Volcanology

In two previous articles, I proposed explanations for the events that triggered the Younger Dryas.

In the article titled Did Earth Steal Martian Waters, I described how, ca.12,500 BP, an electric discharge may have transferred part of the Martian water and atmosphere to Earth (see pink arrow on the diagram below).

In the article titled Of Flash-frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes, I explained how, about 4 centuries earlier, ca. 12,900 BP, several cometary fragments hit the Earth's Northern hemisphere  causing the subsequent global cooling.

While writing those articles it appeared more and more clear that these were only two of three catastrophic events that preceded the Younger Dryas. We can see that a third event occurred ca. 14,400 BP.

This event had an even greater magnitude than the two events that followed it since it induced a 10°C drop as compared to the two following events which 'only' induced a 7°C drop.

In the present article, we will explore the specifics of the 14,400 BP event and explain how it might be part of a larger 3,600 year cometary cycle.

The authors suggest to view the origins of Islam against the background of the 6th century AD Arabian socio-ecological crisis whose model is specified in the paper through the study of climatological, seismological, volcanological and epidemiological history of the period. Most socio-political systems of the Arabs reacted to the socio-ecological crisis by getting rid of the rigid supra- tribal political structures (kingdoms and chiefdoms) which started posing a real threat to their very survival. The decades of fighting which led to the destruction of most of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms (reflected in Ayyãm al- 'Arab tradition) led to the elaboration of some definite "anti- royal" freedom-loving tribal ethos. At the beginning of the 7th century tribes which would recog- nise themselves as subjects of some terrestrial super-tribal political authority, the "king", risked to lose its honour. However, this seems not to be applicable to the authority of another type, the "ce- lestial" one. At the meantime the early 7th century evidences the merging of the Arabian tradition of prophecy and the Arabian Monotheist "Rahmanist" tradition which produced "the Arabian pro- phetic movement". The Monotheist "Rahmanist" prophets appear to have represented a supratribal authority just of the type many Arab tribes were looking for at this very time, which seems to ex- plain to a certain extent those prophets' political success (including the extreme political success of Muhammad).

The 1908 Tunguska event was not related to the Earth's collision with a comet/asteroid and could be most probably a tectonic event caused by solar-lunar-terrestrial perturbances. The evidence: 1. The polarization effect 'spread' from the lower to the upper atmosphere, and not vice versa, as would be expected in the case of the penetration of comet matter. 2. Before the Tunguska explosion on June 30, the appearance of luminous clouds over Europa. For asteroids and inactive comets, preceding airglows are impossible. In the case of an active comet with tails, astronomers would notice her in advance. Since the airglows of the Tunguska event were also observed in the cone of the Earth's shadow, they could not be caused, as is generally believed, by NLCs after the explosion of a comet/asteroid. 3. The Tunguska event was dependent on physical processes associated with the solar eclipse on June 28, 1908. This was indicated by geomagnetic pulsations in Kiel on June 27-30, 1908. 4. The seismogram recorded in Irkutsk on June 30, 1908, confirms the tectonic-volcanic earthquake. 5. No traces of the chondrite fraction of an alleged comet were found. 6. The Kulikovskiy paleovolcano had five stages of activity from the times of Siberian Flood Basalts (~252 Myr ago) to the 1908 explosion. All events were connected with the 'Perm LLSVPs Anomaly' located under Eurasia on the core-mantle boundary. 7. Moissanite formations, in layers of both the mud-volcanic phase (7320 years) and 1908, were found. Their genesis is the decisive factor for the 1908 Tunguska event's nature.

Bardintzeff J.M. (1999) - Vulkanologie, traduction allemande par S. Lewerenz de "Volcanologie, Dunod, 1998" avec un chapitre supplémentaire sur le volcanisme allemand. Ferdinand Enke Verlag, Stuttgart, repris par Spektrum, Heidelberg, 280 p.

German translation by S. Lewerenz of "Bardintzeff, Volcanologie, Dunod Ed., 1998"

Il ruolo del colore nella rappresentazione delle eruzioni si
inserisce nella più generale e vasta problematica della definizione
di un codice cromatico per rappresentare in modo univoco le
unità geologiche. Sebbene già nel XVII secolo l’inglese Martin
Lister (1638-1712) avesse auspicato l’uso del colore proprio per
la traduzione delle informazioni di natura geologica, ancora alla
fine del Settecento la sua idea stentava a concretizzarsi visto che le
carte incise su rame continuavano ad essere in bianco e nero. Lo
stesso può dirsi anche per le cartografia dell’Etna che negli stessi
anni passava lentamente da una raffigurazione pittorica ad una più
esatta resa topografica, in cui sistemi di rappresentazione ancora
di tipo mimetico lasciavano intravedere le asperità e i declivi.
Nel 1838, Elie de Beaumont (1798-1874), pubblica la prima carta
topografica e geologica dell’Etna, in scala 1:111:111, introducendo
tre campionature di colore per indicare la distribuzione delle
rocce vulcaniche di differente età. Per la prima volta in una carta
dell’Etna compare una legenda che evidenzia la distinzione dei
terreni in base al colore. Il problema tecnico dell’incisione in bianco
e nero viene risolto mediante una stesura del colore manualmente
ad acquarello. In questi anni cruciali per la definizione dell’uso
del colore nelle carte geologiche, la Teoria dei Colori di Goethe
influisce notevolmente sulla scelta di colorazione fatta da Christian
Keferstein nella General Charte von Teutschland (1821). Con questo
lavoro si vuole dimostrare come anche la prima carta geologica
dell’Etna, alla scala 1:50.000, realizzata tra il 1848 e il 1861 da
Sartorius von Waltershausen (1809-1876) abbia subito l’influenza
del noto poeta tedesco, tra l’altro suo padrino di battesimo.
Sartorius infatti sceglie diverse gradazioni di verde per definire
l’età e la natura del terreno sedimentario vulcanico, creando
nell’osservatore una sensazione di armonia. Questo metodo di
colorazione rimase un caso isolato in quanto non fu apprezzato
dalla comunità scientifica internazionale contemporanea, ancora
fortemente divisa per quanto riguarda il codice cromatico delle
carte geologiche. Non è un caso se il Capitano di Stato Maggiore F.
Pistoja realizzerà il plastico topografico dell’Etna per l’Esposizione
Universale di Parigi (1878) utilizzando la cartografia di Sartorius
ma variandone i colori. La scelta di presentare proprio quest’opera
era stata dettata dalla necessità, dichiarata dagli organizzatori
dell’Esposizione, di definire una classificazione dei colori tale da
rappresentare in modo univoco le diverse unità geologiche. Nel
1881, durante il II Congresso Geologico Internazionale tenutosi a
Bologna, sarà scelto definitivamente il colore rosso nelle sue varie
sfumature per la rappresentazione delle rocce vulcaniche. Questa
convenzione sarà applicata per la prima volta, per quanto riguarda
l’Etna, tra il 1884 e il 1885 con la pubblicazione della Carta
Geologica d’Italia in scala 1:100.000.

Monthly Bulletin (BGVN 38:01): Reference. Cronin, S.J., Neall, V.E., Lecointre, J.A., Hedley, M.J., and Loganathan, P., 2003, Environmental hazards of fluoride in volcanic ash: a case study from Ruapehu volcano, New Zealand, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 121, 271-291.

Information Contacts: Instituto Nicaragüense de Estudios Territoriales (INETER), Apartado Postal 2110, Managua, Nicaragua (URL: http://www.ineter.gob.ni/geofisica/); Washington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC), Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB), NOAA/NESDIS E/SP23, NOAA Science Center Room 401, 5200 Auth Rd, Camp Springs, MD 20746, USA (URL: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/); La Jornada (URL: http://www.lajornadanet.com/diario/archivo/2012/diciembre/28/1.php); La Prensa de Nicaragua (URL: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2012/12/27/ambito/128746/imprimir); Reuters.

Previous Bulletin report: http://www.volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=344020&bgvn=1&rnum=region14&snum=nicarag&wvol=sancrist&tab=1#bgvn_3708

Monthly Bulletin (BGVN 37:08)

References. A Callejas, 2012, Volcan San Cristobal en erupción - Nicaragua Sept 8, 2012 (from YouTube), Uploaded on 10 September 2012, Accessed on 3 October 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQStun1FF3o&feature=related.

Galle, B. and the NOVAC Team, 2009. NOVAC - A global network for volcanic gas monitoring, 6th Alexander von Humboldt International Conference, Abstract AvH6-34-1, 2010.

Information Contacts: Instituto Nicaragüense de Estudios Territoriales (INETER), Apartado Postal 2110, Managua, Nicaragua (URL: http://www.ineter.gob.ni/); Washington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC), Satellite Analysis Branch (SAB), NOAA/NESDIS E/SP23, NOAA Science Center Room 401, 5200 Auth Rd, Camp Springs, MD 20746, USA (URL: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/VAAC/); La Prensa de Nicaragua (URL: http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2010/07/04/nacionales/30240); La Prensa de Honduras (URL: http://www.laprensa.hn); BBC: Latin America & Caribbean (URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19533933).

Le Nyiragongo (3 469 m) et le Nyamulagira (3 058 m) sont les deux volcans actifs de la chaîne des Virunga, qui s'étend entre la République démocratique du Congo (R.d.c.), l'Ouganda et le Rwanda. Alors que le premier, bien connu pour abriter le plus grand lac de lave du monde, est imprévisible, le deuxième entre en éruption en moyenne tous les deux ans et il était somme toute assez prévisible qu'il entre en éruption après vingt-deux longs mois de sommeil. Cependant, l'éruption du 6 novembre 2011 ayant eu lieu à 11 km du cratère principal du Nyamulagira, on pouvait penser à la naissance d'un nouveau volcan. Cet article paru dans le numéro 154 de LAVE (Janvier 2012) relate une visite sur les lieux de l'éruption du Nyamulagira du 6 novembre 2011.

At nearly 4400 meters in elevation, Mount Rainier in Washington State is the tallest and iciest quaternary volcano of the Cascade Range. Although Mount Rainier has gained an ominous reputation as one of the world’s potentially most dangerous volcanoes, almost two million tourists annually visit it to enjoy its majestic heights. As a stately member of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, Mount Rainier has an extensive history of volcanism and the ensuing mass wasting events that have dominated the region since the late Pleistocene. These volcanic events have alternated between emplacement of andesitic lava flows and eruption of tephra deposits and pyroclastic flows. Occasionally, catastrophic collapses of the dome during eruptions transformed into prodigious lahars that decimated drainages all the way to Puget Sound itself. In one such case, extensive hydrothermal alteration in the volcanic cone gradually transformed the silicic minerals into a more and more unstable mass of clay, until one day a phreatomagmatic eruption triggered one of the greatest mass wasting events of Mount Rainier: the Osceola Mudflow. As the cone collapsed, this flow surged to Puget Sound, depositing in its wake a veneer of clay and other aggregate up to 20 meters in depth over an area of nearly 550 square kilometers. Rapid melting of glaciers during these volcanic episodes have induced comparatively smaller inundations. With eruptions as recently as the nineteenth century, the certainty of future eruptions threatens over 150,000 individuals who live on these ancient lahar deposits. However, it is this intricately tumultuous history that has made Mount Rainier such a gem for modern geoscience, as a place to study arc magmatism, extrusive activity, glaciation and the resulting lahars. Recently I embarked on an exploration to investigate this history for myself.

Somma-Vesuvius is a composite volcano on the southern margin of the Campanian Plain which has been active during the last 39 ka BP and which poses a hazard and risk for the main population center situated around its base. The fieldwork and data analysis on which this report is based are related to the eight Plinian eruptions that have occurred in the last 25 ka. For six of these eruptions, the fallout products were dispersed to the east–northeast, whereas deposits from the 25 ka Codola and AD 79 eruptions were dispersed in a south-easterly direction. During the AD 79 eruption, in particular, the dispersal axis migrated from the east–southeast to south–southeast. New high level wind data collected at the weather stations of the Aereonautica Militare data centres at Pratica di Mare (Rome) and Brindisi have been compiled to characterize the prevailing wind condition in the Somma-Vesuvius region. The common north-easterly dispersal directions of the Plinian eruptions are consistent with the distribution of ash by high-altitude winds from October to June. In contrast, the south-easterly trend of the AD 79 products appears to be anomalous, because the eruption is conventionally believed to have occurred on the 24th of August, when its southeast dispersive trend falls in a transitional period from the Summer to Autumnal wind regimes. In fact, the AD 79 tephra dispersive direction towards the southeast is not in agreement with the June–August high-altitude wind directions that are toward the west. This poses serious doubt about the date of the eruption and the mismatch raises the hypothesis that the eruption occurred in the Autumnal climatic period, when high-altitude winds were also blowing towards the southeast. New archaeological findings presented in this study definitively place the date of eruption in the Autumn, in good agreement with the prevailing high-altitude wind directions above Somma-Vesuvius.Moreover, wind data and past eruptive behaviour indicate that a future subplinian–Plinian eruption at Somma-Vesuvius has a good chance to occur when winds are blowing toward the eastern sectors (northeast–southeast), in the Autumnal–Winter period, and only a slightest chance in Summer, when winds are blowing toward the west, depositing ash fallout on the Neapolitan community.

This study traces and analyzes the itinerary followed by Argo and her crew, according to the unknown author of Argonautica Orphica: The voyage of the Argonauts from Iolcos to Colchis and their return following a different path, from Phasis River through central Europe to the Atlantic Ocean and then through the Mediterranean Sea. Conclusions are drawn about whether such a voyage could be possible in the remote antiquity and the “problematic” points of the description are pointed out.

High-silica topaz-bearing rhyolites of Cenozoic age are widely distributed across the western USA and Mexico. They are characteristically enriched in fluorine (> 0.2 wt.%) and incompatible lithophile elements (eg Li, Rb, Cs, U, Th, Be). In addition to topaz, the rhyolites contain garnet, bixbyite, pseudobrookite, hematite and fluorite in cavities or in their devitrified groundmasses. Magmatic phases include sanidine, quartz, oligoclase and Fe-rich biotite.

Esistono luoghi mai uguali, che si trasformano sotto i nostri occhi giorno dopo giorno. Sono i vulcani, la porta di comunicazione tra un “dentro” incandescente, l’interno della
Terra, ed un “fuori” incredibilmente freddo, lo spazio. Nel mezzo, in un sottilissimo strato di atmosfera prodotto proprio dai vulcani e fragilmente frapposto tra questi due
luoghi, viviamo noi, immersi in una bolla climatica temperata ed in un tempo infnitamente piccolo, che durerà appena un istante di un tempo più espanso, universale,
incomprensibile.

Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff (2021)
« Volcanologie », 6ème édition, Dunod

VOLCANOLOGIE, 6th edition, DUNOD, 2021, by Jacques-Marie BARDINTZEFF (jacques-marie.bardintzeff@universite_paris-saclay.fr).
This sixth edition, in French, is augmented and improved : 352 pages, 160 black and white photos, figures and tables, plus 16 extra pages of new colour photos, 650 references (numerous recent), web sites, glossary.
Chapters and paragraphs concerning supereruptions, planetary volcanoes, risks and mitigating, volcano and climate, are particularly rewritten and actualized. The price is 36 euros.
For more information, please contact: DUNOD, 11 rue Paul Bert CS 30024, 92247 Malakoff Cedex, France, phone: 33 1 41 23 66 00
ISBN 978-2-10-081914-0
1ère éd., Masson, 1991; 2e éd., Dunod, 1998, 3e éd., 2006, 4e éd., 2011, 5e éd., 2016; traduit en allemand, 1999; traduit et adapté en anglais / américain avec A.R. McBirney, 2000)


https://www.dunod.com/livres-jacques-marie-bardintzeff

https://www.dunod.com/livres-jacques-marie-bardintzeff

https://www.dunod.com/sciences-techniques/volcanologie-2


La sixième édition de « Volcanologie » par Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff (jacques-marie.bardintzeff@universite-paris-saclay.fr) vient de paraître aux éditions Dunod. Cette nouvelle version est singulièrement augmentée et complétée : 352 pages, 160 photos, schémas et tableaux, 16 pages couleur hors texte.
Les chapitres et paragraphes consacrés aux super-éruptions, au volcanisme planétaire, aux risques et leurs prévisions, aux relations entre volcans et climats à l’échelle de la planète sont particulièrement remaniés et actualisés. 650 références bibliographiques (nombreuses récentes), un glossaire ainsi que des adresses de sites web sont annexés. Le prix de l'ouvrage est de 36 euros.
Pour les étudiants de Licence, de Master, des « prépas » Capes et Agrégation et tous les passionnés et curieux de volcans.
DUNOD, 11 rue Paul Bert CS 30024, 92247 Malakoff Cedex, 01 41 23 66 00
ISBN 978-2-10-081914-0

https://www.dunod.com/livres-jacques-marie-bardintzeff

https://www.dunod.com/sciences-techniques/volcanologie-2