USGS info on Kilauea Volcano

SUBHEAD: How much danger is there of massive tsunami caused by collapse of East Rift Zone area?

By Staff on 28 June 2018 for United States Geological Survey -
(https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/)


Image above: Photo from south of Puna as Kilauea volcano lava enters Pacific Ocean causing clouds of steam and vog. From (https://www.inverse.com/article/46466-kilauea-volcano-ocean-entry-deemed-hazardous-as-dangerous-laze-persists).

[IB Publisher's note: There is a wide range of opinions about the danger imposed by current volcanic activity on the Big Island of Hawaii. Some fear the risks are being minimized to keep people calm and not scare tourists away. Some even fear a catastrophe of biblical proportions is imminent. Below are recent reports by the United States Geological Survey. They may be hiding the truth to allay a panic. But they, more than any other source, have the real data. Here are some of their recent reports to the public.]

Answers to Questions about Kīlauea Volcano's earthquakes
June 28, 2018

The summit area of Kīlauea Volcano has undergone significant changes since April 2018. On April 21, the lava lake within Halema‘uma‘u overflowed onto the crater floor as the volcano's magmatic system pressurized.

On April 30, the floor of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater collapsed, as subsurface pressure forced open a pathway for magma to travel from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō into the lower East Rift Zone. As magma moved into the lower East Rift Zone, pressure decreased in the summit's magmatic system and the lava lake level began to drop. The summit also started to deflate due to the pressure decrease.

As summit deflation (or subsidence) persisted, the number of earthquakes increased. Prior to the onset of deflation, about 10 earthquakes per day were typical at the summit. As of late June 2018, there are about 600 earthquakes located in the same region on a daily basis. Many of these earthquakes are strong enough to be felt, and some can be damaging.

These earthquakes are understandably causing concern, especially in Volcano Village and surrounding subdivisions. These Frequently Asked Questions about Kīlauea Volcano's Summit Earthquakes will help answer some of the most commonly asked questions about the nature of Kīlauea's summit activity, and the numerous earthquakes that are occurring in the area.

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Saying "goodbye" to one GPS station and "hello" to two more
June 25, 2018

On June 18, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory staff said a sad goodbye to a GPS instrument that had faithfully recorded over 95 m (310 ft) of downward motion of the floor of Kīlauea caldera before losing radio contact. The GPS instrument, called NPIT, first started moving downward in early May at the onset of subsidence at Kīlauea's summit.

However on June 8, NPIT's motion picked up dramatically. This was when a portion of the caldera floor north of Halema'uma'u, where NPIT was located, began to slump into the crater. Over the next ten days NPIT GPS recorded down-dropping of 6-8 m (20-25 ft) with each summit explosion event, which have been occurring almost every day.

This, together with earlier displacements, added up to a position change of 95 m down, 55 m south, and 5 m east (310 ft, 180 ft, and 16 ft, respectively).

These data provide unique insight into the crater collapse process, showing us that it is occurring as a series of steps instead of as continuous motion. Drone and helicopter views confirm that NPIT is still intact and likely still recording data.

Unfortunately, the large motions have now resulted in a misalignment of the radio shot between the instrument and the observatory, cutting off communication and therefore data flow from the GPS station.

At about the same time that we lost the ability to contact NPIT, HVO staff completed work to add telemetry to two temporary GPS stations on the caldera floor.

These two stations, called CALS and VO46, are not located on actively slumping portions of the caldera floor and therefore do not show the dramatic downward motion that NPIT did.

However, they reveal that even portions of the caldera floor away from active slumping are moving downward very quickly; by as much as 1.0 m per day (3.3 feet per day) at station CALS. The data from these new stations can be viewed on the deformation page for Kīlauea.

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Why so many earthquakes in the Kīlauea summit area?
May 29, 2018

Deflation at Kīlauea's summit has caused up to 1.5 meters (about 5 feet) of subsidence, which has stressed the faults around and within Kīlauea Caldera. Read more

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GPS monitoring reveal where magma has moved
May 24, 2018

Kīlauea Volcano is currently erupting at two locations: from Halema‘uma‘u, a crater within the summit caldera, and from the lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) in and near the Leilani Estates and Lanipuna subdivisions.

Small explosive episodes at Kīlauea's summit are a consequence of magma withdrawing from a shallow reservoir beneath the east margin of Halema‘uma‘u. The eruption of lava along the LERZ resulted from the underground movement of magma eastward from the volcano's middle East Rift Zone.



Image above: Illustration of Kīlauea Volcano from the summit caldera to the lower East Rift Zone (LERZ). Blue arrows = contraction across the upper and middle rift zone, black arrows = expansion in LERZ. From original article.

GPS, tiltmeters, and satellite radar (InSAR) data captured how Kīlauea's surface has moved since the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō vent collapsed on April 30, 2018. These data allow scientists to infer where magma was removed and the location to which it was transferred. In the first days following the collapse of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, the largest signals indicated contraction across the upper and middle East Rift Zone—evidence that magma was being withdrawn from this area.

This was followed by expansion across the LERZ—evidence that magma was intruding into this part of the rift zone at depths of less than about 3 km (2 mi). The forceful widening of the LERZ continued through May 18, at which time a GPS site north of the intrusion stopped moving northwestward and stabilized.

In early May, days after the collapse of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, the lava lake level in Halema‘uma‘u began to drop as the summit area subsided at a high rate. The lava lake surface disappeared from view on about May 10, at a depth of more than 325 m (1,070 ft) below the Halema‘uma‘u crater floor.


Image above: This plot shows vertical displacement of a USGS GPS (CRIM) station from April 26 to May 24, 2018. From original article.

Subsidence of the summit area continues. Between May 1 and May 24 the caldera floor subsided as much as 1.4 m (4.5 ft). The GPS station, labeled as CRIM on the edge of Kīlauea's summit caldera [Fig.2], has subsided about 0.6 m (1.9 ft).

Continued summit subsidence indicates that magma is moving from the summit magma reservoir and into the East Rift Zone at a higher rate than magma is entering the reservoir from below. To date, geochemical analysis of erupted lava indicates that summit magma has not yet erupted from the LERZ fissures 1-23.

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Facts on stability of Kīlauea's south flank, past and present
 May 14, 2018

There have been several recent highly speculative stories, rumors and blogs about the stability of the south flank of Kīlauea and the potential for a catastrophic collapse that could generate a Pacific-wide tsunami. We wish to put these speculations in their proper context by presenting observations of the current situation and an assessment of past evidence of landslides from Kīlauea.

There is no geologic evidence for past catastrophic collapses of Kīlauea Volcano that would lead to a major Pacific tsunami, and such an event is extremely unlikely in the future based on monitoring of surface deformation. Kīlauea tends to "slump", which is a slower type of movement that is not associated with tsunamis, although localized tsunamis only affecting the island have been generated by strong earthquakes in the past.

The May 4 M6.9 earthquake resulted in seaward motion of approximately 0.5 m (1.5 ft) along portions of Kīlauea's south flank as measured by GPS stations across the volcano.

A preliminary model suggests that the motion was caused by up to 2.5 meters (8 feet) of slip along the fault that underlies the volcano's south flank, at the interface between the volcano and the ocean floor, about 7-9 km (4-6 mi) beneath the surface.

This motion is within the expected range for a large earthquake on this fault. The earthquake was probably caused by pressure exerted by the magmatic intrusion on the south flank fault, following the pattern of past earthquake activity that has been observed during Kīlauea East Rift Zone intrusions.

A small, very localized tsunami did occur as a result of the fault slip. Similar local tsunamis were generated by past large earthquakes, including the 1975 M7.7 and 1868 ~M8 events, both of which resulted in multiple deaths along the south coast of the Island of Hawai‘i.

Adjustments on the south flank caused another ~9 cm (3.5 inches) of motion at the surface in the day after the earthquake, followed by another 2-3 cm (~1 inch) since May 5.

This is higher than the normal rate of south flank motion (~8 cm (3 inches) per year) but is expected as the volcano adjusts after a combination of a magmatic intrusion along the East Rift Zone and a large south flank earthquake.

We did observe minor ground ruptures on the south flank, but this is expected given the strength of the May 4 earthquake, and deformation data show that the south flank continues to move as an intact slump block.

Geologic history combined with models of south flank motion suggest that the likelihood of a catastrophic failure event is incredibly remote. There are certainly signs on the ocean floor for landslides from other volcanoes on the Island of Hawai‘i and from other islands, but none are associated with Kīlauea.

In addition, Kīlauea has experienced much larger earthquakes and magmatic intrusions in the recent past. The large earthquakes of 1975 and 1868 were not associated with significant south flank landsliding, nor were major East Rift Zone intrusions in 1840 and 1924.



Image above: This plot shows vertical displacement of a USGS GPS (CRIM) station from April 26 to May 24, 2018. Cross-section through the lower East Rift Zone of Kīlauea Volcano. From original article.

Cross-section through the lower East Rift Zone of Kīlauea Volcano. Magma intruded into the rift zone and exerted pressure on the south flank of Kīlauea, likely encouraging the M6.9 earthquake that occurred on a fault located at the interface between the volcano and the preexisting ocean floor.

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Kilauea Volcano Update

SUBHEAD: Earthquake rocks Hawaii volcano and lava destroys Hawaii County Mayor Kim's home.

By John Bacon on 5 June 2018 for  USA Today -
(https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/06/05/hawaii-volcano-earthquake-rattles-kilauea-spewing-ash-mile-high/672222002/)


Image above: Kilauea volcano Lava pours into the Pacific Ocean in the Puna district of the Big Island in Hawaii. From original article. Photo by the USGS.

[IB Publisher's note: Fracking causes earthquakes in places that are not prone to them. We are mostly aware of fracking used to work seams of underground fossil fuels. But it should be noted that the large geothermal energy effort that supplies 25% of the electrical energy used on the Big Island employs fracking technology deep underground in several "wells" where the volcanic activity is in the Kilauea area of Puna.] 

A magnitude-5.5 earthquake rattled Hawaii's Kilauea volcano Tuesday as the home of Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim was added to the inventory of destruction wrought by the searing lava ushering havoc into nearby Big Island communities.

Kim's home in the Vacationland neighborhood is one of 117 confirmed burned in the area since Kilauea began erupting May. 3. Authorities say the true number is much higher.

“Harry had a premonition this was going to happen,” Janet Snyder, spokeswoman of the Hawaii County Civil Defense, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Vacationland is almost totally destroyed."

Tuesday's quake, the latest in a series to rock the surging volcano, spewed ash a mile into into the air. Some areas may have experienced "strong shaking," but no tsunami was triggered, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

Lava is entering the water at the Vacationland tidepools and has inundated most of the subdivision, the Hawaii Volcano Observatory reported after a flyover Tuesday. To the north, lava has covered all but the northern part of lots in Kapoho Beach, the observatory said.

Thousands of residents of the Big Island's Puna district have evacuated since the eruptions began. Residents of Leilani Estates were ordered out weeks ago, and Kapoho Beach and Vacationland were recently evacuated amid fears that residents would be unreachable for rescue teams.

Most of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park remains closed because of a series of damaging earthquakes, corrosive volcanic ash and continuing explosions from Halema‘uma‘u, the summit crater of Kilauea.

“Unlike lava, which you can see coming and avoid, we cannot see or predict earthquakes," Park Superintendent Cindy Orlando said. "Nor can we foresee a summit explosion. But both threats continue."

The area also is seeing increasing damage to its natural beauty. Kapoho Bay, near the Big Island's eastern tip, was filled with lava extending almost three-quarters of a mile from shore, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement. That raises the threat from laze, a toxic mixture of hydrochloric acid formed by lava vaporizing seawater.

At the Malama Kī Forest Reserve, forest managers report that up to half the 1,514 acres have thus far been "impacted" by the eruptions. The forest has served as habitat to sub-populations of native birds including Hawaiian honeycreepers, the Hawai‘i 'amakihi and ‘apapane.

The loss of forest habitat because of lava inundation and defoliation could mean these "sub-populations of wildlife may no longer persist, rapidly decline or become further fragmented and/or contract in range," forestry official Steve Bergfeld warned.

In the Puʻu Makaʻala Natural Area Reserve, higher up on the slopes of Kilauea, staff involved in the recovery of the endangered Hawaiian crow, the ‘alala, were closely monitoring birds released in the area.

"Staff on-site in the release area are prepared to recapture birds and transport them if needed,” project manager Jackie Levita-Gaudioso said.

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Big Island Geothermal
SUBHEAD: Israeli-owned geothermal plant in Hawaii under fire as lava oozes nearby.

By Staff on 23 May 2018 for  Associated Press - 
(https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-owned-geothermal-plant-in-hawaii-under-fire-as-lava-oozes-nearby/)


Image above: Lava approaches Ormat's Puna Geothermal Venture plant on Hawaii's Big Island on May 21, 2018. Photo by Mario Tama. From original article.

Workers scramble to shut vents at Ormat Technology's Puna facility after Kilauea eruption claims adjacent building; stocks tumble in Tel Aviv and New York.

Authorities were racing Tuesday to close off production wells at an Israeli-owned geothermal plant threatened by a lava flow from Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Workers were capping the 11th and last well at the plant to prevent toxic gases from wafting out after lava entered, then stalled, on the property near one of the new volcanic vents.

“Right now, they’re in a safe state,” Mike Kaleikini, senior director of Hawaii affairs for the Puna Geothermal Venture plant, said of the wells. There also were plans to install metal plugs in the wells as an additional stopgap measure.

The wells run as far as 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) underground at the plant, which covers around 40 acres (16 hectares) of the 815-acre (329.8 hectare) property. The plant has capacity to produce 38 megawatts of electricity, providing roughly one-quarter of the Big Island’s daily energy demand.

Lava destroyed a building near the plant, bringing the total number of structures destroyed in the past several weeks to nearly 50, including dozens of homes.

The latest was a warehouse adjacent to the Puna plant, overtaken by lava on Monday night, Hawaii County spokeswoman Janet Snyder told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The building was owned by the state of Hawaii, and was used in geothermal research projects in the early days of the site.

Puna Geothermal, owned by Ormat Technologies, was shut down shortly after Kilauea began spewing lava on May 3. The plant harnesses heat and steam from the earth’s core to spin turbines to generate power. A flammable gas called pentane is used as part of the process, though officials earlier this month removed 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of the gas from the plant to reduce the chance of explosions.

Founded in Yavne, Israel, Ormat is today headquartered in Nevada. Its main manufacturing facilities remain in Israel.

Native Hawaiians have long expressed frustration with the plant since it came online in 1989; they believe is built on sacred land. Goddess of fire, Pele, is believed to live on Kilauea volcano, and the plant itself is thought to desecrate her name. Other residents have voiced concerns over health and safety.

Scientists, however, say the conditions on Kilauea make it a good site for harnessing the earth for renewable energy.

“There’s heat beneath the ground if you dig deep enough everywhere,” said Laura Wisland, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. But in some places in the U.S. “it’s just hotter, and you can access the geothermal energy more easily.”

Geothermal energy is also considered a clean resource as it doesn’t generate greenhouse gas emissions, said Bridget Ayling, the director of Nevada’s Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy.

Ormat said in a May 15 statement that there was a low risk of surface lava making its way to the facility. The company also said there was no damage to the facilities above-ground and that it was continuing to assess the impact. The plant is expected to begin operating “as soon as it is safe to do so,” according to the statement.

Puna Geothermal represents about 4.5 percent of Ormat’s worldwide generating capacity. Last year, the Hawaii plant generated about $11 million of net income for the company. Ormat is traded on the New York and Tel Aviv stock exchange, and shares have fallen nearly 10 percent since Kilauea began erupting.

Scientists say lava from Kilauea is causing explosions as it enters the ocean, which can look like fireworks. When lava hits the sea and cools, it breaks apart and sends fragments flying into the air, which could land on boats in the water, said US Geological Survey scientist Wendy Stovall.

Kilauea sparked new safety warnings on Monday about toxic gas on the Big Island’s southern coastline after lava flowing into the ocean set off a chemical reaction. Large steam plumes created lava haze, or “laze,” laced with hydrochloric acid and fine glass shards when it flowed into the sea.

It’s just the latest hazard from a weeks-old eruption that has so far generated earthquakes and featured gushing molten rock, giant ash plumes and sulfur dioxide. There has been continuous low-level ash emission from Kilauea’s summit with larger explosions every few hours, said U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Mike Poland.

See also:
University of Hawaii animated Vog Map daily-hourly
Ea O Ka Aina: Kilauea Volcano 5/4/18
EA O Ka Aina: Volcanoes - Hawaii & Iceland 4/20/10

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Kilauea Volcano

SUBHEAD: USGS says earthquakes and lava fissures could last for months on the Big Island of Hawaii.

By Karin Stranton on 4 May 2018 for Reuters -
(https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hawaii-volcano/earthquakes-lava-fissures-could-last-for-months-on-hawaii-usgs-idUSKBN1I608N)


Image above: Lava advances along a street near a fissure in Leilani Estates, on Kilauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone, Hawaii, the U.S., May 5, 2018. From original article.

More homes on Hawaii’s Big Island were destroyed on Saturday as eruptions linked to the Kilauea volcano increased, spewing lava into residential areas and forcing nearly 2,000 people to evacuate, officials said.

Scientists forecast more eruptions and more earthquakes, perhaps for months to come, after the southeast corner of the island was rocked by a 6.9 tremor on Friday, the strongest on the island since 1975.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on Saturday that several new lava fissures had opened in the Leilani Estates subdivision of Puna District, about a dozen miles (19 km) from the volcano. Not all the fissures were still active, it added.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said at midday local time on Saturday that “eruptive activity is increasing and is expected to continue.”

Janet Babb, a spokeswoman for the observatory, said by telephone that the eruptions could carry on “for weeks or months.”

Babb said the activity since Thursday is beginning to show similarities to another event in the area in 1955 that lasted for 88 days, when far fewer people lived near the volcano.

Although no significant lava flows have yet formed, additional outbreaks of lava, which can reach temperatures of about 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit (1,150 Celsius), were expected, the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency said.

The Hawaii Fire Department reported “extremely dangerous air quality conditions due to high levels of sulfur dioxide gas in the evacuation area,” civil defense officials said on Saturday. The gas can cause skin irritations and breathing difficulties.

Ken Smith of Mountain View on the island ran errands on Friday evening on streets usually busy with pre-weekend traffic, “but the roads were totally empty,” he said by telephone. “It felt almost apocalyptic.”

Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes and one of five on the island, has been in constant eruption for 35 years. Lava flows from the volcano have covered 48 square miles (125 square km), according to the USGS.

Kilauea began spewing lava into residential areas on Thursday after a series of earthquakes over the preceding week. Starting around 11 a.m. on Friday, the island experienced a flurry of earthquakes, culminating in the massive magnitude 6.9 tremor.

No injuries or deaths were reported, but Hawaii Governor David Ige activated the Hawaii National Guard to provide emergency help.

U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii called on federal officials to send help quickly.

Gabbard, a Democrat, in a letter sent Friday, asked Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator William Long to respond to “short- and long-term housing, infrastructure, agriculture, and public health effects to Hawaii Island.”

Gabbard said more than 1,800 residents in Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens have been ordered to leave their homes since Thursday, when public works officials first reported steam and lava erupting from fissures in a road.

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On the Road to Extinction

SUBHEAD: The devastating consequences of human superiority over Nature are abundantly clear.

By Elizabeth West on 12 September 2017 for Common Dreams -
(https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/09/12/road-extinction-maybe-its-not-all-about-us)


Image above: Illustration of "Betrayal" by Mario Sanchez Nevado. From (http://quotesgram.com/img/manipulation-betrayal-quotes/8638506/).

It is crystal clear—unlike the smoky skies where I live--to most of us who are willing to consider the facts: this summer’s ‘natural’ disasters have been seeded anthropogenically.

Wildfires in the northwestern United States and Canada, in Greenland, and in Europe are often referred to in the media as ‘unprecedented’ in size and fury.

Hurricanes and monsoons, with their attendant floods and destruction, are routinely described as having a multitude of ‘record-breaking’ attributes.

No one reading this is likely to need convincing that humans –our sheer numbers as well as our habits—have contributed significantly to rising planetary temperatures and thus, the plethora of somehow unexpected and catastrophic events in the natural world.

I’d like to include earthquakes, particularly those in Turkey (endless) and Mexico (massive), in this discussion, and while intuition tells me that there is a connection between them and climate change, research to support this supposition is just emerging, so for the nonce I will leave the earthquakes out of it.

Our proclivity for advancing our own short-term interests has made a mess of things from the beginnings of this current iteration of civilization.

Irrigating the Fertile Crescent, which was not very fertile prior to the ingenious innovation of bringing water from the mountains down into the dusty plains, opened the way for a massive increase in food production and a concomitant population rise. Cities grew and became kingdoms.

After a reasonably good run, though, irrigation led to salination of the soil and ultimately left it sterile and useless (for agriculture) once again. Many people and their livestock starved or were forced to migrate in large numbers. Great idea, irrigation.

The internal combustion engine seemed a brilliant response to the need to move more commodities more efficiently as the Industrial Revolution created both increased product and demand.

Though not necessarily so intended, the automobile initially offered humans wildly expanded freedom and ease.

It also led to pumping the innards out of the Earth, filling the atmosphere with CO2, and oil-grabbing wars that left hundreds of thousands of people dead. Another great idea with a few minor issues that did not get worked out ahead of time.

Plastic. Now there is an incredible invention. Tough, pliable, lightweight, eternal...this stuff filled a myriad of needs.

And conveniently, it could be produced using the fossil fuels we were already extracting for those internal combustion engines.

Sadly, we never imagined it would come to microscopic plastic filaments in our drinking water, our sea salt, and even our beer. Not to mention in the bellies of just about anything that lives in the Earth’s oceans.

The list of creative inventions designed to make our lives better is long and varied, but almost inevitably, given enough time, our interference (or improvements, if you prefer) upon the natural state of things comes back to bite us. And hard.

Fukushima could easily head up that list; most of us would have no trouble adding to the tally of follies flowing from Homo sapiens’ clever life hacks.

If you delve into the motivation behind these ‘advances’ there is generally a desire on the part of people to make life safer or more comfortable or easier in one way or another.

Maybe for themselves and their tribe, or their class, or their nation, but still—the impetus does not tend to flow from a place of malignity.

We simply use our big brains to see what is adversely impacting our species (or sub-group thereof) and devise a fix for it. How could that possibly go so wrong?

Hindsight, they say, is always more acute than foresight. Could this be because we do not understand fully how our world works? Is it possible that we lack a lot of critical information about the ways in which this planet’s life forms and forces are interwoven and connected?

Maybe our superior intelligence, while it has been billed as a powerhouse in the problem-solving department, does not really have the scope of vision that would ensure that problems—solved--stay solved?

Hmmm…might there be an issue with hubris here? And how do we solve that?

What appear to be straightforward challenges that should yield to linear corrections are in fact predominantly multifaceted and many layered. We see only what we see—because we do have limits in terms of perception-- and we act upon that.

No real fault there.

But you do something over and over and over and get consistent results, you keep being bitten by your brilliant solutions. Quick gains, long-term disasters: this is a pretty common human story.

Are we capable of examining it? Even acknowledging it?

 Of recognizing that our anthropocentrism and self-assurance may be doing us more harm than good despite (or possibly because of) our fêted cognitive capacities?

So here we are: the summer of 2017 with the arctic ice melting, the temperatures rising, the oceans rising and acidifying, our non-human companions on the planet going extinct like nobody’s business. We thought about ourselves from the get-go.

 From the beginning of known human history, we wanted better lives, longer lives, happier lives. For ourselves.

We used our gifts to reach for what we wanted, like toddlers, with no sense of the bigger world around us, no notion of the consequences of our actions.

No awareness of the unfathomable complexity and the perfection of balance represented by the environment we inhabit.

Or, no will to act from that awareness. Because in all fairness, someone has always pointed to it. Not everyone thought situating nuclear power plants on earthquake faults was a bright idea.

And no doubt there was someone back in Sumer who advised stridently against the moving of mountain waters to the fields in the valley.

But the collective, or the powers that own the collective, were not interested in anything that thwarted short-term gains.

We have careened along, from one improvement to another, many of them requiring their own fix a bit down the road. Now we look at super-storms and mega-fires and what do we see?

Unfortunately, as is almost always the case, we see our own interests and little else.

I have been perusing reports and commentary from a wide variety of sources and there is a lot of factual information: the size of the fire, how many miles per hour the winds are blowing, how many acres are still uncontained, or in thrall to the winds and rain.

Then, there are stories about losses. Photos and videos and details about homes destroyed, businesses wiped off the map, human injury and death.

But do we talk about the other life forms affected by these human-accelerated events in nature? In nature, I repeat. Do we read or talk or hear about the animals who die? The trees lost? The sea life and habitat ruined?

Yup, there are bits and pieces about the animals that belong to us, which are, like our houses and businesses and automobiles, more possessions.

Pets, livestock, even zoo animals are considered. How do we shelter the cheetah at the Miami Zoo?

Or what about the Cuban dolphins airlifted out of danger to a safe place on the opposite side of the island? Heartwarming, I suppose, and good for those dolphins, but what happened to the wild ones in the sea?

Here is the thing: we helped make these disasters because we always thought about ourselves and neglected to consider the balance of life. Because our needs were far and away more important to us than the spotted salamanders’.

And maybe that is true. Maybe our lives are more valuable than all the other lives. Who am I to say? I too am human and subject to the same hubris and shortsightedness as everyone else.

Still…if something is not working, I ask: why keep doing it? Even if you have no natural affinity for the pine martens who die in the fires or the sandpipers who are flung to their deaths in the monsoons, pragmatism would suggest a change in practice.

We can’t prevent the suffering and dying of wild life, and the Earth herself, when confronted by the unleashed forces of fire and water, but we can include them in our assessment of the cost. We might even grieve for them.

Their losses are indeed ours, and if we do not see them or their importance to our lives, if we continue to either ignore and/or dominate all other life on this planet, it won’t be long till we join them.

This piece of writing is, in a ridiculously small way, an attempt to acknowledge those losses that have gone unseen.

It isn’t much, but I invite you to join me in taking a few minutes to honor and mourn those who have died in this summer’s conflagrations and deluges.

We won’t know much about most of them, but we do know that they lived and we know that they died. And that we are all diminished by their deaths.

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Cocooning Fukushima Daiichi

SUBHEAD: Tepco is talking with the US DOE on whether cocooning could work for the crippled reactors in Fukushima.

By Shigeru Sato on 15 August 2013 for ENE News -
(http://enenews.com/just-in-tepco-now-in-talks-to-cover-fukushima-reactors-with-concrete-for-next-75-years-officials-reviewing-plan-with-u-s-experts)


Image above: Still frame from video below explaining Fukushima reactor failures. From (http://enenews.com/french-nuclear-experts-corium-pierce-steel-liners-fukushima-reactors-deep-erode-concrete-video) .

[... Tepco] has sent engineers on visits to the Hanford site in Washington state this year to learn from decades of work treating millions of gallons of radioactive waste. Hanford also has a method to seal off reactors known as concrete cocooning that could reduce the 11 trillion yen ($112 billion) estimated cost for cleaning up Fukushima. [...]

At Hanford, the energy department finished a $65 million cocooning project in June last year, the DOE said in a statement. That involved demolishing the last one of the nine reactor buildings down to the four-foot- (1.2 meter) thick concrete shield around the reactor core.

More concrete was added to the shield, along with a new concrete roof to put the reactor into so-called safe storage for 75 years. This allows radiation levels to decay to safer levels in the core and gives the operator time to determine the final disposal method, according to the statement.

There are three ways to decommission nuclear reactors, said Ishikawa. One is immediate dismantling. Another, used at the wrecked Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, entombed the whole building in concrete. The third is cocooning used at Hanford. Entombing and cocooning cost less than immediate dismantling as it reduces the expense for handling and moving highly radiated material, Ishikawa said.

Tepco is talking with the DOE on whether cocooning could work for the crippled reactors in Fukushima. Sealing them off in concrete for 75 years would allow more focus on cleaning up surrounding areas so that residents could return, said Ishikawa. [...]


Video above: An animated history of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. From (https://www.youtube.com/JMaEjEWL6PU).

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: G20 Item #1 - Fix Fulushima 8/7/13
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Fukushima radiation coverup

SUBHEAD:It was not until July 22 that TEPCO revealed the truth about massive radioactive leaking into Pacific.

Highlighted Korea Times content on 12 August 2013 in ENE News  -
(http://enenews.com/korea-times-quarter-billion-liters-of-contaminated-water-has-flowed-into-pacific-from-fukushima-japan-cover-up-could-violate-international-law-hid-global-issue-of-environmental-concern)


Image above: Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata apologizing to the Japanese people for the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011, From (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903725).

It was not until July 22, right after Japan’s upper-house elections, that the ill-fated plant’s operator, TEPCO, revealed the truth. And the Japanese government is belatedly moving to reflect the expense of shutting off the water spill on next year’s budget.

From the editorial 12 August 2013 in the Korea Times owned by YonHapNews Agency.  (http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2013/08/12/0200000000AEN20130812000300315.html)

Content below: Highlighted parts of Korea Times Editorial (behind paid subscription) selected by ENE News.

The Japanese government has finally acknowledged that highly radioactive water has been pouring out at a rate of 300 tons a day from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. That means about 270,000 tons [270,000,000 liters] of contaminated water has flowed into the Pacific Ocean over nearly two-and-a-half years. [...]

It defies understanding how Japan has hid this regional, if not global, issue of environmental concern from its neighbors.

Increasingly, the March 2011 nuclear disaster is becoming an accident that exposes the limitations of the Japanese nuclear industry, and of the entire country for that matter, in dealing with a massive calamity. This seems especially so with the falsehoods and cover-up attempts [...]

[Korea's] Prime Minister Chung Hong-won, in a recent meeting to discuss the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi Plant’s shutdown, warned people against spreading “strange stories” about nuclear concerns. As Tokyo’s latest acknowledgement shows, however, what’s strange is not public jitters but the government’s carelessness.

[...] The government should instead demand its Japanese counterpart to share information, pointing out that Tokyo’s failure to do so could violate international laws. It also ought to inspect all fisheries imported from Japan and make public their detailed level of radioactivity to allow consumers to decide [...]



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Unintended Consequences of Drilling

SUBHEAD: Scientists think Spanish earthquake in Lorca linked to deep well drilling into aquifer by farmers.

By Jorge Sainz on 21 October 2012 for Huffington Post - 
  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/21/scientists-link-deep-well_n_1997629.html)


Image above: A group of women try to console another resident of Lorca while a man tends to a victim after a 5.3-magnitude earthquake hit the town. From (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/may/12/spanish-earthquake-lorca-in-pictures#/?picture=374540060&index=0).

Farmers drilling ever deeper wells over decades to water their crops likely contributed to a deadly earthquake in southern Spain last year, a new study suggests. The findings may add to concerns about the effects of new energy extraction and waste disposal technologies.

Nine people died and nearly 300 were injured when an unusually shallow magnitude-5.1 quake hit the town of Lorca on May 11, 2011. It was the country's worst quake in more than 50 years, causing millions of euros in damage to a region with an already fragile economy.

Using satellite images, scientists from Canada, Italy and Spain found the quake ruptured a fault running near a basin that had been weakened by 50 years of groundwater extraction in the area.

During this period, the water table dropped by 250 meters (274 yards) as farmers bored ever deeper wells to help produce the fruit, vegetables and meat that are exported from Lorca to the rest of Europe. In other words, the industry that propped up the local economy in southern Spain may have undermined the very ground on which Lorca is built.

The researchers noted that even without the strain caused by water extraction, a quake would likely have occurred at some point.

But the extra stress of pumping vast amounts of water from a nearby aquifer may have been enough to trigger a quake at that particular time and place, said lead researcher Pablo J. Gonzalez of the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Miguel de las Doblas Lavigne, a geologist with Spain's National Natural Science Museum who has worked on the same theory but was not involved in the study, said the Lorca quake was in the cards.

"This has been going on for years in the Mediterranean areas, all very famous for their agriculture and plastic greenhouses. They are just sucking all the water out of the aquifers, drying them out," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "From Lorca to (the regional capital of) Murcia you can find a very depleted water level."

De las Doblas said it was "no coincidence that all the aftershocks were located on the exact position of maximum depletion."

"The reason is clearly related to the farming, it's like a sponge you drain the water from; the weight of the rocks makes the terrain subside and any small variation near a very active fault like the Alhama de Murcia may be the straw that breaks the camel*s back, which is what happened," he said.
He said excess water extraction was common in Spain.

"Everybody digs their own well, they don't care about anything," he said. "I think in Lorca you may find that some 80 percent of wells are illegal."

Lorca town hall environment chief Melchor Morales said the problem dates back to the 1960s when the region opted to step up its agriculture production and when underground water was considered private property. A 1986 law has reduced the amount of well pumping, he said.

Not everyone agreed with the conclusion of the study, which was published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience.

"There have been earthquakes of similar intensity and similar damage caused in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries when there was no excess water extraction," said Jose Martinez Diez, a professor in geodynamics at Madrid's Complutense University who has also published a paper on the quake.

Still, it isn't the first time that earthquakes have been blamed on human activity, and scientists say the incident points to the need to investigate more closely how such quakes are triggered and how to prevent them.

The biggest man-made quakes are associated with the construction of large dams, which trap massive amounts of water that put heavy pressure on surrounding rock.

The 1967 Koynanagar earthquake in India, which killed more than 150 people, is one such case, said Marco Bohnhoff, a geologist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam who wasn't involved in the Lorca study.

Bohnhoff said smaller man-made quakes can also occur when liquid is pumped into the ground.

A pioneering geothermal power project in the Swiss city of Basel was abandoned in 2009 after it caused a series of earthquakes. Nobody was injured, but the tremors caused by injecting cold water into hot rocks to produce steam resulted in millions of Swiss francs (dollars) damage to buildings.

Earlier this year, a report by the National Research Council in the United States found the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas was not a huge source of man-made earthquakes. However, the related practice of shooting large amounts of wastewater from "fracking" or other drilling activities into deep underground storage wells has been linked with some small earthquakes.

In an editorial accompanying the Lorca study, geologist Jean-Philippe Avouac of the California Institute of Technology said it was unclear whether human activity merely induces quakes that would have happened anyway at a later date. He noted that the strength of the quake appeared to have been greater than the stress caused by removing the groundwater.

"The earthquake therefore cannot have been caused entirely by water extraction," wrote Avouac. "Instead, it must have built up over several centuries."

Still, pumping out the water may have affected how the stress was released, and similar processes such as fracking or injecting carbon dioxide into the ground — an idea that has been suggested to reduce the greenhouse effect — could theoretically do the same, he said.

Once the process is fully understood, "we might dream of one day being able to tame natural faults with geo-engineering," Avouac said.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: This is for your own good 10/10/12

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Japan tsunami aftertaste

SUBHEAD: A staggering mess as Japanese tsunami debris hits Alaska coast early. By Michael Van Baker on 30 April 2012 for The Sun Break - (http://thesunbreak.com/2012/04/30/a-staggering-mess-as-tsunami-debris-hits-alaska-coast-early/) Image above: Plastic container seems untouched by long journey as flotsam from Japan. From original article.

Gulf of Alaska Keeper, a non-profit organization that estimates it has cleared nearly 1,000,000 pounds of plastic debris from Alaskan coasts over the past 10 years, is reporting “tons” of what it believes is likely tsunami debris washing up on the coasts of the Kayak and Montague islands. Chris Pallister, president of Gulf of Alaska Keeper, told Alaska’s KTUU TV that ““It’s a staggering mess [...] the magnitude of this is just hard to comprehend and I’ve been looking at this stuff a long time.”

In an email to The SunBreak, Pallister let loose:

In my opinion, this is the single greatest environmental pollution event that has ever hit the west coast of North America. The slow-motion aspects of it have fooled an unwitting public. It far exceeds the Santa Barbara or Exxon Valdez oil spills in gross tonnage and also geographic scope. (I was in Prince William Sound during the during the Exxon Valdez oil spill and so have a sense of comparison).

Tens of thousands of miles of coastline from California to the Aleutian Islands are going to be hit with billions of pounds of toxic debris. NOAA’s latest estimate is that 1.5 million tons of largely plastic debris will hit the western United States coast. That is 30 billion pounds. We expect Alaska to get the largest percentage of that with much of it lodging on northern Gulf of Alaska beaches. Most of this will be plastic which is full of inherent toxic chemicals that will leach into the environment for generations.

Possibly worse are the millions of containers full of anything from household chemicals to toxic industrial chemicals that are floating our way. They will eventually burst upon our shores…in sensitive inter-tidal spawning and rearing habitat, endangering shorebirds, marine mammals, fish and everything in between. We are already finding empty and partially full containers of tsunami related chemicals and fuel drums along the northern Gulf of Alaska shoreline. The heavier fuller containers will come later because the wind doesn’t push them as fast toward the Gulf of Alaska as they are more current driven. The light-weight, high-windage debris such as Styrofoam, buoys, bottles, empty containers and drums have already arrived in staggering quantities.

Everyone is careful to say the debris is only “suspected” of having come from Japan’s March 2011 tsunami; there is plenty of marine debris on the ocean in general. Here is Pallister on the scope of the everyday marine debris problem.

But the newer condition and quantity of the debris that has been seen–”chunks of pink and blue insulation, which appear to be from buildings [and] white and black floats the size of oil barrels”–argue for the use of Occam’s Razor. This isn’t the first debris with Japanese printing to show up off our coasts: a soccer ball was returned to its owner, and a derelict fishing ship was sunk before it interfered with shipping lanes.

Image above: Extent of early debris on Alaskan coast is troubling indicator of future. From original article.

The problem is that it’s early. The estimated time of arrival for the debris, in whatever shape, radioactive or not (KTUU says not), was supposed to be 2014. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) has been spearheading, with Senator Mark Begich (D-AK), a multi-pronged effort to prepare for the debris and protect the West Coast from being submerged beneath it. Cantwell has asked President Obama to give the National Science Foundation emergency funds for research to help better track tsunami debris and develop response plans, and has been pressuring the administration to rethink a 25-percent budget cut for NOAA’s Marine Debris Program.

On hearing of the extent of the recent debris washing ashore, Begich released a statement that said: “The time for talk is over. The prospect of debris coming to our shorelines is not just a theory, it is here. I urge the Obama Administration to respond to our request from several weeks ago to free up funding and resources so we can effectively deal with this debris and not be scrambling when it arrives.”

That seems like common sense, but as Pallister explains: “Unlike an oil spill or industrial environmental accident, there are no easily identifiable culprits with deep pockets that can be pursued to help pay for the clean up. This will all be on the American taxpayer, so you can understand the glacial pace of the response preparation.”

NOAA has since released this somewhat ominous updated graphic illustrating their understanding of how much tsunami debris is still headed this way. You’ll want to refer to this pdf on “What to do if you see debris,” in preparation.

Video above: From (http://youtu.be/e654m9bScNc).

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Drill Drill Drill! Quake Quake Quake!

SUBHEAD: An "Unprecedented" rise in earthquakes are directly linked to oil and gas drilling. By Sami Grover on 4 April 2012 for TreeHugger - (http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/unprecedented-rise-earthquakes-directly-linked-oil-and-gas-drilling.html) Image above: GoogleEath image of quake locations around Lincoln, Oklahoma. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelley_mcdonald/6319498888/in/photostream/).

When kelleymcd (an anti-fracking activist) uploaded the above image to Flickr in November 2011, he/she noted that it showed:

"earthquakes in Central Oklahoma over the past 36 hours. Another 3.3 happened while I was making this image. This patch is 10 miles x 14 miles in size. Then 5 more aftershocks in the 3.0 range since that."

Kelleymcd clearly attributed the large amount of earthquakes to recent drilling activity—and not without reason. The US Geological Survey (USGS)had already linked 50 Oklahoma earthquakes to fracking, and a British fracking operation had recently fessed up to causing earthquakes in England.

Not long after, an earthquake linked to fracking in Ohio was so strong that its effects were felt in Toronto.

No wonder people are getting nervous.

Now a new report from the USGS to be presented next month at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in San Diego directly links an "unprecedented" increase in frequency and magnitude of earthquakes to drilling for oil and gas:

In Oklahoma, the rate of M greater than 3 events abruptly increased in 2009 from 1.2/year in the previous half-century to over 25/year. This rate increase is exclusive of the November 2011 M 5.6 earthquake and its aftershocks. A naturally-occurring rate change of this magnitude is unprecedented outside of volcanic settings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were neither in this region.

While the report's authors are unequivocal in linking the earthquakes to human activity, they say we are not yet able to determine whether the earthquakes are directly linked to the increased rate of drilling, or whether it is the specific techniques—such as hydraulic fracking—that are to blame.

Either way, it seems like one more reason to apply the precautionary principle. Those worried about fracking in their region can read up on our guide to fracking for communities and landowners, and we can all use it as a reminder that before we go dashing after the next cheap energy source—whatever it may be—we'd be well advised to take energy efficiency and conservation seriously as the safest, greenest and most cost efficient energy source of them all.

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