Are we going on a super volcano?
Can volcanic eruptions threaten our civilization?
The word volcano is derived from the Roman god of fire, Vulcan.
A caldera is a large bowl-shaped crater formed by volcanic activity. It has a diameter of several hundreds to several thousands meters.
A crater is smaller: a few tens to hundreds of meters.
Lava is liquid rock: magma that has reached the earth's surface or seabed.
Volcanic winter: a lot of dust in the atmosphere creates – for years - darkness and cold, and thus lack of food.
In Europe, especially (in Italy) Etna, Stromboli and Vesuvius are known.
Stromboli is a mountain of fire in the Mediterranean Sea, just north of the island of Sicily which has been active for more than 2,400 years.
Etna is after the Stromboli the most active volcano of Europe and one of the most active in the world. It lies on the eastern side of Sicily.
It measures 3,323 meters, the highest mountain of the island and after Elbrus, the highest volcano in Europe. He is still formed by the collision of two plates of the Earth's crust. Always come vapors and often there are eruptions, also from 2006 to 2012. Heavy eruptions were in 1381 and 1669 (25,000 deaths). The largest eruption of the last hundred years was in 2001. It took 24 days.
Vesuvius is located southeast of Naples. He has a diameter of 8 kilometers and is 1,281 meters high. The most famous eruption was in August 79. Roman sites of Pompeii, Stabiae and Oplontis were completely buried under ash and pumice. Also toxic gases such as carbon monoxide (CO) were spread through Pompeii. About 10,000 people were slain, 2,300 bodies have been recovered. Recent research suggests that people were boiled alive, “sandblasted“ by the red hot ash cloud and then fleshed alive. The brain exploded by super- hot gas between 500 and 550 degrees Celsius.
There were a dozen eruptions, to 1631 (almost as heavy as 79), and the last in 1944. Normally erupts the volcano every 50 to 55 years. Vesuvius has not erupted for over 70 years now.
The town of Pozzuoli near Naples is located in the “Campi Flegrei“(Burning Fields), a super volcano or caldera. In 1538, thus geologically very recently, there was during an eight-day eruption ejected enough material to form Monte Nuovo (New Mountain)
In 1982, the Volcanic - Explosivity Index (VEI) was determined as a relative measure of the explosive nature of volcanic eruptions. The index ranges from 0 to 8, each unit higher represents a 10 times heavier explosive power. The VEI thus corresponds to the number of zeros after the 1. Etna has index 2, Krakatoa a 6 and a super volcano like the Yellowstone Caldera a VEI 8.
On the liquid hot magma in the earth's core float tectonic plates. If they slide against each other earthquakes occur. Most volcanoes are also located on the fault lines.
Pacific Rim has such concentration: the Ring of Fire with 452 volcanoes. Most volcanoes in Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, the Kuril, Kamchatka and the west coast of America are part of it. In Indonesia, with more than four hundred the country with the largest number of volcanoes, 129 are active.
In addition, there are volcanoes near hotspots, the Hawaiian Islands, the Canary Islands, Yellowstone etc.
The super volcano Toba is located in Indonesia on the island of Sumatra. He bursts about once every 400,000 years. The eruption 74,000 years ago was the last and greatest, even the greatest on earth for the last 2 million years. The resulting shaped caldera is now Toba lake, 100 km long and 30 km wide.
Then the temperature dropped anywhere on earth, because the ash particles (sulfuric acid) blocked the sunlight. Some believe that it did not cool more than 1 degree, others claim a dramatic drop in temperature and an ice age of ten centuries.
The strong cooling may have caused a rapid increase in ice. That reflected sunlight, with a further cooling effect.
Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois claims that this led to a reduction of all populations in the world, with some species would become extinct. Man would have brought in a bottleneck in a population of not more than 10,000 individuals by this eruption.
On June 15, 1991 there was a catastrophic eruption of Pinatubo (VEI 6, Luzon, Philippines). Which produced more than 5 km2 volcanic material. An ash cloud moved across the earth. The temperature throughout the world fell in the next year by 0.5°C.
Krakatoa is an active volcano in the Sunda street between Java and Sumatra (Indonesia).
At the court of an Indonesian Sultan writings preserved the stories how an eruption in 535 of Sumatra and Java made two separate islands. They would therefore have been one island.
On Monday August 27, 1883 Krakatoa exploded. The mountain rose up, ripped open and collapsed. The sea flowed into the gaping hole.
It is the largest volcanic eruption which modern man witnessed. The eruption had a tsunami with waves up to 40 meters high as a result. More than 36,000 people lost their lifes, entire towns and villages were washed away. The waves tossed ships, such as the Dutch navy steamship Repentance, kilometers inland.
The swell was recorded into the Channel (between England and France). There arose a cloud of ash from the mountain that rose to 50 kilometers high and plunged the area into darkness. The eruption was so loud that the eardrums of sailors erupted nearby. The roar and banging was heard to Australia, and on the island of Rodriguez (in Africa). The waves were so powerful that they went around the earth seven times before the atmosphere was calm. The calmer mountain vomits regularly lava and grows in 2003 still four meters per year.
The Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii is one of the most active in the world. Since 1843, it has erupted 33 times! According to statistics he average bursts every 20 year.
Mount Everest is 8,848 meters high, Mauna Kea is measured from the seabed to the summit, 9,000 meters high.
The Huaynaputinain in Peru is a VEI 6. The eruption in 1600 had an impact on the climate over the world. The following summer was the coldest in 500 years.
Yellowstone National Park covers an area of almost 9,000 square kilometers. It is one of the largest national parks in the United States. The average elevation in the park is 2,440 meters.
It has approximately 10,000 hot springs and more than 200 geysers. Old Faithful is the most famous and reliable: the geyser squirts every 75 to 90 minutes for 240 seconds approximately 45,000 liters of boiling water and steam 52 meters into the sky.
Under Yellowstone is a volcanic hot spot with a diameter of nearly 65 km. This super volcano erupts on average every 600,000 years. Ashfall covered thereby the entire Midwest of the United States. Maybe a new eruption causes a 'volcanic winter' that for decades disrupted the lifes of the entire northern hemisphere.
The last major eruption dates back more than 640,000 years ago. Then have occurred about thirty smaller eruptions filling the area up with ash and lava to a flat landscape.
Older calderas formed a 800 kilometers long and 70 kilometers wide valley through the Rocky Mountains and North America moved to the southwest.
Article of 3/11/2010
Yesterday Merapi volcano erupted again. It is the tenth eruption in tight eight days. As if that is not yet disturbingly, researchers report that another 21 other volcanoes in this area are messing. The document identifies conjecture: is there a chain reaction in the Ring of Fire coming?
Under Indonesia reigns complete chaos: here come the Eurasian Plate, Australian Plate, Indian Plate, the Sunda Plate and the Pacific Plate collided. Here arose in 2004 the quake with a magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter scale that killed about 230,000 people.
Is a chain reaction of explosions possible?
The most active volcanoes are on Java, the Kelut and Merapi. On a small island west of Jakarta lies the Krakatau.
A chain reaction would not occur for the first time: when Eyjafjallajokull erupted in April 2010, making the most traffic for miles around was impossible for days, there were fears that the largest volcano in Iceland - Katla - would follow.
And the Low Countries? Since the early 60s, we know that about 150 million years ago, just south of what is now Vlieland was a volcano with a height of 1,000 and at the base a diameter of 15,000 meters. That Zuidwal Volcano was over 12 million years active. Currently, the top of the mountain is about 2,000 meters below the bottom of the Wadden Sea.
Media and "experts” warn often for the increased activity of a huge volcano under the Laacher See between Bonn and Koblenz in bird flight ca 50 km from the German- Belgian border. The volcano is still active, though about 1,000 years 'over time', and an eruption of Pinatubo would be able to match (?).
I wanted to be the Vesuvius. Laying on my back smoking and hear saying, look, he works... (Henk de Kleer)
Supervolcano: if you know what the earth is going through, you understand why she trembles. (Lambert Mickers)