Persistent strombolian activity at Etna's New Southeast Crater

persistent-strombolian-activity-at-etna-s-new-southeast-crater

Mild, persistent strombolian activity is continuing at Etna's New Southeast Crater (NSEC) from the same two eruptive vents within the crater that have been active over the past few days.

Lava emission continues from an effusive vent located within the collapse scar formed on February 11, 2014, and following a diminution in the effusion rate on February 14, lava emission has again slightly increased, feeding a flow several hundred meters long into the direction of the Valle del Bove.

At 11:08 UTC on February 15, a single explosion occurred from the area of the Bocca Nuova-Voragine, which emitted a dense plume of white vapor mixed with diluted ash; this was accompanied by a summit seismic signal of modest amplitude. No further explosvie events were subsequently observed in the same area. The upper part of the image at left shows a frame recorded by the visual monitoring camera on the Montagnola (EMOV), of the vapor plume rising a few hundred meters above the summit of the volcano.

On the afternoon of February 15, a small lava flow started to ooze from a new effusive vent, located at the northern base of the NSEC cone, which expanded about 100 m toward the western headwall of the Valle del Bove; in the evening, this flow appeared to be sarcely fed. This little flow is seen in the lower portion of the image at left, recorded by the thermal monitoring camera at Monte Cagliato (EMCT), next to the larger flow issuing from the vent on the lower eastern flank of the NSEC cone.

The mean amplitude of the volcanic tremor is relatively stable at moderately elevated levels. (INGV – February 15, 2014 – 19:30 UTC)

Featured image: INGV

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2 Comments

  1. Jamal Shrair‎ posted on the facebook of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
    My post: I have been arguing for a few years that the cause for the rapid increase of climate change is the heat increase at the Earth's core and the rapid shifting of the earth's magnetic field which is causing the increasing in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The scientific community and mass media is ignoring the increase of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and concentrating on the other climate events that can easily be blamed for human activity. Sooner or later the scientific facts that I am fighting for will be obvious to the whole world.
    Jamal Shrair
    USGS reply:
    U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) There is no evidence of, nor is there any physics that allows an increased heating of Earth's core at this late stage of its existence. We know that lava extrusions were hotter early in Earth's history, and there were even natural nuclear reactors near the surface, while the planet was still enriched in radiogenic elements. The rate of cooling is now quite slow, but inexorable.

    Given the nature of Earth's magnetic dynamo, moving magnetic poles are to be expected. Against the backdrop of geologic time, our few centuries of monitoring their positions is not nearly enough to draw any conclusions whatsoever: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml. We do know that within the last 30 million years, our current polarity is one of the longer-lasting: http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/images/timeline.gif

    The ever-expanding worldwide seismic array is allowing an increasing amount of very small earthquakes to be detected and reported. Only the ability to detect them – not the actual number – has changed. Human-induced seismicity appears to have increased over time from such things as deep-well injection, reservoir impoundments, explosions and mine collapses. Volcanic events are not increasing either. However, social media and 24/7 worldwide news continually repeat even the remotest exhalations of unknown vents in unheard of areas. Twenty years ago, many eruptions went unreported that would now be prime news on many blogs. [Greg D]
    My respond to the above statment:Jamal Shrair
    What is the Source of Heat in the Earth’s Interior and why Earth changes its magnetic field from time to time?

    It is well known that a very high amount of heat emanates from the planet‘s interior. The question about the source of this heat has been around for a very long time and it is still considered to be a puzzle by most geophysicists. Let us examine what contemporary science says about the source of this heat. First of all, with high probability, the temperature inside the Earth‘s inner core is much higher than the commonly believed temperature between 5,000 to 7000 °C (9,000 to 12,630 °F). But now the latest estimate put it at 6,000 C (about 10,800 F). That's as hot as the surface of the sun. There is another indication which comes from the deepest drilled hole ever drilled by mankind; about nine inches wide and 12.262 kilometers deep. However, the current theories about the source of the heat at the core cannot possibly be correct. One of these theories credits the heat inside the Earth to its formation period (i.e. the heat left over when the planet was formed ca. 4 billion years ago), also referred to as the primordial heat. Lord Kelvin in the 19th century already showed that if primordial heat was the source, then it would have been dissipated in less than 10 million years. The majority of heat – over 90% – according to the most accepted theory in geophysics, is fuelled by the decay of radioactive isotopes like Radium, Potassium 40, Uranium 238, 235 and Thorium 232. These elements constantly decay and release energy.Radioactivity is as good as the primordial theory because if radioactive materials were the source, then they would have been used up by now. But even if they are still fully available, they cannot be the true source. First of all, the core is mainly, if not entirely, made of iron and nickel, whereas the radioactive elements are found near the Earth‘s surface, in the crust and the outer region of the mantle. How could this explain the increase of temperature as we head down to the interior? Additionally, the rate of heat flow is the same from continental and oceanic areas, in spite of the fact that radioactive elements are believed to be concentrated in the continents. In addition to the above, several dozen kilograms of substance, like a block of granite containing radioactive elements, can only generate a tiny amount of heat. Thus, if radioactivity were the source, then the amount of radioactive material required to maintain that high temperature would turn the whole Earth into a hazardous radioactive zone. Stuart Freedman, of the US Department of Energy‘s Berkeley Lab, commented on a recent research: "One thing we can say with near certainty is that radioactive decay alone is not enough to account for the earth’s heat energy".The main source of the high temperature at the planet‘s interior cannot be the result of radioactivity, friction or tidal stress. Instead it depends on the amount of solar-cosmic radiation absorbed by the surface of the Earth. The Earth‘s magnetic field is not a bar magnet located between two geographical poles, it is rather a complex and dynamic electromagnetic system. In fact there are some areas with north polarity in the southern hemisphere and likewise areas with south polarity in the northern hemisphere. On the other hand, this geomagnetic dynamo process needs energy to keep it running. It takes millions of tons of energy to produce and sustain the magnetic field inside the Earth. Thus, the magnetic field cannot exist at all if the dynamo does not depend on some external supply. The system cannot sustain itself by using fuel from the Earth‘s core. A huge amount of current – in the range of billions of amps – goes into and out of the inner core. This current is what powers the Earth‘s internal magnetic field and causes the Earth to spin. Basically the inner core rotates because it is part of a vast electric circuit connected to the Sun.

    The increase of the temperature at the core can be indirectly estimated from certain observations, like the borehole data: The temperature of the uppermost continental crust is determined mainly by the heat flow from the inner core of the Earth and partly by fluctuations of temperature at the surface. Many underground temperature measurements were tested from more than 350 boreholes in North America, Europe, Southern Africa and Australia. What researchers found was that the 20th century was the warmest of the past five centuries. This increases the credibility of the notion that the Earth is warming dramatically at the interior Therefore, most of the changes taking place on the surface of the planet are the result of the increase in temperature in the inner core. Heat is carried by magma convection to the surface where it radiates outwards through the crust, warming the oceans, melting the polar and glacial ice caps and intensifying the already high temperature of the atmosphere above.
    I can provide you with more data from my book about earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other geological activities that are taking place deep within the oceans or on lands that proof my theory that heat has increased at the Earth’s core. As the Sun enters the most dense region in space and approaches its highest point on its galactic travel. The amount of energy induced at the core reaches critical level and causes the rapid shift of earth's magnetic field. Now we are experiencing this rapid shift. It important to remember, however, that the increase of the heat inside the Earth is incremental but not steady increase. The build up of heat increase at the core takes thousands of years. The impacts becomes obvious only two or three decades before the final reversal of the earth's magnetic field.

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