Shaky Monday News I assume you saw my 7.8 quake showed up, more or less on schedule, a couple of days late, this weekend? Can we relax? Lemme see…how’s about we start off with this which popped in from the Jakarta desk overnight? Hiya chief! Can’t say we don’t get good shows around here… Mount Singabung popping. [Hell of a picture! – G] Sinabung is located in north central Sumatera near Lake Toba, which itself is the crater of a supervolcano similar to Yellowstone Park. I’ll let you know if the lake starts boiling. May want to seek a fresh planet at that point. Luckily, there are an estimated 8.8 billion of them in the Milky Way. Sampai jumpa, Bernard Grover Managing Editor, Indonesia Bureau P.S.- all the Philippine crew have checked in with minor damage. Most of the bad stuff is limited to the southern end of the country. Folks still say the 10,000 estimate is well short of the real situation and that likely thousands have been washed out to sea. If you haven’t read on the Toba catastrophe theories about, this snip out of Wikipedia ought to get it onto your learning list: The Toba supereruption (Youngest Toba Tuff or simply YTT[2]) was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred sometime between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia). It is recognized as one of the Earth‘s largest known eruptions. The related catastrophe hypothesis holds that this event caused a global volcanic winter of 6–10 years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode. The story continues over here at the Wikipedia site. So if you’re thinking Obamacare is a problem, just imagine the global impacts of another supereruption and picture how that would change people priorities around about what’s “important”. Toba’s not enough? Well, how about the article this weekend “Volcano discover smoldering under a kilometer of ice in West Antarctica: Heat may increase rate of ice loss.” Now close your eye and imagine that puppy going kah-blooey! (G.Ure)
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 16:24:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015