BS: Waiting For The Volcano

Subject: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: robomatic
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 07:13 PM

How many times are you sitting in the office of a Friday afternoon and a pretty girl comes by to tell you that before you go home to turn off absolutely everything electrical or electronic in case there's an eruption over the weekend and the ash cloud hits town.

I've been through this three times, actually. I've pulled frozen ash chunks out of my rain gutters by the hundredweight no lie.

This time it's Mt. Redoubt, too far away from town to do a Pompeii number on us, but if the wind blows out of the SSW we can get dumped on, stuff that will fill up all available crevices, destroy automated bank tellers, glass windshields, and the occasional aircraft.

We are at code Orange, meaning that Redoubt's a rumblin' and the boffins think we're likely to have a volcanic experience in our near future. Now that's as definite a word we're likely to get until something actually blows, and of course, the wind might favor us and we will ashless, even on Wednesday.

Be well y'all, and- Look To The Sky!!!
Alaska Volcano Observatory

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 09:21 PM

Yeah, my #2 has to fly to Kodiak and she's worried about Rebout 'ruptin'. I told her that there really wasn't much that could be done about it and besides, I think she has to go the end of the month.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 09:22 PM

How far are you from this special event?

Here in Maine we complain about the snow and ice dams, and occasionally the ground rumbles to compensate for the glacier which was resident 20,000 years ago.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 09:25 PM

We're sitting here waiting for the Yellowstone Caldera to blow. It's about 40,000 years overdue.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 09:57 PM

That's funny. I have tried four times now to post a response in this space and it don' go.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 09:57 PM

Ah ha! I'll try it again.

I remember the 1989 eruption(s) of Mt. Redoubt. The most important aspect that I remember is that planes were re-routed because of the ash plume.

Nothing like Mt. St. Helens in 1980. St. Helens ripped out its upper wall, threw ash and pumice sky high (I saw its force field about 70 miles away), toppled forests, loaded cars, bushes, sidewalks and any other stationary object with gritty, crunchy detritus, forced vehicles to wear bras and filters they had not previously known, endangered any plane hapless enough to get into its wind paths and killed 60some people.

An interesting time.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: 3refs
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 08:58 AM

I recently watched a program on the Yellowstone Caldera. Approximately every 600,000 years it lets loose. 35 X 45 miles wide. When it blows it will make Mt St Helen look like a child's fart! If If remember correctly, they said the last time it blew 90% of everything on earth eventually perished.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 10:34 AM

Nah, it last blew about 640,000 years ago. Nowhere near 90% of everything perished, although it didn't do a whole bunch of things a lot of good. My friend Bob had earlier in the day filled the caldera with unpopped popcorn and when it blew all of the popcorn popped. Came down in such quantities that a whole BUNCH of critters thought it was snowing and froze to death. That, of course, triggered an Ice Age.

Bob told me later that he was sorry but he just felt like eating popcorn that day.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 10:35 AM

Everything is relative. The devastation of 90% of the earth's entities 600,000 years ago is a lesser impact than living 10 miles downstream from St. Helens 30 years ago. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 11:20 AM

You have my sympathy, robomatic. It must be tense.

Is it any help to put computers, sewing machines, etc in plastic bags for a while?

Ash certainly goes far and persists. In 1980 we could tell when the ash from Mt St Helens was going over. I live in Missouri.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 12:31 PM

Yes, and I lived in Ohio at the time.

I wanted to get a tee shirt that said "I survived Mt. St. Helens".

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: SINSULL
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 05:05 PM

One of Iceland's volcanoes is making "noises" too. Just what they need right now.
Stay safe all.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 05:17 PM

And I'm sitting about 10 miles from Mt. Konocti here in Northern California. The last time he popped off was about 25,000 years back but when he did, over half the mountain disappeared! We have plenty of hot springs and geysers and tuns of little earthquakes but fortunately no rumbles from the "Sleeping Giant"....so far....

ps 4.4 earthquake this last hour in SoCal near Ridgecrest/ China Lake Naval Air Station in the Mojave Desert.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:26 PM

Sinner man, where ya gonna run to, all on that day?

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:38 PM

Tomorrow the Idaho State Journal will have a feature article on What Will Happen When The Yellowstone Caldera Blows.

I can't wait, because as soon as a "Red Alert" goes out I'm going to run up to Yellowstone and put a cork in it. That will make it all pop out somewhere else.

Yes, my plans are made....

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: robomatic
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:56 PM

Rapaire:

Just make sure that cork is bio-degradable. We don't want you cluttering up the landscape with materials that are not local!

Cover of today's Anchorage Daily News is concerned with an oil terminal, complete with large tank, that is at the base of Mt. Redoubt. Back in the comparatively innocent days of '89 it was publicly available information that the tank was full, and it was determeined to get it empty and shut down local oil platforms during the height of volcanic activity. The situation is no longer public knowledge attributed to Homeland Security rules, so we have to trust to the competence of our public officials and alert executives.

I'm not worried. Really, I'm not worried...

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 07:02 PM

Perhaps you should practice locally until you are quite sure you have it down to an art--putting a cork in it, I mean...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 07:07 PM

Yellowstone isn't the one we really have to worry about.

Look up what happened when Toba blew up. (The difference is that it was not only bigger, it's on the equator, so the ash got spread across both hemispheres).

Look at the *size* of the Toba caldera on Google Earth.

Nobody knows when it might blow again, but it's clearly not done yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 07:20 PM

Well, I do know that if one of them blows there really isn't much I can do about it except bend over and kiss my ass goodbye. So I'm saving my energy by not worrying about it.

And I'll betcha those folks up Alaska trust the Homeland Security guys about as much as we do down here in Idaho....

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Megan L
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 06:24 AM

Interesting information and web cam

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: bubblyrat
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 10:31 AM

There's another caldera under the whole of the Bay of Naples,that is similarly overdue for a big one,and should thus be expected any day now.Just pray that all these overdue volcanic events don't all happen together (if they do,there won't be time to kiss anything goodbye ,let alone your Ass ( Arse ---UK)).Be some spectacular sunsets for a while afterwards,though !!

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 10:36 AM

For those left to see them...before the Long Winter sets in!

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Sorcha
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 02:43 PM

Cynical pessimist that I am, they WILL all go together...one will set off the others. Chain reaction. Bye now!

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: robomatic
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 03:09 PM

We're not in danger of anything (non-human) actually exPLODING. Redoubt has sent clouds of ash up before, along with Augustine and Spurr. Our local (non-human) blowhards just don't want to be forgotten.
On one occasion, never to be repeated a KLM 747 flew through a cloud of ash (from Redoubt) and became a glider. The pilot and copilot tried hard to get the engines re-lit and managed it after five minutes without power. I found a site and reproduced the true story below. Talk about heroic pilots! I believe KLM re-routed a lot of their business away from Our Fair State after the event.



ANCHORAGE, AK—Redoubt Volcano, near
Anchorage, Alaska, began erupting on December
14, 1989. On the following day, a 747-400 airplane
entered an ash cloud at 7,620 meters (25,000 feet)
and experienced flameouts on all four engines.
During descent to 7,620 meters (25,000 feet), the
airplane entered a thin layer of clouds when it
suddenly became very dark outside. The crew also
saw lighted particles pass over the cockpit windshields.
At the same time, brownish dust with a
sulfurous smell entered the cockpit. The captain
commanded the pilot flying to start climbing to
attempt to get out of the volcanic ash. One minute
into the high-power climb, all four engines flamed
out. Due to the volcanic ash and dust in the
cockpit, the crew donned oxygen masks.
The pilot flying noticed the airspeed descending,
initially at a normal rate but suddenly very fast. All
airspeed indications were then lost due to volcanic
dust contamination in an instrument. The pilot
flying rather firmly put the nose of the aircraft down
to avoid a stall and initiated a turn to the left in a
further attempt to get out of the volcanic ash.
The crew noticed a "Cargo Fire Forward" warning
and decided that the fire warning was caused by
the volcanic ash, so no further action was taken.
As the engine slowed down, the generators tripped
off and all instruments were lost except for instruments
powered by the batteries.
During the time the engines were not working, the
cabin pressure remained within limits and no
passenger oxygen masks deployed. The crew
elected not to deploy the masks because the
passenger-oxygen-mask system would have been
contaminated by volcanic dust in the cabin air.
3
Module 1, Investigation 3: Briefing
Volcano's ash kills 747's engines en route to Anchorage
An emergency was declared when the airplane
passed through approximately 5,181 meters
(17,000 feet). The crew stated that a total of seven
or eight restart attempts were made before engines
1 and 2 finally restarted. Initially, the crew maintained
3,962.4 meters (13,000 feet) with engines 1
and 2 restarted, and after several more attempts,
engines 3 and 4 also restarted.
After passing abeam and east of Anchorage at
3,352.8 meters (11,000 feet), the airplane was
given clearance for a wide right-hand pattern to
runway 06 and further descent to 609.6 meters
(2,000 feet). The captain had the runway continuously
in sight during the approach; however, vision
through the windshields was impaired due to
"sandblasting" from the volcanic ash in such a way
that the captain and the first officer were only able
to look forward with their heads positioned well to
the side.
Finally, the airplane did land safely, but approximately
$80 million was spent to restore the plane,
which included replacing four engines. The indepth
account of this incident helped researchers
devise a procedure of what a crew should do when
they encounter an ash cloud.
Source: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/department/classes/ge404/
gcmayber/historic.html

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 11:10 PM

Much the same was done by some Australian pilots who found they had flown through an ash plume over Java a few years ago.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: GUEST,Slag
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 11:34 PM

Like Salvador Dali's little boy lifting up the skirts of the sea, when we lift up a corner of the very thin crust on this 8000 mile diameter bit of slag (ahem) we see that, by far, the main component of our little planet is a red hot goo of nothing but Heat, with a capital "H"! Little cracks here and there in the crinkly surface occasionaly allows us sample of what lies under the feet of all of us...but it's home!

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 03:19 PM

Although it appears to be no major threat, a report yesterday was that one of Japan's several thousand active volcanos had deposited noticeable ash on Tokyo - about 90 miles down wind.

Another little-noticed report claimed discovery of a new, previously unknown, fault line just a few (hundred) miles east of us, that researches reported being capable of a magnitude "7 or so" quake "at any time." I think the details indicated "any time" as being "within the next 20,000 years but I'm watching it.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Megan L
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 03:23 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: olddude
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:34 AM

to quote Jimmy Buffet

I don't know where I am a gonna go
when the volcano blows

don't want to land in a New York City
da da dum

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 08:56 PM

I went to work. The actual erupting started Friday morning, then some quiescence over the weekend, more spewing of high ash this morning. It's playing havoc with air traffic (Alaska Airlines cancelled all Anchorage inbound and outbound today) but the wind has kept it away from settling in Anchorage so far.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 10:19 PM

Hi, robo. I saw an article in the paper about the eruption, and I wondered if you were okay.

Let's hope the volcano continues to erupt, thus releasing heat and pressure without encroaching on any settlements.

Do keep in touch.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Mar 09 - 10:19 PM

Incidentally, Alaska has at least 41 active volcanoes. Most of them are on the Aleutian chain.

Redoubt has erupted several times this last week, the latest just today. They say that the plume shot up vertically 65,000 feet.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: bubblyrat
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 04:23 AM

Perhaps it will help to warm us up ? It is currently rather cold in England,and we are all fed up of hearing / reading about "Global Warming" when there doesn't seem to actually be any yet--bring it on !

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 02:13 PM

Looking forward to the pretty sunsets...

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 03:12 PM

Speaking of pretty sunsets, one year Yukon Territory had major forest fires and the smoke traveled across the mountains to Juneau. We had gorgeous sunsets for quite awhile. Normally we don't- we don't have enough air pollution for the spectacular ones. Most of our sunsets are pink or mauve, sometimes golden.

Subject: RE: BS: Waiting For The Volcano
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 06:25 PM

I made a pithy comment that at least if we had some ash fall it'd provide some traction to our icey ways, and I was reminded of how the fine stuff actually muddied up when wet.

We've not yet been in line for the fine stuff but we cover our computers at the end of the work day just in case.