Oklahoma’s earthquake problem is getting worse

February 2015 – OKLAHOMA - A lawsuit claims that Oklahoma’s great increase in earthquake activity has been caused by pumping waste from drilling operations back underground. The suit involves the largest measured quake in the history of the state, a 5.6 tremor that happened in Prague, east of Oklahoma City in November 2011. As the volume of drilling waste pumped underground has grown, the number of earthquakes with magnitude 3 or higher has increased. In particular, as the drilling has intensified along the northern border, the quakes have followed. The Prague 5.6 magnitude quake in 2011 had one 4.8 magnitude foreshock and one 4.8 magnitude aftershock.

The Prague 5.6 magnitude quake had one 4.8 magnitude foreshock and one 4.8 magnitude aftershock. Altogether there were 63 quakes of magnitude 3 or higher, concentrated mostly in the center of the state, where the 860 million barrels of waste pumping was centered. Drilling activity increased in northern Oklahoma but the 34 earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater remained concentrated in the center of the state. Waste pumping increased to more than 1.2 billion barrels, with a big increase in the north. Earthquakes surged with 106 magnitude 3 or greater, including a string of quakes in the north of the state, where waste pumping also increased as the statewide volume rose to more than 1.5 billion barrels. The rate of quakes multiplied with 567 jolts at least magnitude 3 with the heaviest concentration in the northern end of the state.  Waste-pumping data for 2014 is not yet available. –Washington Post

Magnitude 4.2 earthquake strikes near Oklahoma-Kansas border

 

February 2015 – OKLAHOMA - An earthquake in northern Oklahoma shook Wichita shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the tremblor struck at 9:08 a.m. and registered 4.2 on the Richter scale. It was three miles deep and was centered just northeast of Cherokee, Okla., slightly south of the state line. Residents around Wichita reacted to the earthquake on social media. People in Lawrence reported feeling the quake in their office building. “I know I felt that earthquake,” Dara Bitler tweeted. “My bed shook and my windows rattled.” Kelly Leonard tweeted that Willie the Wildcat bobblehead doll shook as the earthquake struck. “When you have windows that shake easy, it’s easy to tell when you’ve had an earthquake,” Bo Bonner tweeted. No reports of damage have surfaced, however. –Kansas

45: Reunion volcano erupts – Mt. Etna has spectacular eruption

February 2015 – GEOLOGY – One of the world’s most active volcanoes is erupting again. Piton de la Fournaise in the Indian Ocean on the French island of Reunion began spewing lava from one of its four craters on Wednesday. Stunning visuals out of YouTube show Italy’s Mount Etna erupting in grand fashion earlier this month. The Sicily volcano started erupting on January 31 and proceeded to spew a mixture of lava and ice, along with large plumes of smoke for two days. –The Weather Network

43: Mexico’s Colima Volcano shaken by another explosive eruption

January 2015 – MEXICO – Mexican authorities said a volcano eruption caught on webcam blasted ash at least 13,000 feet into the air, but did not pose a danger to the public. The Colima volcano, located on the border of southwestern states Colima and Jalisco, erupted about 9:13 a.m. Wednesday and blasted ash about 13,000 feet into the air. Time-lapse video of the eruption and an earlier burst of ash Monday were recorded by a webcam placed in 2013 to monitor the volcano, which has erupted more than 40 times since the 16th century. Volcán de Colima, also known as the Fire Volcano, erupted on Jan. 25, in the latest in a string of eruptions at the most active volcano in the Colima Volcanic Complex. The youngest of the complex’s three volcanoes also erupted on January 3, 10 and 14.

Moderate quake off North Coast: A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off the North Coast on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake was reported at 1:08 p.m. and was centered 25 miles southwest of Ferndale, off the coast of Humboldt County. People reported feeling the shaker as far north as the Oregon border and as far east as Chico, but officials from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said that they had yet to receive any reports of damage or injuries. No tsunami warning was issued, but officials warned that the likelihood of a magnitude 5 or greater aftershock in the next seven days was roughly 40 percent. –SF Gate

Volcanoes rumble across the planet – current activity Jan 2015

January 2015 – VOLCANIC ACTIVITY – Bardarbunga (Central Iceland): The visible intensity of the eruption continues to decrease gradually. The Icelandic Met office conducted air-borne measurements of the lava field last week, showing that it has significantly thickened (rather than expanded laterally) during the past weeks, and is now estimated to contain approx. 1.4 cubic kilometers of lava. Effusion rates, although decreasing, are still close to an impressive 100 m³ per second.

Fogo (Cape Verde): The eruption still continues although most of the time visible activity is very low and restricted to degassing. Minor lava effusion and sporadic flares of strombolian activity of mild to moderate size occur from time to time. Scientists from the Cabo Verde volcano observatory (OVCV) who climbed the volcano on 25 January observed small ash emissions, and published a detailed report about the most recent significant activity during 20-23 January, when explosions produced a short-lived ash plume that rose up to 1200 meters on the morning of 20 Jan, as well as a small lava flow on the following day.

Kliuchevskoi (Kamchatka): The eruption continues and a lava flow is active on the southeastern upper flank. A collapse of lava from the flow and violent snow-lava interaction produced a pyroclastic flow that descended to the base of the steep mountain yesterday afternoon around 17:40 local time. From webcam images, it can be estimated that the flow traveled approx 2000 meters in about 2 minutes, resulting in a mean velocity of around 16 meters per second.

Karymsky (Kamchatka): Moderate explosive activity continues. Ash plumes from strombolian to vulcanian eruptions were reported by KVERT, reaching approx. 14,000 ft (4.2 km) altitude and drifting north and later east from the volcano. Aviation color code remains “orange”.

Shishaldin (United States, Aleutian Islands): A faint thermal signal remains visible on satellite imagery. According to the Alaska Volcano Observatory, weak eruptive activity likely continues in the summit crater.

San Miguel (El Salvador): A small explosion occurred last Monday at 06:43 morning. Probably phreatic in nature, it was the first eruptive activity since minor ash emissions past July. According to MARN, falling blocks from the eruption could be heard from people in the vicinity of the volcano. No further eruptions have followed so far, and no significant temperature signal can be detected at the summit, only constant degassing reaching 150-250 m height. Seismic activity remains relatively low, but sudden explosions of small to moderate size remain a possibility.

Sangay (Ecuador): Eruptive activity of some sort is likely in progress at the volcano. Along with pilot reports of spotted plumes relayed through the Washington VAAC, thermal signals detectable on satellite data have been more and more frequent since early January, Culture Volcan points out in his blog. It is unknown what kind of activity is occurring, but the most likely scenario is mild to moderate strombolian activity, which is typical for Sangay,- an extremely remote, but at the same time very active, that often has this type of activity. In many ways it is similar to its Kamchatka counterpart Klyuchevskoy currently in eruption as well. –Volcano Discovery

Blizzard of 2015 blankets portions of US Northeast with a meter of snow

January 2015 – NORTHEAST - The Blizzard of 2015 might have been a disappointment for New York, but it will go down in the record books for eastern Massachusetts after as much as 36 inches of snow fell between Monday and Tuesday, making it the snowiest storm on record in Worcester, Mass., and the snowiest January storm for Boston. Widespread snowfall totals of two to three feet were reported across eastern Massachusetts, southeast New Hampshire and Maine. The cities of Auburn, Hudson and Lunenburg, all in Massachusetts, came in with the highest snow accumulation of 36 inches. Northeast Connecticut and eastern Long Island also saw over 30 inches of snow.

The Blizzard of 2015 is now ranked number one for snow in Worcester, Mass. The powerful winter storm dumped 34.6 inches on the city which — maybe unsurprisingly — was ranked the second snowiest location in the United States in the winter of 2012-2013, when 109 inches of snow fell. Boston’s official reporting station, Logan International Airport, reported a storm total of 24.6 inches, which makes the blizzard the snowiest January storm on record, and the sixth snowiest of any storm on record. However, the Logan Airport total remains one of the lower totals in the area. A station downtown reported 26 inches, and South Boston saw 31 inches.

Given the storm’s track, which was about 100 miles farther to the east than forecast, locations west of Hartford, Conn., and Long Island saw smaller totals, which led to feelings ranging anywhere from relief to disappointment to sheer social media outrage after forecasts suggested snowfall totals topping two feet in some locations. Central Park ended the day with 9.8 inches, and Staten Island accumulated seven. The eastern boroughs were just slightly snowier — LaGuardia reported 11.4 and Bayside in Queens saw 12 inches. See below for more snow totals. –WP

Iceland’s lava field now extends 33 square miles: Why are Earth’s volcanoes suddenly oozing so much lava?

January 2015 – HAWAII – The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports an active breakout of the Kilauea Volcano lava flow that began June 27 advanced about 120 yards toward Highway 130. An update Saturday from the Hawaii County Civil Defense said the original flow front and south margin breakout remain stalled. However, a breakout along the north side of the flow remains active and has advanced down slope below an area near the stalled front. The leading edge of the breakout was 0.4 miles from Highway 130 and west of the Pahoa police and fire stations. The Civil Defense agency says dry weather is likely to keep brush fires a concern. –Fox 8

Tonga underwater volcano creates new island: A Tongan volcano has created a substantial new island since it began erupting last month, spewing out huge volumes of rock and dense ash that has killed nearby vegetation, officials said on Friday. The volcano, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the South Pacific nation’s capital Nuku’alofa, rumbled to life on December 20 for the first time in five years, the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry said. It said the volcano was erupting from two vents, one on the uninhabited island of Hunga Ha’apai and the other underwater about 100 meters (328 feet) offshore.

The ministry said experts took a boat trip to view the eruption on Thursday and confirmed it had transformed the local landscape. “The new island is more than one kilometer (0.6 mile) wide, two kilometers (1.2 miles) long and about 100 meters (328 feet) high,” it said in a statement. “During our observations the volcano was erupting about every five minutes to a height of about 400 meters (1,312 feet), accompanied by some large rocks… as the ash is very wet, most is being deposited close to the vent, building up the new island.”

It said ash and acidic rain was deluging an area 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) around the volcano, adding: “Leaves on trees on Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha’apai have died, probably caused by volcanic ash and gases.” A number of international flights were cancelled earlier this week amid concerns about the volcano’s ash plume but they resumed on Wednesday, with authorities saying debris from the eruption was not being thrown high into the atmosphere. “Tonga, which is almost 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) northeast of New Zealand, lies on the so-called Pacific “Ring of Fire,” where continental plates collide causing frequent volcanic and seismic activity. –Discovery News

Iceland volcano still erupting: Five months after it sparked fears of aviation disruption in Europe, this aerial footage shows the Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland continuing to magnificently erupt. Seismic activity from the volcano has continued since August last year, with small earthquakes occurring daily in the area, according to a report by the Icelandic Met Office. The Holuhraun lava field is now around 85 square kilometers (33 square miles), NASA has said. 

 It is Iceland’s largest baslatic lava flow since the Laki eruption in 1783-1784, with lava flowing at an estimated 50 to 70 cubic meters per second over the last few weeks. High levels of sulphuric dioxide are still being recorded in the area, which has triggered evacuations of villages. Air exclusion zones were put in place when the volcano first began to erupt on 27 August. In 2010, an ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano closed much of Europe’s air space for six days. –Sky News