Comments on: OK, one more volcano awesomeness

By: ZERO

ZERO — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 19:54:23 +0000

I like the condensed water vapors around the mushroom cloud!

By: Dave Miller

Dave Miller — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:03:51 +0000

I’m not sure how Flip’s comment (#19) predicting that the Democrats will impose the metric system on us pertains to the discussion on the eruption of Sarychev Peak, but I certainly hope the Republicans can bring back the Pounds, Shillings, and Pence system of counting money to replace our existing metric method. As has been observed, if God had intended for us to use the metric system, he would have given us ten fingers.

By: Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum

Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:35:31 +0000

Wow! I go to Chapel Hill for a couple days, then head off on vacation and almost miss my first shout-out from Phil! (Note to self: Don’t do that again!)
I saw the pyroclastic flows and immediately recognized them for what they were, and not lahars. I let it pass and didn’t say anything as it didn’t seem worth fussing about.

I still to this day think about that girl in South America who was trapped in a lahar a decade ago. Her whole town was bulldozed by the lahar in the middle of the night. They dug her part way out, but couldn’t free her legs and had to abandon rescue efforts when the lahar flowed again, burying her. Heartbreaking.

Another part of the animation I liked was the billowing ash cloud poking through the steam cap.

Made.
Of.
Awesome!

By: Stark

Stark — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:04:41 +0000

Eric – no problems … and might I say… thank-you! That is a little slice of awesome you put together.

By: Eric Salituro

Eric Salituro — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:43:45 +0000

Hey folks,
That’s my animation. I found out after I submitted it to YouTube that those aren’t lahars but pyroclastic flows (PDCs). I made another version with corrected labels. Sorry for any confusion on that.

By: [links] Link salad is pleased about the long weekend | jlake.com

[links] Link salad is pleased about the long weekend | jlake.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:45:40 +0000

[...] Volcano awesomeness from Bad Astronomy Blog [...]

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:39:07 +0000

@Phil: Sure I’m being picky, but there’s no smoke in that plume. It’s mostly sand, some other minerals, a bit of iron. (I have to hide from vulcanologists now – some want to strangle me when I say ’sand’.)

@Gary Ansorge: For the SO2 we’ll have to wait for someone to do the analysis of the OMI images; it’s the best instrument for the job which is currently in orbit. It’s still very difficult to get a decent estimate though since SO2 is fairly easily converted to sulfuric acid in the presence of water vapor. The plume usually ends up being pretty large and although the estimates of total mass in the plume are pretty good, we would also need to guess at the removal rate to be able to guess at the total amount put out over time.

@jasonB: A lot of CO2, but that is the most difficult gas to estimate via remote sensing because there is already so much in the atmosphere. It was hoped that the Orbiting Carbon Observatory could help out, but unfortunately the launch failed and (as usual) there was no spare bird built. CO2 also varies a lot between volcanoes – several orders of magnitude. Existing estimates of CO2 emissions from volcanoes have inherently huge uncertainties.

@Naomi: Do you read Eric K.’s blog? (Click his name) Tavurvur should be an easy volcano for you to get to – but don’t forget your malaria pills. Oh, and your escort. And don’t hunt for megapode eggs – the natives are a bit silly and frequently die trying to get the eggs of this bird which is slightly smaller than a bantam.