* Astronomy

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RE: Volcanoes

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Volcanoes are notoriously hard to study. All the action takes place deep inside, at enormous temperatures. So geophysicists make models, using what they know to develop theories about what they dont know.
Research led by Gregory P. Waite, an assistant professor of geophysics at Michigan Technological University, has produced a new seismic model for figuring out whats going on inside Mount St. Helens, North Americas most active volcano. Waite hopes his research into the causes of the earthquakes that accompany the eruption of a volcano will help scientists better assess the hazard of a violent explosion at Mount St. Helens and similar volcanoes.
Waite and co-authors Bernard A. Chouet and Phillip B. Dawson published their findings on February 19, 2008, in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Waites research was conducted during a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellowship with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

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Clues to How Crust Was Sculpted
About a decade ago, Johns Hopkins University geologist Bruce Marsh challenged the century-old concept that the Earth's outer layer formed when crystal-free molten rock called magma oozed to the surface from giant subterranean chambers hidden beneath volcanoes.
Marsh's theory that the deep-seated plumbing underneath volcanoes is actually made up of an extensive system of smaller sheet-like chambers vertically interconnected with each other and transporting a crystal-laden "magmatic mush" to the surface has become far more widely accepted. This sort of system, known as a "magmatic mush column," is thought to exist beneath all of the world's major volcanic centres.
Now, Marsh using the windswept McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica as his "walk in" laboratory posits that these channels did more than simply transport or supply magma and crystals to form the Earth's surface: As the magma pushed up through the earth, the pressure fractured the crust in such a way that it provided a sort of "template," guiding later erosion in sculpting a series of valleys and mountain ranges there.
Marsh described his latest findings to fellow scientists at a recent meeting of the American Geological Society.

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The strange, slow-motion disaster of the mud volcano
A seemingly unstoppable mud volcano has displaced thousands of Indonesians.
n one side of the levee, a line of trucks waits on a clogged, two-lane road under a broiling sun. On the other, a vast lake of mud stretches to the horizon. Neither appears to be moving.
In the distance, a trail of white smoke rises from a hole in the ground where the mud flow began 18 months ago. Despite attempts to stanch the sludge, such as by dropping giant concrete balls from helicopters into the fissure, the mud continues to gush, swallowing everything in its path.

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Several volcanoes in Indonesia today spewed hot ash, molten rock and clouds of dark smoke amid fears that a violent eruption could happen at any time.
Mount Kelud, on the densely populated Java island, looked the most threatening as a dome of magma formed under a crater lake and soaring temperatures overheated monitoring equipment.
A few hundred miles away, Anak Krakatoa - or the child of Krakatoa - fired pumice and lava onto its slopes. At least one other of Indonesia's approximately 100 active volcanoes sent bursts of ash showering down on nearby villages. Experts said there was no connection between the heightened activity at the different volcanoes along the tropical archipelago.

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Though a half century has passed, the images of destruction remain clear in their minds, as if the volcano that changed their lives forever had erupted yesterday. Joe Silva remembers the ocean glowing so bright "it looked like the sun was underwater."
Maria Lindia recalls hot ash falling like rain, burying everything houses, crops, roads, cars and animals in choking soot that spared nothing.
Antonio Matos can still see his childhood home of Praia do Norte leveled to the ground, with only one building left standing.
Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the eruption of the Capelinhos volcano on the tiny Açorean island of Faial. The eruption and accompanying earthquakes, which occurred over more than a year starting Sept. 16 to 27, 1957, destroyed entire villages, killed ways of life and traditions that had taken centuries to develop, and spurred one of the largest international humanitarian relief efforts ever undertaken by the U.S. government to that point.

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Volcanic ash

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Trinidad Mud Volcano

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Trinidad Mud Volcano

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Mud Volcano