Dear Friends,
http://www.iceagenow.com/Troubling_Global_Volcanic_Activity_on_the_Rise.htm
And Mount Merapi has just erupted again...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11699945
Be Well.
David
| Troubling Global Volcanic Activity on the Rise | |
3 Nov 10 - The news is all about the Tuesday’s U.S. elections, but some of us are concerned about the news on Monday regarding a possible eruption of the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland. Never heard of it? You will.
Grimsvotn is the most active volcano in Iceland. The one that made a lot of news earlier in 2010 was Eyjafjallajokull that, while relatively small, generated such a huge cloud of ash that it disrupted air travel across western and northern Europe for six days in April.
Here’s why volcano watchers around the world are on high alert.
This past week, in Indonesia, after a tsunami killed several hundred people, Mount Merapi rumbled to life forcing thousands to flee back to evacuation centers as 38 lava avalanches occurred with pyroclastic flows down the south and west slopes running outward for seven kilometers. They incinerate everything in their path.
In August, a volcano on Sumatra erupted for the first time in 400 years.
There is a “Ring of Fire” that stretches approximately 25,000 miles in a horseshoe from eastern Asia to the western shores of North and South America. It has 452 volcanoes of which 75% are the world’s most active or dormant.
On August 25, Italy’s Etna volcano and Columbia’s Galeros volcano both erupted.
In the U.S. the last major volcanic eruption was Mount St. Helens in 1980, but it is just one volcano in Washington State that includes Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Adams, and Mount Rainier, all part of a Cascade Range that reaches down into California. Mount Rainer is a massive stratovolcano located just 54 miles southeast of Seattle.
In June 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines sending millions of tons of ash and dust into the Earth’s atmosphere. It caused the global temperature to drop at least a degree or two for a few years.
Why talk about volcanoes in the aftermath of a historic election? Because there has been a significant increase in volcanic activity of late. That is never a good thing.
In his book, “Not by Fire but by Ice” the foremost authority on ice ages and magnetic reversals, Robert W. Felix, quoted Peter Vogt of the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office who warned that, “Almost all tectonic movement can be linked to magnetic reversals. Seafloor spreading, sea level changes, mountain growth, earthquakes, and volcanism all seem to speed up whenever the frequency of reversals speeds up.”
Magnetic reversals are part of the cycles scientists have determined existed over the 4.5 billion years of the Earth’s existence. They range from the most ancient, the Devonian, to the Holocene, from 10,000 years ago to the present. “At least twelve (magnetic) reversals can be linked to extinctions and climatic deterioration during the last three million years alone,” says Felix.
Significantly, the aftermath of magnetic reversals are linked to the emergence of new species in ways that Charles Darwin never knew or dreamed of. What we call “evolution” is far more likely the result of magnetic reversals.
“Mass extinctions have been the rule, rather than the exception, for the 3.5 billion years that life has existed on this planet,” says Felix.
One of those species is Homo sapiens, human beings, and we have existed for a mere 200,000 years. Civilization as we know it is about 5,000 years old; a blink of the eye in terms of the age of the Earth.
Thus, all this volcanic activity occurring around the world may be signaling the advent of a new magnetic reversal and, as bad as volcanoes are, a magnetic reversal is the very definition of a cataclysm on such an order that it defies the imagination. Think of the sudden end of dinosaurs.
I tell you this because of all the blather of biodiversity, predicted species extinctions, and similar nonsense that is now following in the wake of the corpse formerly known as “global warming.” It is the new deception.
The real action is that of the Earth and the Sun. Though a predictable solar cycle, the Sun has gone “quiet” of late with few sunspots, the popular name for gigantic magnetic storms seen on the surface of the Sun. They almost always precede cooling cycles of shorter or longer duration and the worst of these are ice ages.
We are at the end of the latest interglacial period of 11,500 years and the next ice age will come on with blinding speed.
When you tie volcanic activity, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural events together, it behooves the human race to be far more humble about our so-called affect on the Earth’s environment. Our home is a small planet in a very large universe.
Editor’s Note: For more information, visit http://www.iceagenow.com/ and read Robert W. Felix’s books, “Not by Fire, but by Ice” and “Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps.”
© Alan Caruba, 2010
Alan Caruba blogs daily at
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/
Dozens die in new Mount Merapi eruption in Indonesia
At least 64 people have been killed in the latest eruption of Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano - more than doubling the death toll since it became active again last week.
Dozens are being treated for burns and respiratory problems after a gas cloud hit villages with even greater force than the previous eruptions.
More than 100 people are now said to have been killed.
An estimated 75,000 residents have been evacuated from the area.
Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, is located in a densely populated area in central Java.
The latest eruption began late on Thursday, sending residents streaming down the mountain with ash-covered faces.
“Start Quote
End Quote Heru Nugroho Hospital spokesmanWe're totally overwhelmed here”
Rescue workers said villages in the area were in flames.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has announced that the government will buy all the cattle from farmers in the affected villages to keep people from going back to their homes during the crisis.
He is expected to visit the area later today.
'Danger zone'
Many of the dead are believed to be children from Argomulyo village, 18km (11 miles) from the crater.
Local hospital spokesman Heru Nugroho said 54 bodies had been brought in on Friday. More than 66 others were injured, many of them critically with burns.
Victims were covered in hot ash following the latest Merapi eruption "We're totally overwhelmed here," he told the Associated Press news agency.
Rescuer Utha told AFP news agency: "I found three bodies - a child, mother and father, still on their bed. They must have been sleeping when the hot ash struck their house... We also found a dead man with a phone still on his hand."
Volcanologist Surono told AFP: "This is the biggest eruption so far. The heatclouds went down the slopes as far as 13km (eight miles) and the explosion was heard as far as 20 kilometres away."
The authorities have decided to widen the "danger zone" around the crater from 15 km (9 miles) to 20km (12 miles).
A rescue official told the BBC some of the casualties could have been avoided if residents had stayed away from the danger zone.
Scientists are warning of further eruptions in the coming weeks.
Indonesia is also dealing with the aftermath of another natural disaster, after a tsunami hit the Mentawai islands last week, claiming more than 400 lives and sending thousands into emergency shelters.
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