#bezymianny

[goneahead]

Woah. Bezymianny just erupted.

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Is a long-dormant Russian volcano waking up? It’s complicated

Scientists debate how to interpret seismic activity near Bolshaya Udina on the remote Kamchatka Peninsula.

Seismic rumbles beneath a long-dormant volcano on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula could herald an imminent eruption, a team of scientists says. But other researchers say that the observed seismic activity could be related to already erupting volcanoes in the region.

Fewer than 10,500 people live within 100 kilometers of the volcano, called Bolshaya Udina, making a catastrophic eruption that would affect large numbers of people extremely unlikely. When the volcano last erupted is unknown, but it hasn’t for at least 10,000 years, so many volcanologists consider it no longer active, or “extinct.” But Kamchatka is home to numerous active volcanoes, including nearby Bezymianny, which most recently erupted March 15.

Scientists had detected an apparent increase in seismic activity in the vicinity of Bolshaya Udina beginning in late 2017. So researchers, led by geophysicist Ivan Koulakov of the A.A. Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics in Novosibirsk, Russia, installed four temporary seismic stations near the volcano. From May 5 to July 13, 2018, the stations recorded a swarm of 559 earthquakes.

Overall, from October 2017 through February 2019, researchers detected about 2,400 seismic events, the strongest of which was a magnitude 4.3 earthquake in February. Previous to that 16-month period, scientists detected only about 100 weak seismic events in the region from 1999 to 2017.

Furthermore, by examining how some of the seismic waves decreased in velocity as they traveled through the subsurface, the team found evidence that there might be a pocket of fluid — perhaps magma — directly beneath Bolshaya Udina.

The dramatic uptick in activity, along with the possible detection of magma, could mean that Bolshaya Udina is waking up, the team reports in the July 15 Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research.

Other scientists are not so convinced, noting that the data could be interpreted in other ways. Seismicity may indicate the movement of magma, but the volcanic plumbing beneath Kamchatka’s volcanoes is complex, and Bolshaya Udina may not be the ultimate destination.

Volcanologist Olga Girina of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia, says the new study’s data are good. But she questions the researchers’ interpretation that the seismic activity is related to Bolshaya Udina. Girina, who is part of the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team, suspects that the 2018 swarm of earthquakes could instead have been leading up to the Bezymianny eruption in March. There have been no swarms detected since that eruption, she says.

[earthstory]

He was silent for thousands years before saying his strong word in history. He was just nameless until he did what nobody expected from him. It was one of the most powerful eruptions of the last century. In March 1956 his ashes clouded the Earth's atmosphere. A new type of directed blast eruption was named after him – «type Bezymianny». Since that time the Day of the Volcanologist began to be celebrated in Russia on March 30, day when eruption occurred.

[codigoocultocom]

Volcán «renace» en Rusia y es observado por científicos por primera vez

Volcán «renace» en Rusia y es observado por científicos por primera vez

Recientes informes dan cuenta que un volcán ha «renacido» en Rusia, y por primera vez un equipo de científicos han observado este proceso.

LEE MÁS

[acarefullycuratedmess]

Bezymianny (Безымянный)

[earth-as-art]

Five Volcanoes Erupting at Once

Remote. Cold. Rugged. Those three adjectives capture the essence of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula. Another word—perhaps more applicable than anywhere else on Earth—is “fiery.”

Of the roughly 1,550 volcanoes that have erupted in the recent geologic past, 113 are found on Kamchatka.Forty Kamchatkan volcanoes are “active,” either erupting now or capable of erupting on short notice. TheOperational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured activity at five of them during a single satellite pass on April 14, 2014.

From geographic north to south (and top to bottom on this page), the volcanoes are Shiveluch, Klyuchevskaya, Bezymianny, Kizimen, and Karymsky. The tallest of the group is Klyuchevskaya, a stratovolcano with a steep, symmetrical cone that reaches 4,750 meters (15,580 feet) above sea level. The most active is Karymsky, a 1,536-meter (5,039-foot) peak that has erupted regularly since 1996.

Plate tectonics is responsible for the many volcanoes on Kamchatka Peninsula. The Pacific Plate is slowly colliding with and sliding beneath the Okhotsk Plate. As rock from the Pacific Plate descends and encounters higher pressures and temperatures, it melts into magma. Over time, magma accumulates and migrates up toward the surface, causing volcanic eruptions.

Long before the discovery of plate tectonics, Kamchatka’s many volcanoes and eruptions were woven into a rich tapestry of myths and creation stories. According to Koryak folklore, the raven-like deity Kutkh created Kamchatka by dropping a giant feather on the Pacific Ocean. Each of the first generation of men became one of Kamchatka’s mountains at death; many of these mountains became volcanic because the men’s hearts burned so passionately for a beautiful woman that Kutkh had also created near the beginning of time.

In 2013, another NASA satellite collected imagery of Shiveluch, Bezymianny, Tolbachik, and Kizimen.

References and Related Reading

Earth Observatory Activity at Kliuchevskoi.

Earth Observatory Kamchatka Volcanoes.

Global Volcanism Program Kamchatka and Mainland Asia. Accessed April 15, 2014.

Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team Kamchatka and the Norther Kuriles Volcanoes. Accessed April 15, 2014.

PBS The Ring of Fire. Accessed April 15, 2014.

Volcano World Volcano Folklore: Russia. Accessed April 15, 2014.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Robert Simmon, using Landsat 8 data from the USGS Earth Explorer. Caption by Robert Simmon and Adam Voiland.

Instrument(s): Landsat 8 - OLI

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Bezymianny Summit (Kamchatka, Russia) by xflo : w.

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