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Paranoid

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Posts posted by Paranoid

  1. Something that's just occured to me; are the daytime maxima particularly high for this time of year or is it rather we don't seem to have much of a diurnal range at the moment. It doesn't seem to feel any colder or warmer regardless of what time of day it is at the moment.

  2. Hot/humid weather, it's just unpleasant doing anything as everything makes you sweat and it's just horrible, especially when trying to sleep at night. Unlike like cold weather there's not much you can do to stay cool (in cold weather you can just put more layers on or crawl in front of the fire).

    I generally like cold weather as long as i'm dressed for it, but i dislike sleet. It's disappointing and it just feels like snow that isn't making the effort (or really cold rain which isn't too pleasant).

  3. I think it's the site of a landslide several thousand years ago. I can't be certain but there are other features on the Canary Islands that look like that too and the chain in general has a history of landslides. If it was a caldera there should be some evidence of the rim above sea level on the other side of the area you labelled.

  4. Re the possibility of flank collapse: From what i've read in places, the previous landslide that occured on El Hierro, whilst huge in terms of the total volume of material that fell into the sea, it didn't occur all at once, rather with a number of landslides over a period of hours or day. Local tsunamis are still possible under that scenario though.

    This is the paper i was reading, hopefully i've interpreted it correctly: http://geomar.geo.ub.es/eurodom/documents/Massonetal01_ESR.pdf

  5. Yeah, i've been having a look at the island and it doesn't look like a shield volcano, and the cinder cones suggest it's not exactly a stratovolcano so i don't think a large explosive eruption will be as likely to occur. Anything within the range of VEI 1-3 is possible i'd say, as it's unlikely to be entirely effusive or explosive. A small to moderate eruption column accompanied by some lava flows is my best bet.

    @ SB: Quaternary merely refers to the period in which it was erupted (within the last 2.5 million years roughly) and trachybasaltic rock is a combination of trachyite and basalt, which are both from fairly non-viscous lavas, like those at Hawaii but probably not quite as runny. Tuff is a rock formed by accumulated volcanic ash (evidence of some explosive activity).

  6. It probably all depends really on the internal pressures and dissolved gases within the magma, but basaltic lavas are certainly capable of producing VEI 3-4 eruptions. I can't claim to be an expert though, and also as far as i know there is only one historical eruption at El Hierro so i'm not sure what to expect exactly (epic vulcanology cliche).

    Found this on the basalt page on wikipedia:

    "Basalt which erupts under open air (that is, subaerially) forms three distinct types of lava or volcanic deposits: scoria; ash or cinder (breccia); and lava flows.

    Basalt in the tops of subaerial lava flows and cinder cones will often be highly vesiculated, imparting a lightweight "frothy" texture to the rock. Basaltic cinders are often red, coloured by oxidized iron from weathered iron-rich minerals such as pyroxene.

    `A`a types of blocky, cinder and breccia flows of thick, viscous basaltic lava are common in Hawaii. Pahoehoe is a highly fluid, hot form of basalt which tends to form thin aprons of molten lava which fill up hollows and sometimes forms lava lakes. Lava tubes are common features of pahoehoe eruptions.

    Basaltic tuff or pyroclastic rocks are rare but not unknown. Usually basalt is too hot and fluid to build up sufficient pressure to form explosive lava eruptions but occasionally this will happen by trapping of the lava within the volcanic throat and build up of volcanic gases. Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano erupted in this way in the 19th century, as did Mount Tarawera, New Zealand in its violent 1886 eruption. Maar volcanoes are typical of small basalt tuffs, formed by explosive eruption of basalt through the crust, forming an apron of mixed basalt and wall rock breccia and a fan of basalt tuff further out from the volcano."

  7. Hot spot refers to the plume of magma that feeds it (usually they are responsible for volcanoes that are well away from plate boundaries, like Hawaii.) and not the activity of the volcano. Yellowstone is a hotspot volcano and that erupts every 640,000 years, which also goes to show that hot spot volcanoes do not always have effusive eruptions, although it does seem to be more common than explosive ones. If anyone knows that type of lava that has previously been erupted at El Hierro then you can get an idea of what sort of eruption will occur.

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