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Ethiopian volcano erupts for first time in nearly 12k years of records
- onionisafruit 11mo ago12k years ago somebody started keeping records of this volcano not erupting.
- inemesitaffia 11mo agoTree rings
- onionisafruit 11mo agoIndeed, but the headline evoked the other image in my flu addled brain.
- pfannkuchen 11mo agoNew marijuana euphemism just dropped.
- kabdib 11mo agoI was hoping for a secret society of volcano watchers, handing down carefully guarded records from generation to generation . . . ("There's nothing written in here, Dad")
- stonecharioteer 11mo agoRobert Langdon intensifies.
- sfn42 11mo agoI doubt there are any 12000 year old trees near the volcano.
- defrost 11mo agoHow about 12,000 years of overlapping ring patterns from paleo trees? Live trees, dead trees in buildings, bogs, tidal zones, etc. There's also sedimentation layers from multiple scattered bore samples that will reveal more about patterns of particle fall from the skies and layered flows from years past.
- sfn42 11mo agoI specifically meant live trees, didn't really occur to me that dead trees could be relevant. Not sure how common it is to find 12000 year old dead trees either but I guess it's more common than live ones. And of course geological surveys would definitely tell you something about the past
- defrost 11mo agoOak and other trees, felled several thousand years ago and used as trackway posts, in buildings, etc are the bread and butter of * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendroarchaeology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendroarchaeology Art historians often look at the wood panels of paintings that are 400 years or more old. You might enjoy reading the general overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology and, ahh, drilling deeper into the onion rings. The real problem with tree rings here in this specific case is ... Ethiopia .. not a lot of big trees now, nor in the recent past when it was grasslands - but not really my field - there's likely to be very slow growing unassuming trees that are surprisingly old there .. and remains of older trees that have overlapping ring sequences. But yes - geological / geophysical clues are likely more relevant here.
- bit1993 11mo agoLiterally reverse engineering.
- SideburnsOfDoom 11mo ago> How about 12,000 years of overlapping ring patterns from paleo trees? Near this specific volcano? In a dry, "sparsely vegetated" region (1). Not a chance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_Region#Land_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_Region#Land_features
- SideburnsOfDoom 11mo agoWhat trees? Near this specific volcano, not in a forest but in a dry, "sparsely vegetated" region (1). I don't expect any substantial trees at all. Google maps has the satellite imagery, it's pretty rocky and barren. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_Region#Land_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_Region#Land_features
- thaumasiotes 11mo agoIt's weird. The "records" in question appear to be those kept by the Smithsonian: > The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program has no record of any eruptions of Hayli Gubbi during the Holocene, the current geological epoch, which began at the end of the last ice age, about 11,700 years ago. But I'm fairly confident that the Smithsonian's records don't go back more than 700 years.
- bell-cot 11mo agoWhether or not a volcano has erupted during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene Epoch, roughly the last 11.7k years, is a common "how active is it?" metric for volcanologists - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Holocene_volcanoes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Holocene_volcanoes From there - yeah, zero volcanoes had modern scientific monitoring before ~1980. Some have a few thousand years of written records...well, at least of major eruptions. Nobody ever kept "what did the volcano do today?" diaries. So generally - eruption records depend on field geologists doing a lot of grunt work around a volcano, trying to work out details of its geological history. And in a very poor, remote country like Ethiopia - which has also a history of border conflicts, civil wars, and other nastiness - geologists both bold and well-funded enough to do such field work may be rather scarce. Result - an eruption record may amount to "we have no real evidence that it's done anything big since maybe somewhere around X-ish thousand years ago".
- lostlogin 11mo agoMaybe? But Biggs tells Scientific American that satellite data has hinted at potential volcanic activity more recently. “I would be really surprised if [more than 12,000 years ago] really is the last eruption date,” she says to the publication.
- Modified3019 11mo agoThe Geologyhub channel has various updates and information on the Hayli Gubbi volcano (and others across the world) for those curious: https://www.youtube.com/@GeologyHub/videos https://www.youtube.com/@GeologyHub/videos
- MikeNotThePope 11mo agoGreat channel. I love it!
- andrewstuart 11mo agoClimate change?
- defrost 11mo agoNot as any significant factor of cause of this eruption, no. There will be some contribution to atmospheric makeup, of course. Whether that increases or decreases current insulation factor depends on what the cloud makeup is, where it rises to, how far it spreads, and how long it stays aloft.
- bokohut 11mo agoI have located no accredited scientific studies yet that discuss how the loss of gigatons of ice compressing the entire planets structure from the poles will impact the planet as a whole. With even a basic understanding of mass and physics however one can deduce from that comprehension an irrefutable change will occur in the planets crust. If one were to research the pattern of volcanic activity from the start of human recorded existence alone then one may learn something new. Most of our species fails to think in time, only worried about today, however as the changes in our only planet set in from 'progress' more will be forced to look back over time and reconsider where we failed.
- jiggawatts 11mo agoSearch for “post-glacial rebound” or “glacial isostatic adjustment”. This has been thoroughly studied and is well known to geologists, especially in Northern Europe where changes can occur over human time scales. I remember watching a documentary about a landslide disaster that occurred because clay saturated by salt water had lifted above sea level due to GIA and the fresh rainwater had washed the salt out. Clay without salt ions is more liquid and eventually moved catastrophically.
- defrost 11mo agoBang on. .. and pretty much why I worded the first line of my comment above as I did. Sea level changes, glacial retreats, etc will all change crustal pressures and impact the frequency, placement, and nauture of volcanic activity in times to come. Not a lot of that in Ethiopa for now though (to the best of my current "haven't specifically looked at the map for this" gut feeling).
- harryday 11mo agoTangential — Searching for an explanation of the mushroom cloud phenomenon lead me to the rope trick effect, with some fascinating images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_trick_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_trick_effect