Is Krakatoa Volcano Preparing To Rock The World

Bright orange lava spews up into the air, dark smoke mingles with the clouds and the gloomy night takes on an ominous red glow.

Towering 1,200ft above the tropical stillness of the Sunda Strait in Indonesia, one of the most terrifying volcanoes the world has ever known has begun to stir once more.

Almost 126 years to the day since Krakatoa first showed signs of an imminent eruption, stunning pictures released this week prove that the remnant of this once-enormous volcano is bubbling, boiling and brimming over.

With an explosive force 13,000 times the power of the atomic bomb that annihilated Hiroshima, the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa killed more than 36,000 people and radically altered global weather and temperatures for years afterwards.

The eruption was so violent and catastrophic that no active volcano in modern times has come close to rivalling it, not even the spectacular eruption of Mount St Helens in the U.S. in 1980. Now, almost a century-and-a-half on, are we about to experience the horrors of Krakatoa once again?

‘Volcanic prediction is getting better,’ says Professor Jon Davidson, chair of Earth Science at Durham University and a volcanologist who has studied Krakatoa first-hand. ‘But we are never going to be able to fully predict big and unusual eruptions, precisely because they are unusual.’

Yet there is little doubt that if Krakatoa were to erupt again with such force and fury, the impact would be far more devastating than that which was experienced in the 19th century.

Official records of the time show that the 1883 eruption, together with an enormous tsunami it generated, destroyed 165 villages and towns, seriously damaged a further 132 and killed 36,417 people outright.

Nearly 150 years on, the region where Krakatoa is situated between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago is more densely populated, with small farmers drawn to the rich and fertile volcanic soils of the area. It is not inconceivable that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed if there were another massive eruption.

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Super Volcano May Be Brewing Beneath Mount St. Helens

A team of scientists say they have evidence that a “super volcano” may be brewing underneath Mount St. Helens, NewScientist.com reports.

Researchers say indicators suggest Mount St. Helens and other northwest volcanoes are plugged into a huge subterranean pool of magma that could one day burst to the surface in a “super” eruption.

If what they believe is true, the structure beneath the mountain would be comparable in size to the biggest magma chambers ever discovered, such as the one below Yellowstone National Park.

Scientist Graham Hill led a team of researchers that set up magnetotelluric sensors around Mount St Helens. The measurements revealed a column of conductive material that extends downward from the volcano which they found to connect to a much bigger zone of conductive material.

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Alaska Volcano Has Geologists on Alert

Mount Redoubt, a volcano 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, is rumbling and simmering, prompting geologists to warn that an eruption may be imminent.

Scientists from the Alaska Volcano Observatory have been monitoring activity round-the-clock since the weekend.

On Thursday, the observatory said: “Seismicity remains above background and largely unchanged with several volcanic earthquakes occurring every hour.”
The last time the 10,197-foot peak blew was during a five-month stretch starting in December 1989. It disrupted international air traffic and placed a layer of volcanic dust throughout the Anchorage area.

Volcanoes in Alaska, including Redoubt, typically erupt explosively, shooting ash almost eight miles high. Volcanic ash features small, jagged pieces of rock and glass.
This differs from volcanoes in Hawaii, which usually have slow rolling lava ooze out.
The difference is gas trying to escape gets blocked, possibly by a lava dome or a viscous magma that increases the power from beneath, said observatory geologist Jennifer Adleman.

“Its pressure keeps building and building,” she said.

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