph page


first snow covered web cam screenshot, bit hazy over the fissure

had to change the time stamp to black, couldn't see it in yellow
Thebel beat me to it, didn't see as page had rolled over

a reply to: muzzy
Hey Muzzy, the cross section graphs of the Iceland eruption are really helpful--thanks!

And a very happy belated birthday. I sure hope you enjoyed yourself.

Here is a toast to many,many more.

a reply to: Thebel
Thanks for the heads up
I guess the Japs aren't as cautious as the Icelanders by not shutting down the mountain to the public
I just had a look on NIED data, looks like there was some seismic activity that would have given some warning



I'll break the data lines down after breakfast and do a muzzymap of the Ontake area

a reply to: Olivine

thanks, I got a bit muddled doing the rest of those going backwards, GoogleDrive is hard to work with, if you update an image you have to delete the old image first, it won't just replace it like Dropbox does, if you load 2 images with the same name by mistake neither will show on the destination link. GD needs more work done on it to make it more user friendly.
Yes I had a nice relaxing B'day thankyou, Roast Lamb for dinner

if that report from Japan Times is correct "erupted around 11:53 a.m. Saturday"
then these earthquakes centered on the volcano were after it
JST, UTC, Lat, Long, Mag, Depth
27/09/2014 11:59:26, 27/09/2014 02:59:26, 35.8892, 137.477, 0.6ML, 4km
27/09/2014 12:20:04, 27/09/2014 03:20:04, 35.8896, 137.4772, 0.6ML, 3.5km
27/09/2014 12:37:50, 27/09/2014 03:37:50, 35.8902, 137.4777, 1.1ML, 3.7km
27/09/2014 12:41:06, 27/09/2014 03:41:06, 35.8881, 137.4745, 0.5ML, 2.8km
27/09/2014 14:17:17, 27/09/2014 05:17:17, 35.8895, 137.4731, 0.4ML, 2.5km
27/09/2014 21:49:46, 27/09/2014 12:49:46, 35.8876, 137.4791, 1.0ML, 4.2km

click on image for interactive version of the quakes listed above

and thats it, any other quakes before or after seem to be located in the valley to the east, around Kiso, and having looked back through Japan 2013 that would be background seismicity. Having looked at various maps of the area there are heaps of Hot Springs in the valley, so there will always be micro earthquakes like most thermal areas.
So I will let the authorities off this time, there was activity prior, but it wasn't specific to Ontake, not enough to issue a red alert anyway.

It appears that there are more deaths related to the eruption of Mt. Ontake-San than feared. Apparently the authorities will not release death information until a formal determination has been made, (I read reports of "unconscious" people and reports of people in "cardio-pulmonary arrest").

I was happy before when I'd read that there was only one death (and that was later retracted in the media reports) out of hundreds of visitors to the mountain. It just didn't give them any warning.

BBC

Bardarbunga-Holuhraun, Iceland

obviously the snow isn't going to settle on the lava flow as its still hot, geez its big, first time have seen the whole extent on the web cams

right click "view image" for slightly larger version

a few graphs to finish the weekend off

summary 11/08 - 27/09/2014
mag1= 314 , mag2= 2409 , mag3= 756,
mag4= 44 , mag5= 20 , mag6= 12,
total= 3,555, total energy released= 16,625.014 TTNT



same deal for the larger image

only one quake on the Holuhraun yesterday!
VT report for 27/09/2014

It appears that the Mount Ontake erupted without any warning, that is possible for some volcanoes. And Mount Ontake is not monitored actively, since it is not very active volcano. There is not much info about its previous eruptions, but this is its 3rd confirmed eruption, what is a big strange for volcano that big. Its size is really massive, no wonder its really popular location.

There are 2 webcams located near it:
This and this

But their quality is even lower than Bardarbunga webcams. And I thought Japan is technologically advanced...


30 people have been found dead from Mt. Ontake. They found 30 people near the summit, who had died to cardiac arrest. These were the first fatalities from volcanoes since 1991, when 41 people died at Mount Unzen. Its tricky to search for them as the volcano is still spewing ash. Nearby buildings are all covered in thick ash layer. The volcano erupted without warning, woman who keeps lodge near the summit said the eruption "sounded like thunder"
BBC Asia: Japan volcano: 30 hikers feared dead on Mt Ontake

Back to Bardarbunga: Camera 2 is still useless, that hasn't shown anything for like 3 days. Camera 1 has nice visibility once again. You can see how there isn't any snow near the lava flows. There is no change in earthquake activity, it has remained same. There are still 5.2 magnitude quakes popping. Subsidence of the caldera still continues. The earthquake activity in Dyngjujökull is getting lower, there was just 5 detected yesterday, compared to 20 of previous day.

Bardarbunga: a hour ago 5.2 magnitude quake hit just 1.7km under the surface, that was really shallow. That must have been strong shaking on the surface. There was couple aftershakes after that, but they are not confirmed.


baering.github.io...

activity at the fissure is very low now....at bardar just very high....
perhaps the gap to the fissure is closing and pressure is building up now at bardarbunga?

originally posted by: ressiv
activity at the fissure is very low now....at bardar just very high....
perhaps the gap to the fissure is closing and pressure is building up now at bardarbunga?

The fissure is still smoking like before, no signs of its closing. No quakes just mean there is no pressure in the fissure, there is not probably enough magma in the system.

There are some people in the view of Cam1, its interesting to watch what they are doing. They came by jeep and are standing next to "R2D2". There is apparently 2 people.

a reply to: muzzy


Bit confused? There have been no mag6 eq's ?

a reply to: LadyTrick

a M6 is equal to 15,080.24 TTNT, or 32 x M5.0's or 16 x M5.2's or combinations of 5's
So all up we are past the energy release of a M6 over a long period
I think it would take a major collapse of the caldera to bring on a single M6 event.
My observations of other eruptions around the world over the last few years is that the volcano's themselves don't tend to have M6 earthquakes associated with them directly, perhaps a M6 nearby can trigger an eruption (Alaska) but normally its multiple 4's (Chile) or like here, multiple 5's, that occur during the "crisis"

good view of the Bardarbunga massif behind the eruption vent right now on web cam 1

a reply to: muzzy

bardarbunga has an massiev glacier on top... so to compare it with other volcano's with less ice on top is perhaps wishfull thinking..
my guess is that it needs moore than an 6 to trigger bardarbunga...
and if that happens it will be an big bang..... like krakatau in earlier day's

a reply to: muzzy

ok so when you put mag6=12 you are saying the total energy so far equals 12 mag 6 eq's?

sorry to be a pain just want to understand. Also is ok to share the graphs on a bardarbunga fb group?I understand if you don't want me to but If so what name should I credit you as?

a reply to: LadyTrick
Not sure where you got the 12 from
No a Mag 6 = 15,080.24 Tonnes of TNT going off
for comparison that would be like
32 mag 5.0's (15,260.13 TTNT)
23 mag 5.1's (15,493.02 TTNT)
16 mag 5.2's (15,223.9 TTNT)
11 mag 5.3's (14,784.31 TTNT)
7 mag 5.4's and 4 mag 5.0's (15,196.95 TTNT)
and so on
in fact the highest has been 5.5 I believe two of them, and a combination of other 5's. I haven't kept those seperate so not sure how many of each, last map I did was 18/09/2014 the 5's were in order
5.33, 5.12, 5.32, 5.11, 5.43, 5.25, 5.02, 5.21, 5.36, 5.11, 5.04, 5.28, 5.54, 5.31, 5.05, 5.4, 5.21, 5.5, 5.41, 5.19, 5.34, 5.36, 5.24, 5.44, 5.15, 5.34, there have been one or two a day since as well

if you use any graphs or images, credit to muzzy@volcanic tremors would be nice. Thats not an e-mail or anything, just my user name for Wordpress and ATS.


hold your horses though!!!
something went wrong with the summary of TTNT on that previous post,
I just added the 5's up to 18/9 alone and they came to 35,534.33TTNT
I had a bit of trouble with the Excel file doing those graphs, trying to do 2 months together, although the bars are correct the totals in the summary may be wrong.
I'll have a another look see at the end of the month (2 days)


I couldn't wait 2 days to find the mistake,
here are the correct summaries for 11/08 to end of 27/09
1937 less than mag 1
4138 mag1
982 mag2
153 mag3
66 mag4
36 mag5
0 mag6
7,312 total
55,876 TTNT ( equal to 3 x mag 6's and a mag 5.9)

a reply to: Thebel
comes from the BBC so it must be true.
However I heard on Radio NZ on the way home today that "4 confirmed dead, 27 missing", so they must be lying.

Mt. Ontake is still spewing smoke, visible from webcam


The volcano erupted in the worst possible time, it was beautiful autumn Saturday with clear skies, shortly before noon. People had climbed on the mountain to view autumn foliage. There was about 250 people hiking near the summit. The mountain didn't show any clear signs of upcoming eruption, there was no harmonic tremor detected, just few random earthquakes that could have been just normal background activity. The eruption wasn't particularly big, but it was dangerous because people were so close to it. It was phreatic eruption, meaning ground water seeped into volcano and got superheated by the magma. Last phreatic eruption of this volcano was in 2007. There wasn't fresh magma coming out this time. Because there wasn't magma involved, the pyroclastic flows were low temperature.
The Telegraph