Antarctic Volcano Warning: Ash Could "Encircle The Globe" Causing Worldwide Health Problems

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Scientists are sounding the alarm about a volcano eruption in Antartica that could cause global health problems. The ash from this eruption could encircle the globe, affecting millions of people.

Deception Island, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, is a hotbed of volcanic activity with at least 50 craters spread across the region. A recent study done in the area by scientists has found evidence that an eruption on the island could disrupt air traffic on continents in the Southern Hemisphere, including South America and Africa. It could also cause some major health concerns for the whole globe.

The findings of the research show that Antarctica’s volcanoes can have an effect across the world, says Charles Connor, a geoscientist at the University of South Florida in Tampa not involved in the research. “We have to reassess the potential hazards for global transportation networks posed by even these remote volcanoes.”

“Ash emitted during explosive volcanic eruptions may disperse over vast areas of the globe posing a threat to human health and infrastructures and causing significant disruption to air traffic,” scientists warned in their report. 

 

“Volcanic ash emitted from Antarctic volcanoes could potentially encircle the globe, leading to significant consequences for global aviation safety.”

The study revealed the “significant consequences to global aviation” after reviewing computer models of ash flows from different types of eruption during different seasons. The research is the first of its kind investigating the horrifying impact of ash from an Antarctic volcano on the rest of the word. “No attention has been paid to the potential socio-economic and environmental consequences of an ash-forming eruption occurring at high southern latitudes,” the study declared.

Adelina Geyer, a geologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera in Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues focused on Deception Island because of its history of eruptions—30 or so in the past 10,000 years, and one as recently as 1970. It is also a popular destination: Both Argentina and Spain manage scientific research bases on the island, and tourists come to admire the world’s largest colony of chinstrap penguins and the rusted boilers and tanks that are relics of the early 20th century whaling industry there.

 

Geyer’s team modeled an eruption on Deception Island by simulating different column heights for volcanic ash: 5, 10, and 15 kilometers. (Indonesia’s Mount Agung, when it erupted last month, sent ash billowing up 9 kilometers.) The height of the plume determines which wind patterns it encounters, which, in turn, affects its dispersal. The researchers used an atmospheric transport model to track the way ash would disperse on regional and global scales and assess its possible effect on air travel.

–Science Mag

The impact on the global economy could be immense. The eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull in 2010 cost the global economy £3.49billion ($4.7billion) by grounding flights across Europe.

Planes are under threat because the ash can clog engines and fuel lines causing them to stall and potentially fall out of the sky.

“We demonstrate here that ash from high southern latitude volcanoes may pose a threat higher than previously believed,” the study concluded.

But the health effects of an eruption on Deception Island could be even more horrific than the economic impact. Volcanic ash distributed globally could cause health issues worldwide.

Experts Issue 2018 Warning: Earth "Had It Easy This Year" With Only 6 Severe Earthquakes

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Scientists are warning that 2018 won’t be as “easy” on us as 2017 was when it comes to the number of severe earthquakes they predict.

In 2018, Earth, and one billion of its inhabitants could face 20 severe earthquakes due to the slowing rotation of the planet.

Tiny changes in the speed of our planet’s rotation will trigger huge seismic activity by releasing vast amounts of underground energy causing severe earthquakes, experts claim. Although their research has been rejected by some scientists, they are intent on sounding the alarm. The slowing of Earth’s rotation could disrupt the crust of the Earth making it possible to see 20 severe earthquakes next year.

According to the Daily Mail, the planet’s rotation is slowing down because of tidal forces between Earth and the moon. The side of Earth closest to the moon feels its pull the strongest, while the side farthest from the moon feels its gravity less. That difference in gravitational pull stretches the Earth, which causes tidal bulges. These bulges pull the moon closer or farther away from Earth by around 4cm per year. The moon exerts the opposite force on them, pulling them back toward it, creating friction and slowing down the planet’s rotation. The time the Earth takes to make a complete rotation on its axis varies by about a millionth of a second per day. While the rotational rate hasn’t declined evenly,  the average day has grown longer by between 15 millionths and 25 millionths of a second every year.

Researchers found five periods in the past century when there were more earthquakes than other times. On these five occasions, there was a 25 to 30 percent increase in the number of earthquakes with a magnitude of 7 or above. These all coincided with a slowing in the rotation of the Earth. Scientists from the University of Colorado in Boulder and the University of Montana say that even fluctuations of a millisecond could increase seismic activity.

The minuscule variations in Earth’s rotation cause a shift in the shape of the Earth’s iron and nickel “inner core.” This, in turn, changes the liquid outer core on which the Earth’s tectonic plates rest. “The mechanism we’ve come up with is that as the Earth slows down it’s like a skater spinning on ice. As the Earth slows down its equatorial diameter reduces,” Dr. Rger Bilham of the University of Colorado told BBC Inside Science. “Its (the Earth’s) waistline gets smaller, but its clothes, the tectonic plates on Earth, remain the same size, which means they get rumpled up. These tiny changes to the overall shape of the Earth are enough, if there are faults that are already ready to go … to kind of kick them over into failure,” he said.

“The correlation between Earth’s rotation and earthquake activity is strong and suggests there is going to be an increase in numbers of intense earthquakes next year,” Dr. Bilham said.

This research comes just after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Iran, leaving at least 400 people killed and more than 6,000 injured. The quake hit 19 miles southwest of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan at around 9.20pm on Sunday, when many people would have been at home. More than 100 aftershocks followed.

USGS Warns California Needs Close Monitoring Of 8 Active Volcanoes

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

California could be even closer to a major natural disaster than ever before.  With eight active volcanoes and a high state population, the United States Geological Survey says that the Golden State is in desperate need of very close monitoring.

“I call them the watch-list volcanoes,” said Margaret Mangan, Scientist-in-Charge at the California Volcano Observatory. Scientists know from geophysical and geochemical research that these volcanoes have molten rock and magma, “in their roots,”  and the world’s top volcanologists aren’t taking any chances anymore.

 They are heading to Portland, Oregon on August 14 for the first international volcanology assembly held in the U.S. since 1989. The many famous, prominent, and dangerous volcanoes of the West Coast will be the subject of field trips and much discussion during the assembly.

The volcanoes which will get the most discussion are shown in the image below.

USGS caption: Volcanoes of very high to low threat are scattered throughout California, from the Oregon border (north) to Mexico (south). Other older volcanoes in California are of less concern. California’s volcano watch list is subject to change as new data on past eruptive activity are collected, as volcanic unrest changes, and as populations in threatened areas grow or decline.

Throughout the Cascade Range and into southern California, the West Coast is home to most of the country’s highest-threat volcanoes, as ranked by the United State Geological Survey, making California a ticking time bomb. As if the earthquake threat on the heavily populated West Coast wasn’t enough, scientists are now concerned about the volcanic activity as well. While Mount Shasta unsurprisingly tops USGS’s list of very-high threat volcanoes in California, there are seven other volcanic areas in the state that are also “young, nervy, jacked up on magma, and likely to erupt.”

Back in 2005, a national team led by John Ewert, a volcanologist with the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory, established a system for other volcanologists, which would help them decide which of the United States’ 169 young volcanoes are the most dangerous and most in need of monitoring. In the “Framework for a National Volcano Early Warning System,” Ewert’s team identified 57 priority volcanoes in the U.S., and eight just in California are now on high alert.

Roughly half of the nation’s 169 young volcanoes are dangerous because of the manner in which they erupt and the communities within their reach. Volcanologists are going to be monitoring these volcanoes in California closely, and maybe they can give those nearest some kind of warning should major changes signaling an eruption occur.